How many?

[pissydiscus]

Currently in my tank I have 2 cory's, 1 pl*co, 5 phantom black tetras, and 13 neon tetra's (almost 12 after one of the discus had half of one in it's mouth today), and 2 blue turq. discus. I need to add at least two more. This is a 40 gallon tank and I'm wondering how many discus I should get? Should I just continue on and get just 2 to make up 4 in the tank? I was going to stick with just 4 discus in my 40 gallon. What do you guys think? I've searched all over this site and haven't found what I'm looking for.

[Ryan]

I'm assuming that with all those other fish and stuff your tank probably has substrate and is decorated/planted, etc. Four discus will fill up a 40 gallon tank pretty well on their own. By adding two more in addition to all the other fish, you are probably dealing with an overcrowding issue.

There is also the problem of aggression to the two newcomers. Introducing new discus to exsisting discus when the numbers are so small might be problematic and the new fish may get harassed.

How long have you had your fish? How big are they?

Ryan

[BlueTurquoise]

Hi and welcome,

It sounds to me like your tank is already well inhabited. I fear that if you add more fish (my appologies if that is not what you are going to do) may tip the balance in your tank and overload your tank with too much bioload (fish) that your filter and water change routine may be able to cover and you may get casualties from spikes in ammonia etc.

If you are planning on removing other inhabitants out then 40 galons for 4 grown discus is ideal.

Why do you feel the need to add more discus? it seems that your problem can be resolved by other methods such as ensuring that you feed your discus nutricious enough food so that they will not feel the need to see other tank inhabitants as food. What are you currently feeding you fish?

If it is agression that is causing the attacks on the smaller fish then perhaps it is another issue like space. If the discus are pairing up and staking out a territory perhaps for breeding then they naturally will defend their area, to the demise of their tank inhabitants. Perhaps studying their behaviour will allow you to isolate the problem. Getting more discus may even out the agression to more fish but in turn will reduce the amount of room that the fish have to call their own personal space and add to that the chance that your biofilters may not be able to handle the new load, it may serve to do worst than good.

Hope that helps!
Chong :thumbsup:

[pissydiscus]

I'm assuming that with all those other fish and stuff your tank probably has substrate and is decorated/planted, etc. Four discus will fill up a 40 gallon tank pretty well on their own. By adding two more in addition to all the other fish, you are probably dealing with an overcrowding issue.

There is also the problem of aggression to the two newcomers. Introducing new discus to exsisting discus when the numbers are so small might be problematic and the new fish may get harassed.

How long have you had your fish? How big are they?

Ryan


The tank is very planted, the two discus are young, ~2" bodies. One is very agreesive towards the other and that's why I want 2 more discus in hopes of mellowing the aggressive one out. My 5 phantom black tetra's are pretty small, and the 13 neon tetras as you know don't tank up any room and have actually started schooling since I got them last night. The 2 discus have only been in the tank for about 3 days now. I just bought the neon's last night and could always pull them out and give them to a friend, they just make the tank really colorful which is cool. Worst comes to worse I could always just buy a 20 gallon for my gf or something and put the tetras in there *shrug* what do you guys think? What would you guys do in my situation.

[pissydiscus]

Hi and welcome,

It sounds to me like your tank is already well inhabited. I fear that if you add more fish (my appologies if that is not what you are going to do) may tip the balance in your tank and overload your tank with too much bioload (fish) that your filter and water change routine may be able to cover and you may get casualties from spikes in ammonia etc.

If you are planning on removing other inhabitants out then 40 galons for 4 grown discus is ideal.

Why do you feel the need to add more discus? it seems that your problem can be resolved by other methods such as ensuring that you feed your discus nutricious enough food so that they will not feel the need to see other tank inhabitants as food. What are you currently feeding you fish?

If it is agression that is causing the attacks on the smaller fish then perhaps it is another issue like space. If the discus are pairing up and staking out a territory perhaps for breeding then they naturally will defend their area, to the demise of their tank inhabitants. Perhaps studying their behaviour will allow you to isolate the problem. Getting more discus may even out the agression to more fish but in turn will reduce the amount of room that the fish have to call their own personal space and add to that the chance that your biofilters may not be able to handle the new load, it may serve to do worst than good.

Hope that helps!
Chong :thumbsup:


I want to add 2 more discus because the one discus I have in my tank is really aggressive towards the other discus and I'm hoping that by adding two more he will mellow out and stop trying to be king of the tank. I feed the discus bloodworms and wardleys flake food. I'm almost ready to just pull the neons out of the tank as well as the phantom tetras and just having a strictly discus tank.

[Carol_Roberts]

Discus are different than other tropical fish. You need to decide if you want to focus on a planted community tank or if your goal is to grow big, colorful discus like the pictures in books.

You can put fully grown discus in a planted community tank, but juvenile discus have a tendency to stunt.

I want to advise you that if you add a couple of 2 1/2 inch discus to your established tank the current discus occupants will probably view them as intruders and harass them. If they do accept them you will find that maybe one discus grows another inch or so and the rest barely at all. This is the stunting I referred to and it happens when discus are raised in less than optimum conditions.

Carol :heart1: