Growth & Fighting

[jpl]

Hi

I started with 1-1/2 to 2'' about 11 months ago. Purchased from 2 different breeders.
Fed them mostly frozen black worms and beefheart. In one tank some grew better then doulbe in size 4 to 4-1/2, while a few just grew about a 1/2'' more. The other tank all except for 2 grew to 3''. They all seem happy. :)

My question is that for the slower growers, would they still grow? They are all the same age. Shuold have I done something different when others have hogged the food? I just started feeding them pelets and flakes are next. Should I move them to size order? I dont have enough tanks to have small med and large fish. But if that will make a difference now maybe I can do it.

Second question about the fighting that goes on, any suggestions? They seem to pick on each other. :-\ They look mean to each other >:( What can be done about this?


Thanks Jim

[Ryan]

How many fish are in the tank? Discus, like most other cichlids, will always fight and chase. Unless it's very violent, I wouldn't worry too much about it. My juveniles always fought and chased one another, especially as they got up toward "puberty" and the males started to show off their colors and dominance displays.

Your smaller fish may continue to grow or they may just be runts. You will always have a percentage of discus that are smaller than others when you buy a group of young fish and raise them out. Usually when you raise out a group of youngsters you can look forward to maybe having a couple nice fish. Then you sell the rest and bring in more youngsters. That's what I do with angelfish.

Ryan

[snakeskin9]

hey jim
as long as there is no just 1 big one it will be ok.
females are most of the time the smaller one so don't sell them until they have matured. other than that i agree with ryan

thanx jarryd

[April]

you could do a shuffle and put the smaller ones with all the smaller ones and the bigger ones togeather. swap them all around in the tanks. see if you can get the smaller ones going with big wc's/ but its true they may be the females..or just the less dominant ones.