is it normal or not?

[lily]

:-\i am from malaysia and i would to ask anyone about my discus and the stripes on its body. some says that the stripe only appear when the discus seems to be upset caused of stress...is it true?

[bikhu]

The vertical lines on the Discus are often referred to as stress bars but this is a misleading term. More accurately they could be considered mood bars. The Discus morph between any degree of definition of those lines. SOmetimes they are very bold and others they are invisible and anywhere in between. Also there are some discus that have no mood bars at all. If an adult fish is showing very bold mood bars constantly it is a good indication of some type of stress which could be health or environmental. Water parameters, territorial dispute etc...
Young fish usually show the mood bars until they color up all or most of the way.
HTH and welcome to SImply Discus
Peace,
peter

[SSrowr]

how dark are the stripes? If they and the rest of the fish are too dark, it might be sick/stressed. Hard to tell what "too dark" might be though.

Please correct me if I am wrong, add further
-Seth

A friend that breeds discus locally has some Wattley discus that are about 3 years old and are reliable breeders, they have the vertical bars present even when happy. He says that strain show the bars more, especially when breeding, I personally don't like that look but they are healthy fish, the male is about 7" or 8" and incredibly thick.