how many discus in 75gal?

[justafishguy]

What is a good number of adult discus in a 75gal, without doing daily waterchanges?

[KingDiscus]

a good rule of thumb with discus is 1 fish per every 10 gallons

[KingDiscus]

so i would say 7, but depends also on what you want to have in the tank, ie: bare bottom or gravel, dither fish...planted aquarium. I think, if you just have the bare bottom 75, you can have 8 healthy discus there, maybe 10 if you do daily 35-50% water changes.

[White Worm]

Adults create some big waste and I have 2 in a 35g and I do 30-40 every other day and actually should do it every day because it gets dirty quickly. In a 75g 5 adults will even create alot of waste depending on your feeding schedule because its not just the waste but the food the contaminates the water. I think 7 would be alot unless you do at least 20-30 % water changes every day. JMO.

[Willie]

Water quality declines with small, frequent water changes. Every so often, you need a large water change. The math is the same regardless of the bioload.

Willie

[White Worm]

If you do large WC, store/age for at least 12 hours, condition with prime, buffer, heat to tank temp and aerate. I learned the hard way and lost 16 juvies recently because of a large WC straight from the tap. Its a good idea to check your water for chlorine / chloramines. Contact the city water and find out what they are currently treating the water with (what chemicals if any) and they should also be able to give you and idea of hardness, etc.

[justafishguy]

I have well water so I use a RODI unit and let my water age in big tubs. I have them heated and aerated, I also mix some straight water with the RO water to bring the hardness up to around 100. Right now I have five discus in my 75 gal. They are all around 4-5". Currently, I do about 2 water changes a week swaping roughly 30 gal each time. I had gravel in the tank but am now slowly pulling it out...less than 1/2" left. Just waiting for my fish to pair up....getting impatient and want to buy more!

[alpine]

I keep 6 discus in my 75 gallon tanks. Recently I was told by "Experts" in the field that my tanks can be condidered under a "Lite Load" . They informed me I could keep Ten discus in each of the tanks. The more discus , the better interaction between them.
Now, I change about 80 % of the water every two days..

roberto.

[Mack]

[QUOTE=justafishguy]I have well water so...

Man, I wish I could be on well water...where in Milwaukee can I find it?!?!?:confused:

[Anonapersona]

The answer is somewhere in all the responses you have seen so far. Something between 6 and 10 discus, depending on the water you change. Going with large 2x/week maybe 50% or 80% water changes, you can do 6 certainly, maybe 8. With one 80% water change /week, back it down to 6 discus.

If you age water, you have a bit more leeway. I killed several big fish recently with a straight from the tap water change, and the rest have damaged gills which may or may not get better. The risk is much higher when you change more than 50% of the water.

[justafishguy]

[QUOTE=justafishguy]I have well water so...

Man, I wish I could be on well water...where in Milwaukee can I find it?!?!?:confused:
Have to live on the northshore.

[justafishguy]

The answer is somewhere in all the responses you have seen so far. Something between 6 and 10 discus, depending on the water you change. Going with large 2x/week maybe 50% or 80% water changes, you can do 6 certainly, maybe 8. With one 80% water change /week, back it down to 6 discus.

If you age water, you have a bit more leeway. I killed several big fish recently with a straight from the tap water change, and the rest have damaged gills which may or may not get better. The risk is much higher when you change more than 50% of the water.


I like the idea of six discus. That means I can buy one more!:) Now I must find a good place to buy discus becaue the LFS always has the same crap.

Sorry to hear you killed your fish...I guess having well water is not the worst thing.

[goheel]

well water is great. I'm using well water and doing WC straight from tap. My water is suitable for discus, pH 7.2, 90 ppm GH.

[White Worm]

The ph usually isnt the problem you need to be mainly concerned with. Death comes from additives that are in the tap like chlorine which kills discus very quickly,,,learned this lesson the hard way. Thats why well water is good because there is no additives. I've heard many have made this mistake and its a hard one because there is usually some lost discus. There sometimes is no return from chlorine poisoning. Mike

[Mack]

[QUOTE=justafishguy]I like the idea of six discus. That means I can buy one more!:) Now I must find a good place to buy discus becaue the LFS always has the same crap.

If you like having more, just attempt to do more water changes and you can have many discus in a 75. I use many 75BB for grow outs and with daily water changes I have no problem growing out 20+ discus to the 4-5" range before splitting them up.

[Anonapersona]

Do be aware that well water can be very low in oxygen. You may need to aerate if the fish show any distress.

[Condor]

Originally Posted by Anonapersona
The answer is somewhere in all the responses you have seen so far. Something between 6 and 10 discus, depending on the water you change. Going with large 2x/week maybe 50% or 80% water changes, you can do 6 certainly, maybe 8. With one 80% water change /week, back it down to 6 discus.

If you age water, you have a bit more leeway. I killed several big fish recently with a straight from the tap water change, and the rest have damaged gills which may or may not get better. The risk is much higher when you change more than 50% of the water.

I do water changes straight from the tap too and always overdose on water conditioner just in case. Though this isnt always best it seems to work. Especially in the winter with the compressed gasses in my tap water.

Adrian

[alpine]

Adrian, I was taught to do large water changes from the tap at the ACA this year. People that I met with lots of knowledge recommended for me to get rid of my Rubbermaid aging containers and just use tap water . Of course a good dose of Prime before adding water and using my hand to gauge temperature on the incoming water. I has work for 4 months. No casualties and fish feel great after water changes. I do 80% every two days.

roberto.

[Carol_Roberts]

I have a well. My water comes out full of CO2, low in oxygen and low pH. I HAVE to aerate my water to stabilize the CO2 and pH levels when doing LARGE (over 50%) water changes. Best thing to do is test it at your house. Have a big barrell of aged water for just in case and then try a 75% water change from the tap. Watch your fish carefully for 30 minutes. IF they show stress pull out that water and add the aged water.

[justafishguy]

I aerate the water and heat it. The fish seem to enjoy the wc and often follow me around the tank cleaning. When it comes time to add new water they line up infront of the hose and get a bath.

The old house that I lived in had tapwater and I never had problems. But this house has well water and a water softner. I was told that water softners will slowly kill fish in freshwater and in saltwater they usually kill the fish within a day. Usually all unexplianed deaths.

I first hand experienced this, having moved my reef tank to the new house and having all the fish continue to die. So I switched to freshwater thinking maybe saltwater just does not work with my well water...well same problem the fish slowly would die off unexplained. So I got an RO unit and have had no fish die!:) And the water is clear and no algea.

And to think all I needed was an RO unit and all my past fish would still be alive.:angry: