Reintegrating a discu back into the main tank

[Mickmack]

I bought 3 little blue turquoise discus about 3 weeks ago. Two of them adapted really well to my new tank and one of them stopped eating and got all shy. After a week of this behavior I took him out and treated him with metronidazole in my hospital tank. He started eating again a few days ago and he's looking and behaving normally again. The other two discus in the main tank have a little relationship going on now- there has been a lot of chasing and bumping and then swimming around together. Sometimes the bigger one is kind of a bully, but the other one doesn't mind and they spend a lot of time together. I'm worried though. I don't want to put the recovered one back in and have it be stressed. The "bully one" used to chase this one too- but it didn't react the same way- it seemed more stressed about it. Is there anyway I can make the reintegration back into the tank less stressful? Or should I just keep the little guy alone? I'm not sure what to do.

[Eddie]

It's a tough call, I know what will happen. The best option, which you probably are not considering, is getting 3 more discus. 3 is an awful number, probably the worst number to have. Adding more fish to the tank will spread the aggression and actually create some group dynamics.

Eddie

[Armandi_Fishcarer]

I totally agree with Eddie on this 1. I think most of us have tried our luck at some stage in our early keepings, with 3 Discus, it just doesn't seem to work well at all. If the tank is a community 1 with lots of space & folage you may be able too get away with it a little, but not for long. It is also best to buy Discus at the same size.

Regards
Ahmed ;)

[Jhhnn]

Put him/her back in with the others, see how it goes. If that's poorly, put the bully in solitary for awhile, bring him/her back to the main tank later on as the odd man/woman out...

So far, I've bought my 2 batches of discus (8 blue scorps & 8 altum crosses) from the same importer, kept them separately. All the fish in the tank already know each other, they grew up together, and they're all very near the same size, so nobody takes a pounding, at least not so far...

[David Rose]

I have pretty much the same situation with two. It's normal for them to establish a pecking order, so I wouldn't worry too much unless it's moderate to excessive and there is no sign of nipped fins and such. That said, I do agree with what has been said in that two/three isn't the best number, so I did add four close in size and have six now. The same one was still trying to establish dominance and bullying the others at least initially.

There are two things that I've done that drastically reduced this behavior. One, you can rearrange your ornaments whatever they are and this can disrupt the established territories (assuming it's not a bare bottom tank) and/or two, what Jhhnn said, isolate the bully for a few days and reintroduce. Both these have worked for me and the isolation IME is the more effective approach of the two.

Also, when feeding you may want to split your feeding in two and put half on one side of your aquarium where the more agressive one will head first to get him/her started and shortly there after add the last half to the other side of your aquarium. It's kind of like the left hand doesn't know or care what the right hand is doing sort of thing and all get to eat.

I hope this helps!

Regards,
David

[Mickmack]

I think I will wait another few days and feel it out. I want the one in the sick tank to be nice and strong when I put him back in the main tank. I don't really want to take out the aggressive one because he has a nice relationship going on with the other one in there- the other one doesn't mind the occasional chase- in fact it often follows the aggressive one around and they swim along together most of the time now- it only gets a little crazy when I feed them- but I will try and spread the food out all over and see if that works better.

[Patr1ck]

I agree with Eddie and Ahmed, more discus will fix your problem.

Pat