New Juvenile Discus

[Discusray]

Update of a close up pic! Some of the coloring is looking much stronger

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[LizStreithorst]

You're mom is a wonderful person to take care of Discus for you.

[Iminit]

Your mom is doing a great job! Those discus are coloring up nicely. There all from the same hatch? Amazing the different designs on them.

[Willie]

...I am probably going to do 2 water changes a week around 30-50 percent....I will give updates routinely and hope that these discus can reach their full potential and be enjoyable to keep!

This water change schedule - if you can maintain it - will ensure that your water quality will worsen every week ... and your discus will not reach their full potential. If you're not able to do more water changes, it's unlikely to be an enjoyable experience.

Sorry, but keeping discus is different from keeping common aquarium fish. You don't need R/O water, but you do need more frequent and larger water changes.

[LizStreithorst]

If she can up it to 3 times a week like he suggested she might, it would do for a while. When do you plan on being able to care for them yourself, Discusray?

[Discusray]

Thank you. Yeah she's been taking care of all my other tanks too including my datnoid, bichirs, and angelfish so kudos to her fs

[Discusray]

Yes from the same hatch and said to be siblings although not sure

[Discusray]

Hi Willie thanks for the reply. I will see if I can have my mom improve water changes. Kind of difficult given her job but I understand where you are coming from. Thanks for your input

[Discusray]

I will be back from college for the summer like around May for a timeline and I can do every day 50 percent as I was doing before I left for school. Idk if that's too late? Theoretically, how long should the 50 percent water changes a day last starting from now. Is it for the next 3-4 months or ideally over the next year for optimal growth?

[Iminit]

I’d say at least 6 months till they hit 4.5-5”. Than you can reduce to every other day. It takes time to grow them out. During this time they should be fed often.

Being different colors doesn’t mean different parents it’s just the way they are. Siblings can be a problem though. May have one aggressive one pushing the others around.

Next the 30 g won’t work for long. They are getting bigger which means more waste more filtration.

So you got these fish in August just before you went to college?? Why? These and at least 3 other tanks? Not coming home till May? Wow you’ve got a great mother! Your mother should be on here not you. It’s going to be up to her. You really may want to return them. Unless your mother really enjoys them your putting her into a job most common fish keepers don’t want to do. They just don’t want this much commitment.

[Discusray]

I’d say at least 6 months till they hit 4.5-5”. Than you can reduce to every other day. It takes time to grow them out. During this time they should be fed often.

Being different colors doesn’t mean different parents it’s just the way they are. Siblings can be a problem though. May have one aggressive one pushing the others around.

Next the 30 g won’t work for long. They are getting bigger which means more waste more filtration.

So you got these fish in August just before you went to college?? Why? These and at least 3 other tanks? Not coming home till May? Wow you’ve got a great mother! Your mother should be on here not you. It’s going to be up to her. You really may want to return them. Unless your mother really enjoys them your putting her into a job most common fish keepers don’t want to do. They just don’t want this much commitment.

Good to know. Will try to increase water changes for the next 6 months. Yeah kinda a weird time to get the discus, but I really wanted to finally keep some and I know they are my mom's favorite fish so we decided to get them. She def enjoys keeping even though she has to do most of the maintenance. Currently, they will prob have to be kept in the 30 gallon at least until start of next year since I have several large tanks, but moving inhabitants will be tricky. Will def try to get them into a 50 gallon and 75 gallon as they grow larger.

I will keep this thread updated whenever there is something interesting. Thanks again for all the input

[Willie]

Certainly keeping discus at home while you're away from school is suboptimal. Under these circumstances, I'd recommend the following.

1. If your water change schedule is infrequent, then do large ones. I wrote an article in the beginner section of Simply Discus (a very long time ago) that showed the math behind W/C's. Changes < 50% over time actually lead to worse water conditions. You'll need to configure your set up so that there are large containers available to condition water, enough to do 90% - 100% changes. That's doable even if you're not always home.

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2. We all overfeed our fish because we're so fixated on size. High protein foods are hyped because we like that linebacker look. But these foods will worsen water quality. I've seen perfectly nice discus (albeit not show winners) raised solely on flake food. You'll need to balance nutrition with water quality, so I recommend small, more frequent, feedings with food that does not foul water. VibraBites or good quality flakes are how I would approach it.

[jwcarlson]

Your mom is a saint and I would personally consider finding someone who would like to take the discus off of your hands for you.

And I'll explain why as I do not mean for this to come off poorly.
Going on almost 20 years ago I had about six aquariums set up in my parents basement as I'd been pretty active in the hobby over my mid-late teenage years. I went to a community college down the street for the first two years after high school so I could maintain everything on my own. As I went to go to school, I knew I couldn't keep up all of it, so I winnowed down to my two oscars one in a 55 and one in a 75. The plan was mainly to have mom/dad feed them, and they were happy to do that. It went OK for awhile and I was coming home frequently, but eventually it's just not maintainable. Eventually the biggest oscar stopped eating and through a long, protracted illness - he eventually died. This broke my mom's heart because she felt guilty and dad and mom really loved the fish. He was an absolute blast to interact with and had that personality fish-lovers really adore. Looking back on it, it was absolutely water quality related and the fish was getting on in age, but absolutely not to his full potential. To this day, I regret basically signing his death warrant with my choices. I really should have tired to rehome him. I'd found buyers for all of my other fish - guppies, snails, yellow labs, etc. But I just really liked Spike and Squirt.

At several points, including one not too long before leaving for college, I had considered getting discus. I did my reading and, interestingly maybe, was a member of this forum over 15 years ago. I eventually decided that our extremely hard water was a deal breaker, but did not fully grasp the upkeep required for juvy discus. Had I taken the plunge, I don't think the hard water would have been an issue, but the maintenance absolutely would have been. And I would have been setting up my mom to eventually watch 5-10 discus die some form of not so great death while trying to process information second-hand. It's not fun trying to talk you mom through the death of a pet she "loved", but really shouldn't have been saddled with the responsibility for. To further emphasis how much this fish was a "pet" to the family, my dad froze him (died in the middle of winter), and waited until spring thaw so he could bury him with the other family pets in the backyard.

In any event, that's enough of my rambling. I waited about 20 years to get discus and I feel pretty safe saying that discus will still be around for you when you're able to fully dedicate yourself to a good, quality grow out!

[LizStreithorst]

That was a caring post from a guy who had been through it. I can't tell the OP what to do, but you've been there and done that.

[Bart_NL]

In my experience (growing out a dozen in a 180l tank for 4 months now) it is OK to do 75% percent water changes twice a week as long as you find 15 minutes every day to syphon out all the poo and food remains on the bottom (replacing the 5 to 10 liters of water it takes to 'vacuum' the bottom)

The evidence for this I find in my filter which is so clean inside I have never seen before, I feel confident that the bio load that remains is very low...

I will be posting some pictures soon as I have just moved them down into a 450l tank in the living room as the 180l tank was becoming way too small