Dither Fish?

[camuth8]

I've heard about dither fish before and have tried it with my discus, but it doesn't seem to work. I have Bloodfin Tetras and the discus don't pay any attention to them whatsoever. My question is, are dither fish actually affective? Has anyone had other experiences with this?

[Crunchy]

My cardinals doesn't seem to bother my discus, n the discus dont really care. Most important for discus to be active is being healthy and good water.

[camuth8]

Yes, I know. In the explanation I got from my LFS, dither fish are supposed to distract the discus from chasing the other discus around. It just doesn't seem like they even do anything about the tetras.

[discuspaul]

Dither fish are not intended to, nor will they, distract discus from chasing other discus around.

The whole idea of dither fish is multi-fold imo:

- It's intended to relax the discus into feeling their surroundings are safe and comfortable. The idea being, if it doesn't bother smaller fish, then the discus think it's ok. It relieves some stress the discus may have.

- Assuming the dithers are compatible with discus (preferring same temps and water conditions) then it allows the aquarist to develop a good-looking, friendly community tank of different species easily getting along with each other.

- It creates an environment where the discus are not only tolerant of, but are more or less oblivious to, the presence of other fish, while the dithers get quite comfortable with the fact that the discus don't bother them at all.

The whole thing makes for a pleasant aquarium viewing environment.

[Ryan]

Dithers are intended to distract some cichlids from killing their mates and whatnot, but it doesn't really work that way in the discus world. Discus will always have some level of conspecific aggression. The same goes for angelfish, severums, festivums, etc.

A lot of cichlid keepers put dithers in with breeding pairs in the hopes that the pair will be so busy defending their eggs/fry and territory from the dithers that they do not get frustrated and turn on one another. It's the same idea that leaving a pair in a community tank will further strengthen a pair bond because the pair has to work together against other tankmates to protect their brood. So yes, dithers can be used to curb aggression between cichlids, but not in the sense that your LFS explained it.

[du3ce]

I had to take my cardinals and pencil fish out with my discus because they were scaring them

[camuth8]

Thanks Paul and Ryan. That's just what I wanted to hear.

When I was just in the hobby, I was getting a lot of advice from my LFS about keeping discus and now that I've found this site, it seems like most of the things he said were wrong. Maybe he had a different experience with them, though. Maybe a bit like Ryan said. And Paul, I have an Alenquer and RT that showed a lot of stress bars for a while, but now they're not as visible anymore. Maybe it's them just getting used to the tank, or maybe it is the Tetras.:)

[camuth8]

I had to take my cardinals and pencil fish out with my discus because they were scaring them
There must've been quite a lot of cardinals then.

[du3ce]

only 8 I guess they werent used to having other fishes in the tank I have some corycats and gbr.and they.dont even mind them now