How am I doing?

[Natepdx1286]

Hello, I'm new to discus keeping and was hoping to get some feedback on my tank set up, w/c and feeding schedule. I have had 3 juvenile discus that I bought from my lfs ( they said they were from discus hans) for about 5 days now. I am keeping them in a moderately planted 55g with gravel substrate and some driftwood. Housed with the 3 discus are 5 corydoras, 20 neon tetras, 10 hatchet fish, 5 otos, 5 Amano shrimp and 5 Asian clams. I perform 25 percent w/c's every day(w/ moderate gravel cleaning) and I plan on once a week doing a %50 along with a through gravel cleaning. I work 60 hours a week, 6 days a week so feeding more than twice a day is difficult for me. Feeding is as follows. Once in the morning with either cubes of hikari bio-pure, or bloodworms, and then once again in the evening....usually 1-2 cubes each feeding (depending on how quickly they eat it). After each feeding I siphon out the leftover food as well as the gravel in the immediate area where the food had settled. The water parameters are as follows, ph 7.3-7.5, kh 50ppm, ammonia 0, nitrites 0, nitrates 5-10ppm. For filtration I am using a top fun 60 with a sponge filter and a marineland c360 canister filter. I have been keeping piranhas for a couple years now in this planted tank and had a lot of success doing so. I just became bored and wanted to move on to something different. My main concern I have at this point is wether or not I bought too few of the discus. With the tank being planted I didn't wanted them to feel crowded and stressed, hence why I only purchased 3. I'd like to eventually add 2 more...not sure if this is a good idea? I should mention that growing them out is not a big concern of mine, having happy + healthy fish is. For the first few days they hid in the corner of the tank, rarely swimming around. After the 3rd or 4th day they still spend a decent amount of time in the corners, but are much more active then before. Breathing is normal, fins aren't clamped and color is good. Wish I knew how to post pics. I just want to make sure I'm doing things right, again, I'm not trying to breed or grow them out. I'm aware that a planted tank isn't the best, especially for a beginner discus keeper, but I am religious about tank maintenance....I'm already obsessed with discus. Thoughts? Concerns? Anything I could do differently?

[discuspaul]

Welcome to the forum - glad you decided to come on board.
Yes, as you likely know from your advance research on discus, 3 discus is not a good number to keep, as it is more or less an open invitation to serious pecking order issues. The other side of the coin which you've also recognized, is that with the other tank-mates you have in that 55 gal tank, you're pushing the bio-load envelope somewhat, and that would only worsen if you get 2 or 3 more discus to make up a compatible group.

Suggest you could give it a try for a while and see how it goes, but you may need to consider either rehoming a good number of your dither fish to allow you to expand the discus group, or get a larger tank to accommodate the heavier bio-load - a 75 gal would be great for this.
You're a busy person, so your twice daily feeding regimen is likely ok, assuming your juvie discus aren't too small. What size are they ?
Otherwise, your tank params seem ok and you appear to be on the right track. Good to hear you're religious about tank maintenance - that's what you need when keeping discus, especially in a planted environment.
Best of luck to you, and let us know if you need further assistance.

[Natepdx1286]

Thank you for your input, I appreciate it! As far as the number of discus goes, I am going to give it some time before I add more. Having a 75-90gal has always been a dream of mine to have. Learning about discus has been a big learning process for me, as keeping piranhas as I mentioned before was relatively easy. To answer your question about their size...I'd say they are in between the 3.5-4 inch range. As far as pecking order goes, I know there will always be a dominant fish...I've already determined which one is weakest, but the other two show minimal signs of aggression. A brief nip, or chase is all I've observed so far.

[Quintin]

Could you post pics please.with your limited time id suggest addults as they are stronger.but would agree with paul that larger tank be required.hope it all goes well.disucus are real fun to keep

[musicmarn1]

Welcome Nate!

great that you posted right off the bat, will help you in the long run know what to expect :) You got some great comments already, ill just add that what to mainly watch for in your planted tank is darkening or loss of appetite, lots of hiding or large outbursts of aggression. if your not seeing those things your doing pretty well ! :) the darkening in color, becoming still, hiding, skittish and lack of appetite, are really pointers that the environment/cleanliness is not to their liking so if you can avoid those things while you learn with this batch your doing great.

if you get those things, there are a lot of variables (size of group, health of group , cross contamination from plants and tankmates, temp, cleanliness of substrate, problems from invertibrates etc) to work with in this set up, so that makes it harder to pin point how to solve it. what i WOULD absolutely do is get a 30g minimum hospital tank, in case there is an issue and you need to seperate them. that will need a sponge filter, a heater , airstone and thats it. paint the back and sides and underneath of the tank leaving the front panel clear and voila if it does go pear shaped quickly, you have a plan b !!

:) welcome and hope you enjoy the hobby, its a blast when its going well and a PITA when it goes pear shaped ;)

oh one more thing, you will hear a lot of people say get fish direct from sponsors here, there are so many reasons for this, having bought my first batches from the LFS i can say confidently, they are right but we dont all start out that way. however the big one is if you mess up......the sponsor will give you direct treating advice often times that is very helpful, not always but almost always in my experience so far.

so many people here have many many years experience and the more they have the less likely they are to even consider getting discus from anything but the best source, because so many of these guys have cheap strains/sizes for sale, but will have been through proper QT and been kept in tip top condition, they are far superior to almost any LFS out there where cross contamination is often a daily occurrence.

[ericNH]

Housed with the 3 discus are 5 corydoras, 20 neon tetras, 10 hatchet fish, 5 otos, 5 Amano shrimp and 5 Asian clams... Anything I could do differently?

I think you're pushing the envelope for the size tank you have. You might want to consider upping your wc's to 50% daily.


My main concern I have at this point is wether or not I bought too few of the discus.

My experience with any less than 6 discus always led to severe aggression issues. The aggression wasn't immediate; it ramped up over time, so keep an eye out for this.

Good luck with your new discus! And welcome to SD! You came to the right place.

[philosopher]

Besides all the useful info you've already been given, I would like to strongly advise moving the other tankmates out...
Most of them can barely survive the conditions discus are usually kept at.
I'm sure many people will tell you they have kept such fish with discus, but that's not important, for me at least.
What IS important, is to know the optimal water conditions each fish lives in and try to keep up with it.
You will, most probably, soften your water in the future, which will make things even harder for those fish.

I would, however, keep the corydoras, as long as they're either sterbai or albino.

A change from gravel to fine sand would also be welcomed by discus and corys, but that's kinda difficult for you to change now.
I would also add more discus, you won't have any problems while they're young and granted you keep a good w/c routine.

Hope my words are taken nicely, as I've only had the best intentions typing them.
Cheers

[Natepdx1286]

I've been keeping a very close eye on them every chance I get...to the point of where my girlfriend is now complaining I spend more time with my fish than I do with her lol. Probably true, but it's worth it. Their activity has only gotten better as the days go by. Just got home and did a 50 percent water change and they seem to be basking in it...tried taking pictures for you guys but the little guys won't hold still for long. Couple things I've noticed is that I'll catch one of them being a loner, hanging out in a Corning by themselves (no longer than a few minutes) found it a bit odd. And the other thing was, one of the 3 is a snakeskin blue, he's a bit dark, when he turns into the light you can really see the blues come out though. When I looked at them in the store, all the other blue snakeskins seemed to look the same way. Do the snakeskin blues develop their color more later on in adulthood? I've noticed that between all the variations of discus their color becomes more vibrant as they grow older, is it just more of a dramatic change for the blue snakeskins though? Or do
I have an unhealthy fish. I should mention it is the smallest of the bunch and weakest link...but he eats, is active, ...everything looks great. And btw, a 90 gallon is in the works, just have to get the funds together and then I'm going to go much simpler. Single large piece of driftwood with Anubis attached....a very thin sand bottom. I just can't bring myself to do a bare bottom tank. Keeping the 55gal as a community tank and also working on that hospital tank someone mentioned.

[Natepdx1286]

Philopsher.... You mentioned adding more discus in your post. With their current size (between 3-3.5 ") how long do you think I would have before they are to large for that tank? I feed them twice a day 1-2 cubes
Of hikari bio-pure or bloodworms....I have no idea how fast discus grow.

[navydiscus]

If I was in your situation right now, I would not buy anymore discus with your current setup. Wait until you are able to set up that 90 gal, and get it established. See how it goes with the three you already have, and browse some of the sponsors forums. Take a look back at kennys discus. he posts new fish every month. Keep on doing what your doing, and keep asking questions and looking through this forum. Good luck

PS. Be very careful with the Asian clam. If one does die in your tank remove immediately because it will cause a detrimental ammonia spike if you don't catch it fast.

[philosopher]

In my opinion, you need to put more discus, provided you move everything else out.
Your discus will feel a lot better in a group of at least 8 fish, will eager for food and grow big.
You will be able to feed them 6 or 7 times a day, kinda difficult with other species in the tank.

I've seen it myself in the past, you can handle an overcrowded tank with frequent water changes, but you can do nothing to calm 3 fish down if they are shy and stressed. They simply won't eat and grow.

If you plan moving to a bigger tank really soon, you can wait for that to happen first, of course.

As of the size of them, how old are they and how big? I believe you only mentioned 'juvenile' which is not accurate enough.