Water change for a new discus in tank

[NV4600]

I just bought 3 pairs of 3.5 inch discus pairs today (my first discus ), My pet store owner advices me to do the first water change only after 2 -3 weeks , so as to allow discus get accustomed to my tank ..i have read in numerous forums that weekly water change is absolutely necessary .. please let know ..i'm confused !! :confused::confused:

I have a planted tank 40 gallon..

[FishFanMan]

Have you read the stickies above on discus care? What else do you have in the tank? What's your params ATM? BTW, your tank is too small. I would do a 50% WC everyday.

[NV4600]

Checked with API test kit - Ph less than 7 ..others are zero
Had 6 cardinal tetras in planted tank for about 9 months...now i have given them to my friend ..so currently only discus ..


50% water change everyday ?

The guy at the petstore said he bred them and he does only a water change once a week that too 50%...

I saw atleast a dozen discus in his 40 gallon or less tank ..

So do i return some of my discus to store or ...what is the next best solution

Its been 4 days and the discus are swimming happily all round the tank ..and they are feeding well too ( since yesterday )..

Please advice ..

[pastry]

Have you read the stickies above on discus care? What else do you have in the tank? What's your params ATM? BTW, your tank is too small. I would do a 50% WC everyday.

Agree. Good news is you came to the right place. Your next action (besides another wc's today) is read as much as you can in here. People will help but you must read first the basics on here. Next, hate to say it, but don't listen to pet store owner on discus anymore. Hope that doesn't piss you off; not trying to. And don't be worried because you'll love discus.

[NV4600]

Okay .... Will do read all i can find on this site and possibly other sources ... and do a water change and get back if i have any doubts

Thanks for the help ..

[John_Nicholson]

Your pet store guy is an idiot. First at 3 1/2 inches lets hope you don't have pairs...LOL...Second discus of that size do not do well in a planted tank because very few people will do the work needed to keep the water clean. Young discus needs lots of high protein food to reach their potential, becuase of that they produce lots of waste. This is why they need lots of water changes and why most of us raise them in bare bottom tanks.

Good luck.

-john

[pastry]

And that's why I love hearing from John. Straight to the point and saying what others are thinking. I bought a tiny stunted pair a long time ago because I couldn't stand watching them anymore in that store... And that store was the best all around in quality but they knew nothing about discus.

[farebox]

I've been listening to everything John has said in this forum for over the last three years and my friend I finally have a 125G tank with 14 adult discus I've grown out from 2.5-3". I started out just like you, dealing with LFS and planted 55G tank. In the end loss all the fish and made a very hard choice to go bare bottom and start again with quality fish from SD sponors. I love planted tanks, but my discus fish come first in the upkeep required to grown these guys healthy and big. Read all the info you can on SD and enjoy the hobby. Good luck fellow discus keeper...

[wcav]

Time and time again the Voices of Wisdom reign,you cannot go wrong if you follow the advise given on this site and read as much as you can of the older posts too.

[FishFanMan]

Just curious, how do you get 0.00 nitrate in a planted tank with heavy fish load 4 days after a WC? Best I've been able to achieve is 10 ppm. And that's with an oversized nitrate reactor full of Seachem Di-Nitrate.

[strawberryblonde]

Checked with API test kit - Ph less than 7 ..others are zero
Had 6 cardinal tetras in planted tank for about 9 months...now i have given them to my friend ..so currently only discus ..


50% water change everyday ?

The guy at the petstore said he bred them and he does only a water change once a week that too 50%...

I saw atleast a dozen discus in his 40 gallon or less tank ..

So do i return some of my discus to store or ...what is the next best solution

Its been 4 days and the discus are swimming happily all round the tank ..and they are feeding well too ( since yesterday )..

Please advice ..

1) If you only had 6 tetras in that tank for 9 months, then the filters you have will not be able to handle the bio-load of your new discus. You are definitely going to experience a mini-cycle, which means that your ammonia levels are going to rise, especially once you start feeding them as often as they actually need to be fed. (For discus that size I feed high quality protein foods no less than 5 times a day - and discus like to graze, so they can take up to 30 minutes to finish eating food that falls to the bottom of the tank)

2) In order to keep your discus healthy during the mini-cycle you'll need to do LARGE water changes daily till you see ammonia, then nitrites drop to zero and nitrates beginning to rise. When I say large, I mean a 90% water change at least once a day, or possibly twice a day if your ammonia tests show anything more than .25ppm. You might also want to add 1 teaspoon of non-iodized salt to the tank during each water change.

3) If you can't or don't want to purchase a larger tank for your discus, then it's best to return some of them to the store. In a 40 gallon tank you'll be hard pressed to keep 5 discus healthy and it's going to be MUCH harder if you leave it as a planted tank.

4) If it was me, I'd place the discus in a bucket (match temps!) of conditioned water with a heater and air stone, then remove all the plants and substrate from that tank. Once that was done I'd paint the bottom of the tank, on the outside, with white paint, then refill the tank with fresh tap water, condition it with dechlorinator, and then put the discus back in.

5) You didn't mention what temps you are keeping in the tank, but for reference, it's best to keep the temps between 82F - 83F.

And last, but definitely not least - can you post some pics of your discus? We can let you know if we see problems with them, like stunted growth, illness, deformities and bad shapes. If they have any of those problems you can then return all of them to the store and then properly prepare your tank for discus and purchase some from one of the reputable sponsors on this site.

[warblad79]

If I were you , I would return the fish right away. As quickly as you can. After the idiot told you that he only change water 50% once a week. That's a red flag right there.

[pastry]

If I were you , I would return the fish right away. As quickly as you can. After the idiot told you that he only change water 50% once a week. That's a red flag right there.

Agree. Hard to seperate self from emotions but agree.

[Alight]

Every one here is right. You cannot have 0 nitrates in your tank. If you are getting this reading, your test kit is broken. The only way to have 0 nitrates is to have very high ammonia and nitrites. Your fish will soon die.

[pastry]

sounds like "color comparisons" for those types of kits where "0" looks closer but in reality you DO have a reading above 0

[rickztahone]

If I were you , I would return the fish right away. As quickly as you can. After the idiot told you that he only change water 50% once a week. That's a red flag right there.

I agree with you partially here. The owner told him that HE did 50% weekly WC on his tank. We have to keep something in mind as discus owners, at the end of the day, LFS owners have to move a lot of product to stay in the black. We all know that discus aren't fast selling fish in LFS, which is why many times they wither away in their tanks. However, I am yet to meet an LFS (not a breeder/importer or fellow member hobbyist) that is willing to put in the time and money (due to WC's) to keeping discus healthy. I know this is a cop out answer, but the reason we tell people to stay away from LFS's is because it is almost impossible to keep up the demands of discus in a store where they are such a small fraction of their sales.

Again, Warblad, I don't mean this to sigle you out in ANY way, it just so happens that you brought about a point that made me think of how LFS's might view discus as a business, rather than as a source of income by way of investing money in their upkeep.

OP, what others have said here is true. I'm hoping, like John, that those aren't indeed "pairs", and I am REALLY hoping that weren't sold to you at "pair" prices. Read up in our stickies section in the beginners sub-forum. It will help you out tremendously.

[Driftwood Mike]

I agree with you partially here. The owner told him that HE did 50% weekly WC on his tank. We have to keep something in mind as discus owners, at the end of the day, LFS owners have to move a lot of product to stay in the black. We all know that discus aren't fast selling fish in LFS, which is why many times they wither away in their tanks. However, I am yet to meet an LFS (not a breeder/importer or fellow member hobbyist) that is willing to put in the time and money (due to WC's) to keeping discus healthy. I know this is a cop out answer, but the reason we tell people to stay away from LFS's is because it is almost impossible to keep up the demands of discus in a store where they are such a small fraction of their sales.

Again, Warblad, I don't mean this to sigle you out in ANY way, it just so happens that you brought about a point that made me think of how LFS's might view discus as a business, rather than as a source of income by way of investing money in their upkeep.

OP, what others have said here is true. I'm hoping, like John, that those aren't indeed "pairs", and I am REALLY hoping that weren't sold to you at "pair" prices. Read up in our stickies section in the beginners sub-forum. It will help you out tremendously.

+1

[Eddie]

Your pet store guy is an idiot. First at 3 1/2 inches lets hope you don't have pairs...LOL...Second discus of that size do not do well in a planted tank because very few people will do the work needed to keep the water clean. Young discus needs lots of high protein food to reach their potential, becuase of that they produce lots of waste. This is why they need lots of water changes and why most of us raise them in bare bottom tanks.

Good luck.

-john

+1