Lone Juvenile Discus

[Deeeee]

Hello all.

Recently my partners' brother decided it would be a good idea to send us a discus without warning since he knows we love the 6 we have.

Obviously this was a terrible gift as sweet as it was. Our quarantine tank wasn't cycled so we had our lovely LFS owner hold her for us.

Now she's been in our 20g tank for 2 weeks and she's doing good and becoming human social but I'm worried about loneliness/discus socialization.

(Tank details not entirely relevant to the question so skip if you want)
We have a 55g with 6 discus already which is why it was a terrible gift. That said, of those discus, 3 were from a neglectful owner with one stunted -currently around 4-4.5 in- and two 5in-- one of which is very obviously stunted. We also have two 4-4.5 in snow whites and one other about 3-3.5 (unsure of pattern name). We are renting and aren't comfortable setting up the 125g we bought with the set of 3 at least until we get an engineer or the equivalent expert to assess the location as we are in an upstairs apartment. The tank also has 3 rainbow kribs, 6 rosy loaches and a couple dwarf frogs and corys and larger loaches. Clearly we were already pushing it. We are keeping an eye out for larger tanks since we randomly got this tiny thing but we have 2 fluval 407s running and water changes occur every 2-3 days with aged water.

So this tiny surprise discus in the 20g... Should I be concerned about her being alone? I've thought about putting one of the more docile discus in with her (a snow white that's frequently picked on or the smaller stunted one who is pretty chill). I've also thought about putting the younger 3.5in but she's a spitfire and I fear she would be too aggressive. My final thoughts are asking my LFS pal who is a breeder if he has some little ones to keep her company but that might be asking too much.

Anyway I wanted to gather some thoughts from experts. I've only had my display tank for 9 mo and It was our first tank. It was meant to be angels but we found a lady selling her ex's 125g with 3 poorly cared for discus at a good price and suddenly we are discus people. I frickin love them.


Picture of the little one:
http://imgur.com/a/zeyyASI

And my main tank just cause I love them:
http://imgur.com/a/hPxHiTz

[captainandy]

You can add bacteria to your quarantine tank and place the little guy in today

[peewee1]

You could put one of your least favorite discus into the 20gallon. Or you could place the 20 gallon next to the larger tank so that the fish could see the other. Or you could put a cory cat or a gold fish into the 20 gallon.

[danotaylor]

Newly introduced discus can tend to isolate & hide away from other fish anywaybas they settle in. For the short duration of QT I don't think being alone is of any concern to he honest. If you notice it talking to itself or swimming around in circles you may have trouble though ;)

[Deeeee]

Hi, thanks for the response. If it were just a quarantine that would be fine. We are keeping her in the 20g as a grow out tank because she is so small so this could be a much longer stay. Any thoughts?

[Moreetta]

This is interesting to read. Always a very informative forum!

[Shan_Evolved]

Hi, thanks for the response. If it were just a quarantine that would be fine. We are keeping her in the 20g as a grow out tank because she is so small so this could be a much longer stay. Any thoughts?

The fish will be fine. As long as hes getting fed and getting clean water, a month won't do any harm. The opposite in fact

[peewee1]

I was thinking about this and wondered why we humans tend to transfer our emotions and how we perceive them to animals. Why would a fish, for example, even consider the concept of solitude and loneliness? More intelligent creatures, monkeys probably, but probably not lower forms such as fish, rabbits, mice...etc. Some fish, such as cichlids, spend much of their time protecting their tiny piece of the world. They do not seem to want anyone else around them so why would they concern themselves with isolation?

[Shan_Evolved]

I was thinking about this and wondered why we humans tend to transfer our emotions and how we perceive them to animals. Why would a fish, for example, even consider the concept of solitude and loneliness? More intelligent creatures, monkeys probably, but probably not lower forms such as fish, rabbits, mice...etc. Some fish, such as cichlids, spend much of their time protecting their tiny piece of the world. They do not seem to want anyone else around them so why would they concern themselves with isolation?

The only instances fish would consider being in a school is stress related. Fish and other grouping animals primarily stay together to reduce the chances of predators eating them. Generations of evolution have ingrained into their instincts that schools = safe = stress reduction which definitely help their health.

So a fish in our hobby that would be in a tank alone might stress out more than if he had others with him or around him, but the clean water and daily feedings and recognition that human = safe would go a long way to help them.

It's my opinion that a fish would be happy with a group of others, but even alone they can be more than stress free to be healthy