Discus and angels together?

[Qbal18]

i have 4 3-3.5" discus growiing quite well in my 50g planted tank for the past 4-5 months i now have also had 6 1-1.5" angels growing in a smaller tank i traded 3 smaller ones into the lfs today so i now have 3 1.5" angels i was wanting to know if i can move them into the tank with my discus i am not woried about the disus not getting food since they are so much larger and are big pigs in there tank. but can they be put togather becaus eof diferent diseases i know they come from the same part of the world and all and are the samew famaily so i woudl think it sould be ok but i am asking you for you thoughtsd on it

[Fish_Fin-atic]

As long as you're sure of the source of the Angels, there should be no problems in having them together in one tank. I've got 4 Discus at 2" together with 3 Angels of about the same size. Since I put the Angels in, the Discus are much less shy, and are now eating all sorts of foods that they wouldn't eat before. The Angels are not at all shy, and are setting a good example for the Discus. I was sceptical before, but now, would highly recomend keeping the two together - as long as you're sure that they aren't harbouring any diseases.

[April]

well...most say no. and i had added angels which were home bred to my wilds...and they were not well after that.
id say not to try....as you just got your discus doing well.
you could be starting more problems.
if their doing well..then why mess with it?

[mench]

I agree with April...Angels and Discus in the same tank are a NO NO...sure you may not have any problems now or even for a long time.but I can talk from experence,you WILL have problems...Angels can carry nasty things that won't bother the angels but will hurt the discus..I have lost a lot of discus before I figured this out.
Of course you can do what ever you want,but I would NEVER again keep angels with my discus.

Mench

I see Angel as a pack of wild dogs. If you only keep a small number of them in the discus tank. It will bring the aggressiveness out of the Discus and eat out from your hand in no time. Any weak or sick discus will be picked on by the Angels. They'll keep packing on the sick discus and can easily kill them. But they have no match with the healthy discus. They usually chase them away and they know their packing order in the tank. I always have Angel in every single discus tank. The Angel will spot an unhealthy discus before anyone find them. Anyone is being nibbled by the Angel will go to the hospital tank immediately and in 2 days they will be back as good as new and the Angels will not dare to touch him again. All I need is just heat and salt can usually bring 95% of the discus back to health and require no further medication whenever the Angels tell me which one has to go the hospital tank before I realize anything is wrong. That will be usually too late for the easy treatment. The most agressive Angels are the DD and the stripeless are usually timid and can be handled by the discus easily. Those with recessive genes are acceptable with disucs. JMHO
Jimmy.

[RichieE]

Jimmy, I just have to say thanks for all the tips youv'e brought to this board. I learn something new in every one of your posts. Great information. Rich

[chirohorn]

I've got juvenile angels & discus together in a 55 gallon. They've gotten along well the last month or so...no problems as of yet. They only pick on their own species so far.

I would be really interested to find out what any of these "nasties" are that angels carry, that don't bother them, but are very unhealthy for discus...I asked this question once before when someone was trying to say that angels spread HITH ::)(i was always under the impression that HITH was a sign of poor diet) and got no response...what I mean is an article/study on the 'net, or anything that's documented...or like a link, or anything... ???
not trying to stir S**T---It'd just be interesting reading...
david

[JeffreyRichard]

I hope this isn't too personal ... but this topic (and response) is pet peeve of mine ...

I agree with April...Angels and Discus in the same tank are a NO NO...sure you may not have any problems now or even for a long time.but I can talk from experence,you WILL have problems...Angels can carry nasty things that won't bother the angels but will hurt the discus..I have lost a lot of discus before I figured this out.
Of course you can do what ever you want,but I would NEVER again keep angels with my discus.

Mench


Mench, can you supply any scientific evidence that angelfish carry "nasty things" that hurt discus?

I have seen this "fact" thrown around for many years that angelfish have parasites that are deadly to discus. I have NEVER seen/heard/read any scientific evidence to prove this.

I have bred angelfish and discus for more than a dozen years. I've had plenty of angelfish that live with discus ... I have angelfish in proximity to my discus ... I use the same water, I use the same syphons, I dip the same frozen food into each other tanks ... etc. I have never experienced a Discus problem that I can categorize as coming from angelfish. Quite the contrary; I find my angelfish experiencing more problems than my discus.

Does this mean that angelfish will not create problems with discus? No ... if you have unhealthy angelfish they can certainly infect healthy discus ... but that can happen no matter what type of fish you have.

I will grant you that you have some anocdotol evidence of problems ... but there is certainly an even chance that your problems were coincidental, and not cause by a generic angelfish pathogin.

If someone can prove to me that there is a deadly angelfish pathogin, I'll stand corrected. But until that time, I say BUNK ... this angelfish disease is just another myth about discus.

[slicksta]

JR......
Thank you...........

People read a thread somewhere and then start to preach it.........and the next thing you know it is fact.........

In my tank I have angels, discus, cories a beta pair and about 40 tetras of three varieties with a ton of gravel while running carbon and only doing weekly WC's .........and these are all no..no's.
I'm not telling everyone to do this.......just take everything you read with a grain of salt......

[mench]

As I said in my post the problems I had were JUST MY EXPERENCE with angles,I am not trying to tell anyone NOT to put angels with discus,you can do what ever you want with your fish....It is just maybe my luck that the times I tried to keep angles with discus,the discus died and the angels all were fine and dandy.
So you can do what ever you want,I just know I will keep my discus tanks angel free...

Mench

[sgill72]

It's funny that between this thread and the dreaded bare bottom tank thread, there's always someone getting upset.

I say try it if you like. You may find out that you cannot keep them together. You may find out you can. I believe that eveyone's tanks are different, and what works for some, may not work for others. The only way I have ever learned is by trial and error. unfortunately, you may lose some Discus is the process.

Just for the record, I have kept them together in the past with no problem. I sit today, looking at my 37 gal. with four Altums in it, and think how nice they'd be in my 120 gal. with Discus. But...I don't think I'd try it with wild angels, just domestics.

Keep us updated on your decision. Good luck-

[JeffreyRichard]

Mench ... I apologize if I came across attacking you ... I was trying to address your point about angelfish inherently being dangerous to discus. I have no basis of judging whether YOUR angelfish caused problems to YOUR discus ... I'm sure they did. It's just the emphatic "NO NO NO" you answered to the question, with the statement that angelfish carry nasties that affect discus, the implied point that ALL angelfish carry disease that will affect ALL discus. You know, I actually read that statement in a book published by Mary Ellen Sweeney ... and I think it's when myths get printed by so-called discus experts that causes the issues.

If you choose NOT to mix angelfish with discus because of problems you've experienced in the past, hey, who am I to comment on that. I'm not here telling anyone what they should do from that perspective.

BUT if someone asks if it's OK to mix discus and angelfish, I feel it is wrong and a disservice to make broad statements condeming all angelfish.

[Qbal18]

well i decided to try it at least for now the only thing i have read that says no is they "might" cary a bad disease. i will just have to watch them more closely then, but yesterday i watched the discus and angels swim together and they all had the best color i have seen in a long time so i am going with it. at least for now.

I'm not promoting keeping Angel with Discus. I've been keeping them together as long as I can remember. Articles I've read had cast a dark shadow at the back of my mind that All Angels are carrying disease the discus are very susceptable to. That's the reason why I've never bought new strains of angels and just keep breeding what I have for years that I know for sure are safe mixing with discus. I keep giving them away to freinds who has shy discus hiding behind some objects. Angels can bring them out easily and turn them into agreesive eater. I kept telling them to cull them after the discus are happy. Somehow most end up keeping both of them together and cause no problems. It's all depends where they come from. I only keep what I breed myself and I recently traded 30 Marble koi and Pearlys with a breeder and presently testing them with some culls and see if they can tolerate with each others. I found most Angel breeders are overcrowding their tanks like beehives. That's where my Angels came from. I will not mix them up until the culls can survuive for a few months. I beleive some strain like the Dark Marble are very aggressive and like to nibble on discus. Some veil tail are very compatible with discus. I have 8 different kinds of Angel mixing with disucs right now. I'll update my findings as they grow up together. I also got some Moscow Blue guppies mixing with discus right now. So far so good. None disappear and end up in the stomach yet. I know they will be a nice good snack for the discus. Time will tell. Maybe not cause the Moscow blue are very large guppies.
Jimmy.

[jim_shedden]

angels make good bait.........ooooppsss........ok .............I'll go to my corner........... :spank:

[aqua]

I have a proven pair of angels (a marble male and a silver female) in my discus tank. They get along very well with the discus even when the female angel start laying eggs. All of my discus are 4" or bigger and the pair of angel are about 3.5" to 4".

Aqua

[steve s]

I have had them together for over two years with no problems.
The angles were about one an a half inches and the
discus were over 4 inches when I put them together.
All of them are 6 inches plus and do not fight, share
food and have had only worms in two years.
4 discus and 4 angles no problems yet.
Steve

[Valik]

Oh how I love these threads. For few reasons. One you can count on at least one person taking it personal and getting upset, which more times than not makes for quite a entertaining read. and two because I think it is always fun to hear, and it never ceases to amaze me how many different success and horror stories there are out there related to a certain topic. For example I can't remember who but someone in this thread was talking about how they use the angels as a discus health monitor. Brillant!!! However I doubt this would work for the average discus keeper because I don't think they probably know what to look for and/or pay enough attention to pick up on it before it does more harm than good, but the idea itself is just amazing, I never would have thought of that. Anyways I did have a opinion on something to sneak in here:) In regards to angels carrying "nasty things". I think what is more probable than the angels actually giving the discus any diseases is that they put more stress on the discus and make them more likely to get the regular old discus illnesses, and also probably makes the illnesses come on stronger when they do get them.

Matt
PS: This is a opinion, I have no "scientific" evidence to back it up, and could very well be wrong.