can dicus be a community fish???

[andy187]

i have jus bought my second tank its a standard 3ft ....at first i was going to jus make a big community tank,but decided to take a challenge and raise discus.I have wanted to raise albinoes and rainbow sharks aswell for sometime.i was jus wandering if i can have the standard 3ft with albino,rainbow,and discus????or would the sharks be to territorial?? and have my 2 ft tank with a couple more discus......is a 2ft to small to raise dicus??? ???

[Discus_Newbie19]

Sharks dont make good Discus tank mates

[jules]

I gave my Rainbow to my nephew because it was chasing my Discus.
Neons and other docile fish are fine in the community.

[Howie_W]

I've also kept sharks with Discus, and unfortunately they're just not good tank mates, even in a larger size planted environment with plenty of hiding places for the sharks. The sharks are especially attracted to their slime coats.

Howie

[andy187]

thanx for the reply guyz........do you think it will still be agressive if i put very small sharks i.e baby sharks and bigger discus?or would they still be agressive when they grow up??? because i relised that the sharks dont seem to chase bigger fish.......

[Valik]

Even baby sharks will cause some problems, which will just get worse and worse as they grow up. More then anything I think it is that the aggressive behavior scares the discus and this in turn stresses them and leads to a whole wide barrel of possible problems. I would just stay away from them all together.
Matt

[jules]

Andy, my sharks were babies with the Discus and as they got older they started to harrass the Discus.

[the_oracle]

I keep common angelfish with my DCs. This angelfish's role is to lessen my DCs stress level. When my DCs are a little bit scared, this angelfish will, in a way, scout the whole tank and ensure my DCs that everything is o.k. I just keep one to a tank for fear that these angels might dominate the whole tank.
P. S: The angels must not be bigger than the DC.

[andy187]

thanx for post peeps......i`ll just stick with the discus :).....once again thanx for great post!! :D :D :D

[redlines]

The best fish to keep in a community tankwith Discus is....

MORE DISCUS ;)

[JeffreyRichard]

Good tankmates for discus ... (my experience)
Blue Rams - (one of the best) Corydoras sterbai, adolphi, duplacarious, Panda, Metae (seem to do well in the higher temperatures) Ancistrus cats (bushynose) Zebra Pleco Cardinal Tetra Pearl, Dwarf, Honey Gourami

[RyanH]

Another concern with keeping Discus in a community tank is disease. I would use a cull or two in the community tank for a few weeks to make sure there is not some horrible disease being harbored by your other fish. There are many diseases out there that will not necessarily show up in a community tank but will decimate your Discus stock. Keep this in mind.

Also, your Discus tank mates need to be able to handle the heat that Discus require. Cardinals do much better than Neons in 84 degree water for example.

hth!

[JeffreyRichard]

Another concern with keeping Discus in a community tank is disease. I would use a cull or two in the community tank for a few weeks to make sure there is not some horrible disease being harbored by your other fish. There are many diseases out there that will not necessarily show up in a community tank but will decimate your Discus stock. Keep this in mind.

Also, your Discus tank mates need to be able to handle the heat that Discus require. Cardinals do much better than Neons in 84 degree water for example.

hth!


(imagine the sound of an old tired man climbing back on the soapbox ...)

Ryan, Ryan, Ryan ...

Perhaps you've overstated this hysteria against "other" fish being harborers of evil ...

If the community tank is healthy then your discus have nothing to worry about. Healthy fish do not harbor disease waiting for discus ... if the fish is sick the fish is sick. And DON'T go down the angelfish are carriers path ... that's just myth.

Healthy Discus added to a Healthy community tank (assuming compatible fish) WITHOUT any stress will result in happy and healthy discus.

Sick Discus added to a Healthy community tank MAY get the other fish sick

Healthy discus added to a sick community tank MAY get the discus sick

There is no mystery disease waiting to infect the discus ...

BTW, good advice about the Neons ... they like water 74-78 degrees.

[RyanH]

You would want to quarantine new Discus going into a DISCUS tank. Does it not make sense to use caution when putting Discus in with OTHER fish that may be harboring disease? I don't think that this is unreasonable advice to give at all. PARTICULARLY in a beginners section. Better to err on the side of caution until you know what you are doing. I stand by my post.

[JeffreyRichard]

Forgive me if I misinterpreted your post. I believe the topic is what fish are compatable with discus in a community setup. The essences of your post, at least the way I read it, was esentially a red flag against discus in a community situation. I do agree that ALL fish need to be quarentined ... great advice.

I would rather you, however, stated your post such that the process of adding discus to a community tank requires caution (quarentine), not that other fish have disease and are bad to be with discus (which is the way I read it).

I feel too many people spead misinformation about "other" fish and create this perception that discus cannot be compatable with anything else. So my apologies if I overreacted in this post.

Jeff

[shalu]

I keep way too many species of fish with discus in my planted show tank. I have:

rams(blue, gold, long fin, Bolivia)
cardinal tetras
congo tetra
rummy nose tetras
dwarf gourami
rainbows(bosemanni, peacock, turquoise)
cories
otos
SAEs
rosy barbs
american flag fish
angelfish(adult female)
maybe others I am forgetting

The only agressions I notice are
a) Discus towards each other, mostly at feeding time. The adult wild discus TRIES to hog all the food, but the juvs are just way too fast and I use two feeding cones simultaneously.
b) Rams fight all the time, no harm done.
c) the female angel tries to defend her breeding ground when it spawns by herself! Sometimes it would mistakenly take one of the discus as her mate and the discus would be too happy to eat all her eggs ;D

In terms of disease/quarantine, here is what I learned from my personal experience:
although discus are prone to a few diseases(mostly Hex for me), they are virtually immune to a lot of diseases that kills many community fish. I knew the importance of quarantine but never had the patience to practice it... until recently. I never had a case when I added community fish to the tank and the discus got sick or died on me. However, I did have the experience of a) adding a new discus from LFS and it was sick and died b) adding community fish and they died, sometimes also killing other non-discus community fish. The latter happened multiple times. In fact, I had huge fish loss couple of months ago when I added a single ram: it killed 10 other rams, dozens of tetras, some otos, SAEs, one red rainbow. I talked to a well respected ram breeder, he told me it often happens with rams imported from Asia. His entire tanks of ram juvs were wiped out once by adding those asian rams. However, my discus acted as if nothing ever happened through this whole ordeal.

[shalu]

oh, I did forget about the plecos:
I have 1 rubbermouth, 1 bristlenose, 1 clown, 1 candy-striped.

The tank temp is 86-88F.

[jay43452]

I Keep Clown Loaches with my discus,and the discus push them around like they are more of a plant than anouther fish.