Lonely discus

[tcyiu]

Hi all. I am new here. Just want to say - what a wonderful resource.

Wish I knew about this BEFORE I bought my discus. :-)

To make a long story short, I have a 29 gal tank. It has a few small guppies (survivors of my son's 10gal community), a school of 16 neons, 2 ghost shrimp and one 3-4" blue diamond discus.

The discus was bought on a whim with no research. We actually bought two, but one of them was not doing well at all and passed on after 10 days of not eating.

The remaining discus has been with us for about 1 month. It seems to be thriving. It is eating well. The colours seem brilliant.

From what I have read here, it seems that the discus would do better with companions - and the tank would look better with at least one more. But I am also reading that a 29 is too small for discus.

Would it be alright to keep just one discus?

If I were to get another, I am VERY concerned about fights and personality conflicts. 3 more would be ideal for spreading the aggression. But I don't think the 29 is good for growing out 4 discus. What should I do?

Thanks.

Tim

[pcsb23]

Hi Tim and welcome.

Difficult one to answer in some ways. If the discus is doing well at this time then leave things be. However you are right in that generally speaking discus prefer to be in numbers. 5 is really the minimum to aim for, for some reason everytime I've ever had 4 in a tank its caused no end of problems, 5 plus is great, 3 rarely works although 2 often does IF they don't fight.

A 29 gal tank is fine for breeding/qt etc for discus but is too small for 5 discus, particularly fopr the novice keeper.

[swinters66]

This is true...when I first got my 4 discus, they were in a 30 gallon tank, and it was getting a little crowded. One would bully the others over food mostly and I was worried about stress & if all were eating. Once I got my 60 gallon and moved them, now I am up to 5 discus with some tankmates (guppies, corys & rasboras) and all is well. They are doing a lot better in a larger tank.

I actually had gotten one discus to start off...and he wasnt happy. He hid for the first day, I watched him, he didn't eat, so when I picked up discus #2, I was amazed at how the 1st guy just swam out to meet his new tank mate and started swimming around! But, if your one discus is eating and swimming around, he should be ok alone. If you do want more though, invest in a larger tank. For some reason, for me anyway...upkeeping a smaller tank seemed like more work for me than a larger one. Even my husband says so and he has some big tanks.

[Marinemom]

Discus usually do better in a bigger aquarium but if the one you have is O.K. being a loner then it may be best to leave well enough alone. Just watch him and if he starts to sulk then I would seriously consider a larger aquarium so he can have some playmates.

Diane

[tcyiu]

Discus usually do better in a bigger aquarium but if the one you have is O.K. being a loner then it may be best to leave well enough alone. Just watch him and if he starts to sulk then I would seriously consider a larger aquarium so he can have some playmates.

Diane

Thanks everyone. Diane, what does sulking look like??

Our fish seems to have vivid colours and feeds well. At feeding times, the fish is right in the middle of the pack jostling for position with the tetras. Sometimes I feed worms one at a time to prevent the tetras from stealing all the worms, the discus comes right to the surface and takes the worms from the stick.

However, most of the time when we are not feeding, the discus seems to like hanging out behind the plastic plants. Or it hangs in the upper corner near where I feed. Only occasionally (maybe 10% of the time) is it just swimming around.

Is this sulking??

Tim

[steve.ryall]

Tim, sulking can take the form of hiding, like you describe, but I think generally, the fish will darken up, and be less active. If it is being bullied the fish will also do this, quite often it will show it's 'stress bars'
I have a fish that is always the last to get food and is bullied, he/she is always very dark, almost black, but he keeps on going. I dont have the heart to get rid of him.
hth
Steve

[Marinemom]

As Steve said, there will be obvious signs if he is really not happy. Stress bars, becoming dark, not swimming around the aquarium much, and he may stop eating. If these things are happening, then I would assume that he is depressed or sulking and needs a playmate or two with a bigger aquarium.

Diane

[tcyiu]

I've been feeding this discus a lot of worms in the last few days. Being extremely well fed seems to be drawing it out of its shell. Nowadays, the discus seems to be constantly roaming the tank mouthing everything. When I approach, it is not skittish. Sometimes it swims straight up to the feeding corner expecting to be fed. Other times it just keeps doing what it was doing. Once in a while, it does seem to hang out behind the plants, but I guess everyone needs some downtime.

Gosh, I hope it is happy and doesn't need playmates. This particular one seems to like our tap water as is. This fact really makes my life easier not having to condition the water (other than dechlorination). I'll ket you know if anything changes.

BTW, I just did a 40% water change yesterday. Today the neons are EXTREMELY frisky. I see small groups of 3-5 fish clump together shimmying sideways in the plants. I wonder if they're doing the nasty? They've been successful at stealing live worms from the discus. So I wonder if the live food diet has put them in the mood. ;-)