Thinking about....

[Darrell Ward]

downsizing my discus tanks, and taking down some of them for a while. Most all of my fish have been in my systems for months if not years. I have a small group of wilds that I would like to remove from their 75 gal. so that I could take this tank down. What do you guys think the downside would be to having the wilds "bunk" with some domestics for a few months?

[brewmaster15]

Darrell,

I'll go out on a limb here.....Theres many that will tell you that you should not mix wilds and domestics for various reasons...... but I'm not one of them.:) If both groups are both healthy... theres no reason why they can't be mixed... Most wilds sold have already been in contact with many "domestic" pathogens as few actually get their wilds from the wild..but thru various LFS., transhippers, and wholesalers, IMO...So I consider ALL fish capable of introducing parasites...that includes domestics and wilds.

Since one of the goals I have here is to back cross domestic strains to wilds....I spend alot of time putting the two together... and They do fine together IME.

The key is to make sure that the domestics and wilds are both healthy...which is really no different than what we do when we introduce discus to any other discus or non-discus....

I do like the aesthetic look of a tank of wild greens or a tank of Heckels as a monoculture....but Its really not necessary provided the fish mixed are healthy...

If theres any group of wilds that I think may be best alone its the heckels...but I have both monotype tanks here and mixed of even those.

Hth,
-Al

[Scribbles]

I agree with Al on this one. As long as the fish appear healthy and live in similar water conditions they should be ok and you might get a few nice pairings from it.

Chris

[Darrell Ward]

Thanks guys. That makes me feel better about doing it. :D