picking the rite size discus

[gr8nguyen1]

in about a week or so i will be attempting my first discus tank. i will stock my 75 gallon with 5 discus. i have read that adult 5-5.5'' is better because they demand less wc and less feeding. is this true. what aout 3.5'' are those too young. and what aout mixing adults with juvies. these fish are costing me a weeks pay so i wanna do everything i can to not lose them. anyadbice would be greatly appreciated

[Wahter]

in about a week or so i will be attempting my first discus tank. i will stock my 75 gallon with 5 discus. i have read that adult 5-5.5'' is better because they demand less wc and less feeding. is this true. what aout 3.5'' are those too young. and what aout mixing adults with juvies. these fish are costing me a weeks pay so i wanna do everything i can to not lose them. anyadbice would be greatly appreciated


You're going to have to make your decision based on some different schools of thought.


1.) Some people prefer adults because the fish won't have any surprises. Depending on the strain of discus, sometimes the youngsters look different than the adults - this is particularly true of some spotted fish; it's hard to predict just how many spots will develop on a juvenile discus. Also, sometimes as the spotted fish age, the spots will form into more lines rather than separate spots. As you mentioned, you can get by with feeding adults a little bit less and that's why the water won't get fouled as soon. However, adults can cost a lot more than juveniles.

2.) Some people prefer to buy juveniles because of cost (sometimes you can get 10 young fish for the price of 1 adult!). Some people enjoy watching the fish grow. However, since they are growing, you will need to feed young discus heavily and do a lot of water changes in order to keep them healthy.

This was discussed a bit on this post:

http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showthread.php?t=78533

As far as mixing the sizes of discus - sometimes this works out fine, other times, the dominant fish can really stress out the smaller fish.

There was some discussion about this on this post:

http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showthread.php?t=78688


Hope that helps,



Walter

[GoingDiscus]

Not speaking from alot of experience,(Ive only had my Discus for a couple months) but I bought mine at the 50 cent size and got 6 one reason was that I wanted to make sure I could do right by these fish and grow them up, I have seen some absolute beautiful adult fish but just wasnt sure I could get it right and I sure hate to kill some very nice specimans due to my lack of experience.
In the couple months Ive had mine my confidence is growing and at somewhere around half grown I am very proud of having been able to raise them up to the size they are with no major problems, maybe after a year I`ll make the jump and spend the money on a breeding pair from one of the sponsors on here.
Ron

[mjs020294]

Something else worth mentioning, Discus are better in groups of six or more.

[Jhhnn]

I just tried to follow what seemed to me to be the best conservative advice I could find when I came back to discus a year ago. I'm very failure averse, particularly when it comes to taking care of living things. It looked like this, to me-

Buy a group of six or more of the same strain from one of our sponsors.

Buy the largest fish you can reasonably afford, stick with the less expensive varieties to limit losses in case things don't work out.

Observe the 10gal/fish rule, don't try to grow out juvies in a planted tank unless you're really an expert. Invest in the means to change a lot of water, do so religiously. Be sure your tank is cycled before adding discus.

And that's what I've done, and my discus have thrived. I wasn't prepared to spend enough to do all that when I wanted to start, so I saved up, bought 4" fish from Kenny's Discus, and haven't regretted it one little bit.

That's just what's worked for me, with some good luck thrown in, as well. Other people's stories are different, I'm sure.

[gwrace]

Not speaking from alot of experience,(Ive only had my Discus for a couple months) but I bought mine at the 50 cent size and got 6 one reason was that I wanted to make sure I could do right by these fish and grow them up, I have seen some absolute beautiful adult fish but just wasnt sure I could get it right and I sure hate to kill some very nice specimans due to my lack of experience.
In the couple months Ive had mine my confidence is growing and at somewhere around half grown I am very proud of having been able to raise them up to the size they are with no major problems, maybe after a year I`ll make the jump and spend the money on a breeding pair from one of the sponsors on here.
Ron

I wanted to do the same thing. I bought 6 Stendker discus at about 2-2.5 inches to start out with. They are growing like weeds so decided to try my hand at some smaller juveniles. I ended up buying 12 3/4-1 inch discus from a hobby breeder on this site. You don't really know what the adult fish will look like but it's fun for us to watch them grow. They are almost 2 inches now and starting to show some nice color. Since I only paid about $12 a fish it's not a great financial loss if I screw something up and lose some. Losing those pricey adults on the other hand would be very disappointing.

[csarkar001]

i've tried mixing discus of different size. would not recommend it.

[GoingDiscus]

I wanted to do the same thing. I bought 6 Stendker discus at about 2-2.5 inches to start out with. They are growing like weeds so decided to try my hand at some smaller juveniles. I ended up buying 12 3/4-1 inch discus from a hobby breeder on this site. You don't really know what the adult fish will look like but it's fun for us to watch them grow. They are almost 2 inches now and starting to show some nice color. Since I only paid about $12 a fish it's not a great financial loss if I screw something up and lose some. Losing those pricey adults on the other hand would be very disappointing.


Its for sure fun to watch them grow, and its a great sense of accomplishment when they start getting up there in size,, I just ordered 8 High fin blue diamonds, cant wait to see how they turn out..not to mention the price thing just like you said, seems like the adults I want are some of the highest priced fish in the world lol..
Ron