How do you guy's/gal's deal with Discus aggression??

[s4surf]

I have a 90 gal community tank but the main fish are four Discus. I have mainly kept african cichlid's over the past 25 years and I understand aggression I did have one discus tank but there were 20 of them at that time and I had no issues with any aggression. My current discus stock is,

1 3" Blue diamond
1 3" blue snakeskin
1 5" Red gold Melon
1 5" Silver pigeon

I do not know what sex they are yet.... I just referenced them as he/her

I had the top three fish in the tank and added the silver pigeon. The tank was beautiful and all the fish were getting along quite well. the discus were following each other as a group around the tank, then about 7-10 days into this setup the silver pigeon started chasing the RGM with more gusto than just normal peer behavior. the RGM would stop to take bites to eat but always on the go if he came out into open water and the pigeon saw him. I let this go on for about 4-5 days with no change in behavior and took out the pigeon to let the RGM not be stressed and get sick. I left it out for over 5 days and when reintroducing him to the tank he started right back up on the RGM. I now have removed the RGM and wondering how to cope with this with discus.

I have thought of adding more fish at the same time but I am not sure this is the answer and I don't want it to be a costly mistake. Or do I just let them take their own course and work it out? Just curious what other people have done in these circumstances?

thanks,
steve

[dbfzurowski]

It's just the way it is, at least in my tank. One dominates all, sometimes picks on someone.

[s4surf]

I hear you, but this is beyond the normal domination by the tanks KING :) And he only goes after the RGM and leaves the other two alone. This is also not a sometimes occurance, as soon as he spots the RGM he 's on it quickly. Also, why did it take a week to get this way when they were fine together for over 7-10 days? Are you saying that I should just leave them together and see what happens?

steve

[cobsterrr]

I hear you, but this is beyond the normal domination by the tanks KING :) And he only goes after the RGM and leaves the other two alone. This is also not a sometimes occurance, as soon as he spots the RGM he 's on it quickly. Also, why did it take a week to get this way when they were fine together for over 7-10 days? Are you saying that I should just leave them together and see what happens?

steve


They are just establishing their pecking order, its natural. If you see it is harming the RGM, as in the RGM is having clamped fins not eating well, then you should separate the two and re-arrange your tank. You could also get more discus to spread out the aggression. But I had this issue and after a month they kind of just got over it, now the alpha male and the one he punked are mating...so there is hope :)

[s4surf]

I would not say it is harming the RGM right now, but It does have a hard time eating on the run and I figured sickness will come to a stressed fish sooner than later. The Silver PB will only leave it alone if its in the plants. If the RGm comes into open water he start his run. He does not make any contact that I've seen but he does move quickly when it's time and does not stop until the RGM is back in the plants. I can only believe that this will lead to malnutrition and sickness if they are left together. I also don't really want to lose a nice fish ($'s aside)

You might have liked your pair, but I don't think I want to have babies from an RGM and a Silver Pigeon :) but I do hear that it might work out if I can sit back and relax.

thanks for the reply,
Steve

[Skip]

spread out the food in the tank.. make sure food falls where the punky one is hiding.

[cobsterrr]

it will definitely ease out, just give it time and spread the food evenly around the tank.

[scottthomas]

Add 4 more discus and I bet your problem is solved. 4 is not a good number IME. I usually keep well over the old 1/10 gal rule anyway. (In bb tanks that get frequent wc, 1/10 gal makes no sense.) You had 20 at one time and had no aggression issues:)

[judy]

Add 4 more discus and I bet your problem is solved. 4 is not a good number IME. I usually keep well over the old 1/10 gal rule anyway. (In bb tanks that get frequent wc, 1/10 gal makes no sense.) You had 20 at one time and had no aggression issues:)
I agree. Four discus is not enough. A minimum of six is the general rule of thumb I'm familiar with-- and eight or nine is even better. In a tank your size, with proper maintenance, you could easily sotck that many. The aggression gets much more spread out with more fish.

[discuspaul]

Agree with the others. You can readily add 4 more in that 90 gallon & all should be A-OK.
But I certainly know the frustration level it's causing for you - been there, experienced that.
I once had a real bully Red Melon who did the same thing - over many months - but it was on & off - sporadic -
He'd be ok for several weeks, or months, them start in again - but then it would level off again - just natural behavior - & no harm was ever really done to the victim(s), except possibly some stress. In fact, he was almost always picking on 2 smaller red spot greens, but they kept coming right back for more ! Didn't bother them a bit. And all 3 of those fish are still together in my daughter's tank, & still getting along very well, after several more months. Take it in stride.

[s4surf]

I guess I'm just not used to discus aggression yet, and I know they are delicate fish to a certain extent. I just did not want to lose the RGM, even though the SPB is the nut's :) I am an experienced hobbyist but this is only my second time caring for discus. I might try a few more, but with the current stocking I don't feel I can keep that many Discus at full size. When I had twenty in this tank many years ago they were the only fish present. The current setup has community fish like cardinals, oddessa barbs, brass tetra's, Otto's, Sterbai's, Preacox RBfish, and a couple of wild GBR's. I understand that none of these community fish get very big but they do put demand on oxygen levels. The setup is only a few months old and is a low tech planted tank with many Anubias and Brazillian swords that seem to be taking off so far.

Well, wish me luck down this road and thanks again for the advice. I am at least very fortunate that they seem to be thriving in the environment so far.

Now if I can just get them to get along !
Steve

[discuspaul]

s4surf
Don't worry about it.
Even with those other dither fish, you can easily keep 8 adult discus in that tank, with proper water changes & good maintenance - not a problem. Give it a go. And with 8, then you won't have to worry about the discus aggression anymore - or shall I say, "normal genetic behaviour" ?
Just keep an eye on those Otos - occasionally they will turn into "attack" fish as they call them, & go after the discus' slime coats. I've had the experience - twice - I don't keep Otos with my discus any more.

[s4surf]

I have read that about the Otto cat's and will keep an eye on it. I would suspect that there would be marks/areas on the discus that you could see were not normal abrasions and take out the Otto's at that point. Can you explain your experience a little more so I know what to look for? Or just look for the ninja cat :D

Let me explain my frustrations a little more...... Before I added the SPB, I bought 2 3" sapphires and another 3" snakeskin which brought me to a total of six. I had done some reading on stocking levels and thought that worked for me. When I added them to the tank the current SS was terrorizing all the new fish. And yes I changed the tank around :) He stressed them to a point in 24hrs that they were all clamped and dark when I got home from work looking to sit and admire my fish. I caged the little SS vampire and the other 5 seemed to get along fine, but I believe the stress lead to the deaths of those 3. So I decided to buy another 5" fish to see how that would work and along comes this SPB. Now you have the whole story to work with and you can see my frustration level. I have worked with way more aggressive fish in the past and have had better luck :(

Steve

[discuspaul]

Ottos -
After mine grew some in the discus tank, (I had 4) to about 1.5" in size, I would see 2 of them constantly following the discus very closely, trying to attach themselves & get at their slime coats from behind. They weren't successful very often, as the discus were large enough to just shrug them off & go on their way. No damage being done, but what bothered me was the stress level this activity was placing on the discus - and also, I was concerned about what may have been occuring during the night, when the discus were in a rest stage.
Got rid of the Ottos quickly. This same thing has also recently occured with a Siamese Algae Eater ( I just have one- about 2") - my prior research on them did not indicate they went ofter the discus' slime coat, but now I know that they will in fact. I will remove that one also. (And yes, it is an SAE, not a CAE, nor Flying Fox.)

[s4surf]

I have 4 of them @ roughly that size in the 90 and I don't see that behavior yet. I wonder if it has anything to do with available food IE: algae in the tank. what type of setup did you see this in? Was it bare bottom, planted, or something in the middle?

[discuspaul]

I have read a lot of info which says that the majority of the time there is no problem - but as the Otos ( & SAE's for that matter) age & get larger, they get lazy as far as their diet is concerned, leave algae alone & go for any other regular fish food or large fish slime coats. You might never see that behavior - it's just some of them that occasionally turn into "rogues" so to speak. This happened to me in a reasonably well planted discus tank, with sufficient algae present to keep the few I had - fed sufficiently. 2 of them never did touch the discus, but the other 2 did.
I think it was the 'man-eating tiger' syndrome - you know - once they get the taste of it, that's all they go for.

[s4surf]

Thanks for the description,

I will keep an eye on them for sure.

Steve

[Eddie]

I don't deal with discus aggression, the discus deal with aggression.

[John_Nicholson]

I don't deal with discus aggression, the discus deal with aggression.

Well put Eddie. Contrary to what Walt Disney lead the world to believe all of the little animals in the world don't run and play together. All you are seeing is normal animal behavior. In the real world fighting is just as normal as not fighting. Sometimes you can break up the group, sometimes you can add new members, but in the long run the discus have to figure this one out.

-john

[YSS]

Unfortunately, I don't think you can give a bully discus a time out hoping he/she would learn from it.