pecking order time line?

[walt3]

hello. i have 6 young discus about 2.5- 3 inches long in a lightly planted 75 gallon tank. they have been in there for around maybe 1 month or so. there are other small tetras as well. they seem to constantly bicker and argue all the time. wondering how long it may be till they figure out the pecking order and start to shoal like a peaceful group? i see lots of cool vids of discus just cruising around looking calm. mine are very fiesty but i guess thats youth.:) thoughts? thanks.

[Discus Origins]

All normal process, they will bicker until each fish accepts their place in the hierarchy. Even in the peaceful groups when it's feeding time you will see aggression come out, discus are still cichlids at the core. It may take a few weeks just be patient and let nature take it's course.

[walt3]

thanks so much for the advise. :) walt.

[Skip]

Younger seem to show more aggression.. Imho

[TURQ64]

Younger seem to show more aggression.. Imho
Yep, and then the 5 yr. old male calmly swims over and yanks the eyeball out of another!.....CICHLIDS!!!

[AKRON AWOL]

Yep, and then the 5 yr. old male calmly swims over and yanks the eyeball out of another!.....CICHLIDS!!!

lol! ouch that sounds gruesome! :D

[discuspaul]

There are peaks & valleys, and sometimes lengthy lulls in discus pecking order behavior, and it may even last a discus 'lifetime', to some extent or another. But when the order is well established, and particularly at a later adult stage, any aggression generally dissipates, and subsides to the occasional gentle nudge or push every once in a while. But it is fairly constant throughout in the Cichlid world.

[strawberryblonde]

Mine definitely nudged a lot more when they were young (4") and much less once they got to know each other, figured out who was boss, etc.

Of course, I couldn't just be happy with a nice friendly 5 discus and decided to go for a larger tank and four more purty lil things. Whooooeeeee did that change the tank dynamics! I spent the first week with 9 in the tank (smallest was 4" and largest was 6") constantly hovering over them because a couple of them seemed determined to kill each other.

No sooner did that start to calm down and two sets paired off...more fighting, nudging, biting and flailing of fins ensued.

I've now reached the 6 week mark (with 4 of them placed in a separate tank for a week during the worst of the beatings) and things are finally calming down again. One pair decided to get a divorce after the female was placed in the other tank and reintroduced and the other pair has been happily spawning every 5th day (they eat the wrigglers and then take a day off before laying again). The spawning pair seems much more settled and less fiesty now...they'll even let some of the other discus come over to take a peek at the eggs without freaking out!

My poor little skinny runt from my first batch has lost his knife thin head, is filling out nicely again and no longer hides behind a plant in abject fear.

Soooooo, all that just to tell you that there are a lot of ups and downs in the pecking order as discus grow up and there WILL be calm times and crazy aggressive times. Enjoy the peaceful times and have a bottle of Motrin handy for the less peaceful times. =)

[YSS]

The most aggression I've seen in my adult tank was when I introduced a nice female who decided she really likes my awesome Santarem male who already had a wife. The two females went at each other forever and it never really stopped. The new lady won over the male and that made the old lady very unhappy. Then, I lost the male after a water change accident (the biggest disaster I've ever had in my tank. Lost close to 30 fish including several discus), the two ladies survived and they got along very well after that.