New to discus . Is my tank okay?

[keegee1012]

After Taking down my Marine aquarium from a move, I've started again on freshwater tanks. I'm planning to have my discus tank again. I became a little excited, decided to buy a bunch of fish for my tank already .
Would this be a good home for fish?

Basic Tank stats:
100 gallon Tank (Is it too big?)
6.9 PH (Water)
28 - 29 Degrees Celcius (Temp)
Tank is 70% Planted. 30% is Driftwood/Decor
Water Change Schedule: Twice a month)

I got so far:
3 Discus (Two Pidgeon Bloods and A cobalt blue. All Three were tank bred, given by a friend last christmas. They are one month old in my tank)
3 Ram Cichlids (two males and a female, 3 months old.)
7 Angelfish (6 marbles, one gold, all 3 months old. I like angels. XD)
2 Dwarf Gouramis
1 Opaline Gourami
1 Lyretail Swordtail (Bought along with the Dwarf Gouramis)
1 Fighting fish (3 Months old)


What do you think? The angels and the discus are growing quite fast (I give all the fish a staple diet of bloodworms and Flakes) I'll post pics soon.

[discusymphysodon]

I have been on this forum for countless hours now. So by all that has been posted here, 3 is a bad number.
I started with 6 in a 40 gallon, but 3 of them died in a day dint have the heart nor the budget to buy 3 again.
and so i had 3 for couple of months, there is only one top dog in that number of fish, and so in mine only one was
outgrowing the other. I dont know about the fighting fish's compatibility with discus others will be able to help you out better.
And are the discus adults? or are you planning to grow out juvies? good luck with your endeavours, boy getting discus can be such a rush.

[discusymphysodon]

sorry i missed the last line they are juvies, so again youd be better off with a bb and lots of water change daily:D

[keegee1012]

The fighting fish doesn't bother the discus. The three already set up their ranking. (Cobalt blue being the highest as it was the biggest. Also one of the most aggressive in the tank next to the Alpha gold angel). The Opaline Gourami sometimes bullies one of the discus (It only picked at the one of the pidgeon bloods. It didn't bother the other two). I don't want to get three more (overcrowding. I dont want to rid of my already beautiful angels. Yes all my angels are veiltails except the gold).


sorry i missed the last line they are juvies, so again youd be better off with a bb and lots of water change daily:D

Yeah I just did my last water change yesterday. Thank you! :D

[Skip]

goodness.. NO!

you better be doing wc at least 3 times week..

mixing fish from different sources can cause illness and death of existing fish or new fish.. safer then sorry..
don't add NEW fish until you qt them for at least 6 weeks..

i, personally, would focus on DISCUS and not them other fish.. maybe the rams would stay..

most discus issues are caused by water quality and most cures of discus issues is water quality..

welcome to SD.. now go and do another water change :)

[Sean Buehrle]

I would focus on discus too.

Mixing fish from different sources has always led to disaster for my discus.

[shoveltrash]

ditto the above.
my very limited experience has already convinced me to set up a Discus-only tank, to focus on Discus.

[judy]

Also ditto. You have seven angels-- why not keep them and sell the discus? The higher temps discus need to be comfy will not be good for your other fish, for a start. And discus need far cleaner water than a WC twice a month. Twice a WEEK would work for adults. For fish the age you have, daily is needed. If you want the tank the way it is, do the discus a favor and sell them.

[keegee1012]

Thank you for the support everyone.

Tank update:

I removed four of the pairing angels and seperated them in another aquarium for breeding purposes, I've added two more discus and did a 50% water change. I raised temperature to 35 Degress after the change.

The two newer discus were acclimated after the water change. So far there are no fighting from the new fish and the old ones.

I also removed the gouramis, the swordtail and the fighting fish (which was being nipped by the discus whenever chance gave them). The fish were given away.

Oh and I had the angels were treated for worms and parasites before the discus were in. (A month before I got the discus.)

So the ones I have in my main display tank are:
5 Discus (2 Cobalt Blues, 2 Pigeon Bloods and a Red Melon)
3 Angels
3 Rams

The breeding tank is reserved for the angelfish. Im still quite new at discus as this is a whole new experience for me. ^^'' Thanks for the advice. Oh how long till the discus reach full maturity? Each is the size of my palm

[Skip]

so you just added NEW discus with no QT?


:gossip:

[Maria Ashton]

35 degrees seems high to me, my tank is 30, I have a community discus tank and it works fine but the other fish are compatible with discus. The only thing I would add is that its worth making sure the discus get their share of the food as angels can be greedy eaters. Post some pics and welcome to SD, I love this forum.

[keegee1012]

so you just added NEW discus with no QT?


:gossip:

Those discus were reserved for me a month ago. They were Quarantined/Treated at the shop, I see no problem with that. Other than the possibility of getting bullied.

With regards to feeding, The discus are food hogs as much as the angels and rams are before I removed the other fish from the tank. Pics are coming soon. ^^

[chiligum]

There's nothing like diving in head 1st and crossing your fingers and hoping!
Hope everything works out for you, at least your set-up sounds more promising than it did at the beginning of the thread!

[Skip]

Those discus were reserved for me a month ago. They were Quarantined/Treated at the shop, I see no problem with that. Other than the possibility of getting bullied ^

well then there is still more for u to understand about qt, next time dont dimiss advice when u ask for it

[judy]

35 degrees is far too high. 30 would be much better. 82 to 86 degrees Fahrenheit, with 82 to 84 most commonly chosen temps.