New discus behavior in high pH tank.

[mojosodope]

Hey guys, new on the forum and I wanted to know if everything is normal with what I'm experiencing right now.

I've had small tanks in the past but I have the resources and capability to maintain a larger thank now so I decided to go with discus. I did my research and I finally got my first discus yesterday, 2 super blue, 1 white diamond, and 1 red eruption, all are around 3 inches. I only bought 4 to begin with because the dealer was getting some larger different stock in next week which I plan on buying 6 of. I know discus do best in lower pH but I read that they will do fine in my pH of 8.2 once I drip acclimatize them properly, which I did.

using the api master test kit / digital pH tester

pH: 8.2 stable
GH: 4 drops
KH: 6 drops

I live in Trinidad which is a island in the caribbean so my temperature remains fairly consistent at 84 degrees.

The problem I'm experiencing is that when I woke up this morning I noticed all 4 of my fish hiding under my driftwood which has a sort of cavern. Eventually I noticed the larger super blue come out but the remainder stayed underneath. I switched off the lights and watched from afar and only the other super blue came out. This went on all day with the two superblues coming in and out of the cavern.

I did a 50% water change before I went for the discus and I did another 50% today after I noticed the behavior. My readings for ammonia, nitrite and nitrates are all 0 but I will check again tonight.

They also go into hiding as soon as they see me coming, I bought new life spectrum discus formula specifically for them and I noticed the two blue readily ate them off the bottom but the white diamond and red eruption stayed inside the cavern, I moved away and they came out to forage on the leftovers.

Like I said, I'm getting more next week so I know they will feel more comfortable, but for the time being, is this normal behavior?



tank specs are as follows

150 gallon custom built 5ftx2ftx2ft with an average of 3 inches of pool filter sand as the substrate and two massive pieces of driftwood, I approximate the actual water capacity closer to 120 gallons or may be even less.

Lighting: Marineland DoubleBright LED 48''-60'' on a timer from 10:30A.M - 6:30P.M

Filter: fluval fx 5 fully cycled with fluval prefilter media in the first bin, blue polishing pad in the second, and two boxes of biomedia in the third, no carbon whatsoever.

It's planted with about 3 pieces of some java fern, anubuis and another plant that I'm not sure of the name but I have a seachem flourite tab in the substrate beneath it.

I have three 12inch airstones that lay along the bottom of the tank completely covered with the sand powered by a whisper deep 150. (works great)

prior to adding discus I had 18 dwarf neon rainbowfish for about two months, before adding them I fishless cycled the tank with pure ammonia.

[Donno]

Sounds like typical behavior to me. They're in new surroundings and they have a place to hide so they will. I've only had Discus for 3 months and when I got them they were all about 3" and they hid behind a sponge filter, some still do, especially the runt.

[mojosodope]

thanks for your response, today they've been out most of the time, all 4 of them :D but they seem to be mystified with their own reflections and stay at the corner of the tank in which they see themselves

[camuth8]

I think that they're going to be better when you get the six others. When there's just a few in a super huge tank, they can get kind of scared sometimes. But as I said before, you should be fine when you get your new ones.

[mojosodope]

Awesome, I should be getting them Thursday - Friday, and I'm thinking of getting rid of my dwarf neon rainbowfish and keeping a discus only tank along with 10 sterbai corys I have coming in.

One question:

Will my discus not live as long since I'm keeping them in a pH of 8.2?

thanks

[DiscusDrew]

You are getting and raising domestic discus, they have been line bred, inbred, cross bred, for many many generations. One of the most common misconceptions about discus is that they require "Soft Acidic water" (i.e. Low GH levels and and a low Ph). The truth of the matter is I breed and raise my discus (for growing them out) in extremely hard alkaline water, with a Ph of 8.2 after aging the water. You will not notice any difference of life span or otherwise as the discus are perfectly fine in water with those conditions. NOW, when breeding its a bit of a different story, but even there the only reason to lower the GH of the water and TDS level is to attain higher hatch rates of the eggs. Eggs have a hard time hatching in hard water, but again though, Ph makes little to no difference. Even when I use my RO water in my breeding tanks during hatching, the Ph drops to around 7.4 which is still alkaline though to a very slight degree. Anyway, my point is, Ph truly doesnt matter and I would spend some time reading, this forum will give you solid information that you will need. You need to start looking at diet because their nutritional needs will be far beyond NLS discus pellets. You need to vary their diet and increase the number of high protein foods (beef heart, black worms, etc.) and also add some thing with a chitinous layer to give occassionally for the health of the digestive tract (mysis shrimp, brine shrimp, etc.). Go to the beginner section and just read through the "sticky's" if you have any questions feel free to ask but that will keep a lot of the same questions that have already been answered from being asked again. This will also help to dispell a lot of the BS rumors about discus care, it takes effort but honestly they are a rewarding fish and they truly arent that difficult. I wish you the best of luck man, welcome to the forum and to discus!

[mojosodope]

thanks a lot man, you answered a lot of doubts I had on my mind and I went ahead and read all the stickies, they helped tons.

I'm headed to my importer later this week to pick up some more discus he has in quarantine for me right now so I'll pick up some blood worms or whatever else he feeds them until I can make a homemade recipe. Right now I'm looking to add an additional filter to my fluval fx5 and some more plants. Also I'm thinking about getting rid of the rainbowfish completely and keeping 10 discus with 10 sterbai cory and maybe some algae eating shrimp. For the meanwhile I do 50 % water changes daily, can't wait to see them get more comfortable and grow :D

[DiscusDrew]

Algea shrimp will make great Discus food lol. Seriously though... :) Be careful with blood worms as well, fish can get stuck on them and it can be a pain getting them to eat a more balanced diet. If possible I would go with black worms or/and beef heart. Just some advice from my experience.

[camuth8]

Algea shrimp will make great Discus food lol. Seriously though... :) Be careful with blood worms as well, fish can get stuck on them and it can be a pain getting them to eat a more balanced diet. If possible I would go with black worms or/and beef heart. Just some advice from my experience.

Used to feed bloodworms all the time. . . he never ate anything else when I fed him.

[mojosodope]

thanks guys I did some further reading on feeding bloodworms and i read that they can get really really hooked on them so I decided to go along with your suggestion and order freeze dried black worms, I can't get them locally so I'm going to be importing them from California, got a great deal off a sponsor on here. I'm a little lost on how people on youtube get them to stick on the aquarium glass tho, guess I'll see when I get them later this week. I know the best thing to do is have a really varied diet with discus but I'll be feeding my 3 inch juvies black worms and nls discus formula pellets, that should be good for now right?

[DiscusDrew]

Yeah I want joking haha, I will never talk if it isn't out of experience, at least not without explicitly saying that it is not from experience :). Anywho, to your question.... Its all what you are looking for in your fish man. Time will teach you that not varying your Discus diet CAN lead to potential problems. Those two foods are solid foods, so nutritionally they should get the vitamins and nutrients they need; however, I have learned through time and when trying to get the BEST possible quality and results from the fish, that it is best to have about everything you can think of food wise in the cupboard. My fish will eat ANYTHING, which plays a huge advantage, not only when selling fish, but also if any obstacles are hit such as disease or anything of the sort. It keeps a strong appetite in the fish and overall immune system health seems to benefit.

In short, yes, that is adequate. The fish will survive on that diet, and even grow, but it is not an IDEAL diet. Better growth, a healthier digestive tract, and a healthier immune system will be the positive consequence of diversifying their diet (assuming other basic needs are met, water changes and such). For now, don't worry your doing great, just over time start buying different foods to try, then eventually look at making a beef heart mix or something of the sort. We are not talking life our death

[mojosodope]

awesome yeah I'll do my best to introduce a homemade mixture soon, maybe with some Turkey heart, I can't deal with the beef.

Here's a pic of the four of them I currently have, finally managed to get them to come out for a little bit but I noticed the white diamond has long stringy poop so I guess I have to treat it for internal parasites :/


edit: Called my importer and he said it's unlikely that it is an internal parasite but he told me to bring it back and I can exchange it for anyone of my choosing. Today is the first day I saw it and I pay incredible attention to my tank, I quarantined him in a cycled 5 gallon just for the night, headed to exchange him in the morning.