New discus owner with lots of discus questions :D

[Juku Eja]

Re: New discus owner with lots of discus questions

Hi all,
Wish everybody had a nice holiday and a happy new year to everyone at SD.

I have pledged before to give updates, good or bad, on the conditions of the 6 young discus I purchased approximately 2 weeks ago and how they are faring in the planted tank.
I regret to say that after an encouraging start, things started to go steadily downhill for 4 of the fish : the 2 blues, the turq, and the PB. They refused to eat after the 3rd/4th day and the turq and the blues went very, very dark, almost black to the point I couldnt even see the mood bars on the turq.
On day 6/7, I made the decision to relocate the 4 aforementioned fish downstairs into a chamber in the sump filter where they can be by themselves and added some hornwort for added cover. When.I netted them to be moved, I noticed that their slime coat smelled extremely fishy, which was worrying. Alas, even the move was to no avail and slowly they wasted away, ever refusing food and yesterday sadly all 4 have passed away, each one having sunken foreheads and cheeks.
The remaining 2 red melons surprisingly aredoing well, if not a little timid. They are still in the main tank and are eating, exploring, and looking good generally.
This experience so far has taught me a few things, most importantly the validation of the advice of many in this thread, is that adult discus is infinitely a better option than young discus if you are adding them in an established community planted tank, especially with active surface feeders like rainbows and barbs where they stand little chance to compete for food unless you put it right inf front of their noses.
I will keep continuing to update the progress of the remaining two discus. Hopefully they are settled and can stay healthy and grow.

[ericNH]

Re: New discus owner with lots of discus questions

This experience so far has taught me a few things, most importantly ..., is that adult discus is infinitely a better option than young discus ...

Hi Juku Eja, I hope you had a good holiday as well. I'm sorry to hear you lost 4 of your discus. But from your posts it looks like you are taking the advice of the discus here seriously, so you are on the right path. I respectfully disagree with your post on the most important thing - I feel that even more important than getting adult discus from a good source is clean water. You may be able to keep sub-par discus and even get them to a decent state in clean water; on the other hand, even the healthiest discus will eventually succumb to disease in poor water. I'm sure you already knew that. I am just nit-picking here. Don't be discouraged! I think you have it in you to keep great discus, just keep swimming

[Las Vegas]

Re: New discus owner with lots of discus questions

Juku, sorry to hear your fish passed on. Just try to learn why they died and fix it. I saw your tank, looks nice, but planted tanks do this a lot to Discus. That's why a lot of Discus owners keep the fish in bare bottom tanks. Before others attack my comment, IT'S JUST MY EXPERIENCE, not to use the heavily planted tanks. They hide or grow diseases for the Discus. Yes it looks wonderful, but it most of the time, comes with a price for Discus owners.

[Juku Eja]

Re: New discus owner with lots of discus questions

Thanks eric and mark, that was the reason I hunted for the most value-for-money a.k.a. cheap-but-healthy fish, to prepare for something like this. All I can do now is to make sure I give the bet possible water and feed for the discus, within a planted tank capacity of course.

[Kyla]

Re: New discus owner with lots of discus questions

Thanks eric and mark, that was the reason I hunted for the most value-for-money a.k.a. cheap-but-healthy fish, to prepare for something like this. All I can do now is to make sure I give the bet possible water and feed for the discus, within a planted tank capacity of course.

trying to grow young discus in a planted tank (or a sump attached to a planted tank) is not advised, esp if you are new to discus keeping, and is directly related to why your fish died. ive got over 20 years in the hobby, and even i wouldnt attempt it. im worried your remaining melons may have issues down the road if left in the planted tank....

i think you would have had much more success with all your discus in a BB tank with daily wc. this way you can feed the fish multiple times a day and still keep the water very clean. BB tanks are so easy to do maintenance on that you would also be saving yourself some time and effort.

do u plan to replace the lost fish?

[Juku Eja]

Re: New discus owner with lots of discus questions

trying to grow young discus in a planted tank (or a sump attached to a planted tank) is not advised, esp if you are new to discus keeping, and is directly related to why your fish died. ive got over 20 years in the hobby, and even i wouldnt attempt it. im worried your remaining melons may have issues down the road if left in the planted tank....

i think you would have had much more success with all your discus in a BB tank with daily wc. this way you can feed the fish multiple times a day and still keep the water very clean. BB tanks are so easy to do maintenance on that you would also be saving yourself some time and effort.

do u plan to replace the lost fish?

With young discus? Nah. With full-grown discus? That remains to be seen, but definitely not in the near future.
The 2 melons currently look good. A bit shy when I get close to the tank, but eating and seemingly ok so far. I probably will ask around the local LFS or some of my fellow local hobbyists if they want to get them off me. If not, then I'll still happily keep them with me in the planted tank. Going BB is a bit out of the equation though.

[DanLFC97]

Re: New discus owner with lots of discus questions

Yesterday I got two adult discus. Now they both recovered and they are swimming. I have checked on them and now one them the skin is peeling ,they have cloudy eyes and they got slightly darker.(I didnt get it like that from the store)
I also gave them a small amount of food and they didnt eat it.

Here is a picture of it.

http://prntscr.com/9si7f4

[Juku Eja]

Re: New discus owner with lots of discus questions

Well I guess this is the conclusion of this thread. As promised, an update is due whether the result good or bad. The last melon discus finally passed away a few days ago after a month of hanging on. To put it simply they simply did not eat and just slowly wasted away. I think the main reason for them not making it not that they were put in a planted aquarium, but that the aquarium is already populated with fish that are more boisterous and outcompeted them for food. So the lesson is if you want a discus to survive in an established tank with established residents, then get one which is already full-grown and will not be outcompeted for food.

So yeah until circumstances change and I can provide a good environment for any new discus, might be a while before I go near them again.

[brewmaster15]

Re: New discus owner with lots of discus questions

Im going to move this to the beginners board. There are lessons in this thread that may help others.

Thanks for sharing the whole story. Often we get the beginning ..but not the conclusion.

Thank you,
Al

[ericNH]

Re: New discus owner with lots of discus questions

Yea I also want to thank you for sharing the whole story. Like Al said, when a new discus-keeper's journey comes to a discouraging end it rarely gets posted, for obvious reasons. The fact that you did allows a first-hand account of someone's efforts along with the actual results to be available for other new-comers to see.

Anyway, your tank is cool, even if it not's right for disus.

[Juku Eja]

Re: New discus owner with lots of discus questions

Im going to move this to the beginners board. There are lessons in this thread that may help others.

Thanks for sharing the whole story. Often we get the beginning ..but not the conclusion.

Thank you,
Al

Thanks Al. Hopefully this thread can be of help to both new and experienced keepers.

Yea I also want to thank you for sharing the whole story. Like Al said, when a new discus-keeper's journey comes to a discouraging end it rarely gets posted, for obvious reasons. The fact that you did allows a first-hand account of someone's efforts along with the actual results to be available for other new-comers to see.

Anyway, your tank is cool, even if it not's right for disus.

Cheers Eric. I'm a new discus keeper, but long-time fish keeper, so of course had my fair share of deaths both natural and stupid so best thing to do is to let everyone else knows what I did wrong.

Frankly I am a bit surprised at how timid a young discus fish can be considering the reputation the adults have. I had young angelfish barely 2 inches long and they did not bat an eyelid when competing food with full-grown 4-inches-long Boesemani rainbows, very stark difference to the discus.

[Juku Eja]

Re: New discus owner with lots of discus questions

Sorry double post. Mods can delete this one pls thx.

[Filip]

Re: New discus owner with lots of discus questions

Thanks Al. Hopefully this thread can be of help to both new and experienced keepers.

Cheers Eric. I'm a new discus keeper, but long-time fish keeper, so of course had my fair share of deaths both natural and stupid so best thing to do is to let everyone else knows what I did wrong.

Frankly I am a bit surprised at how timid a young discus fish can be considering the reputation the adults have. I had young angelfish barely 2 inches long and they did not bat an eyelid when competing food with full-grown 4-inches-long Boesemani rainbows, very stark difference to the discus.

Juku Eja . I think you misinterpret your experience and outcome here and drawing wrong conclusions from it.

Your discus did not got sick and die because they got outcompete for food . They got sick- lost appetite and then die because of low water quality .They need a fresh(sterile) water more than any other freshwater fish you have kept . Every remark and post in this thread is acctualy about that - clean fresh water.

[Juku Eja]

Re: New discus owner with lots of discus questions

Juku Eja . I think you misinterpret your experience and outcome here and drawing wrong conclusions from it.

Your discus did not got sick and die because they got outcompete for food . They got sick- lost appetite and then die because of low water quality .They need a fresh(sterile) water more than any other freshwater fish you have kept . Every remark and post in this thread is acctualy about that - clean fresh water.

Hi Filip,
Yes I certainly don't think that they died just because they got outcompeted for food. I do think that my water quality is good with the amount of plants and size of filter I have, but perhaps not good enough for raising juvenile discus to a growth rate and size that veteran members here are used to. Having said that, IF I had put the 6 discus in the tank all by themselves and not surrounded by 30+ other active fish both sizeable and small, I'm sure they would have fared much better and confident most if not all will still be alive and kicking now, albeit growing at a slower rate than if kept in a sterile, bare-bottom tank with daily water changes.
Simply put, I underestimated how fragile the discus are compared to other juveniles like angelfish and rainbows, and how susceptible they are to stress and diseases.

[Filip]

Re: New discus owner with lots of discus questions

Hi Filip,
Yes I certainly don't think that they died just because they got outcompeted for food. I do think that my water quality is good with the amount of plants and size of filter I have, but perhaps not good enough for raising juvenile discus to a growth rate and size that veteran members here are used to. Having said that, IF I had put the 6 discus in the tank all by themselves and not surrounded by 30+ other active fish both sizeable and small, I'm sure they would have fared much better and confident most if not all will still be alive and kicking now, albeit growing at a slower rate than if kept in a sterile, bare-bottom tank with daily water changes.
Simply put, I underestimated how fragile the discus are compared to other juveniles like angelfish and rainbows, and how susceptible they are to stress and diseases.

Well, even if you decide to introduce large grown discus again some day, don't underestimate them either.
Because this kind of deep substrate planted environment with only weekly WCs could be detrimental for them also.
Don't forget, juvies or grown ups they are still very delicate fish that requires much more maintenance and fresh water than all the rest of freshwaters that we usually keep.