Am I on the right track??

[Dan Annable]

Purchased two Turquoise Discus about 3 Weeks ago. They are about 2.5 inches in size in comparison with just over 2 inches at purchase.

1) 20 Gallon Tank with sand for base and two amazon sword plants with a
few large rocks to hide behind.

2) Water changes every 3 days of 1 bucket (4-5 gallons). Using Aqua Plus
to remove the chlorine and adding 1 tbspn of aquarium salt per water
change. As noted below my ph is hanging around 8-8.5 and slowly
dropping with each water change.

3) Testing for Amonia every 2-3 days (currently at 0) and PH (about 8.0-
8.5).

4) Feeding Nutrafin Discus food and freeze dried tubifex worms about
2-4 times per day. No buildup of food on the bottom. They
are eating very good.

5) Temperature is 84-86 degrees.

6) Aqua Clear 200 filter.

So far so good but had a rough go at the beginning. One started hiding all of the time, not eating and white spots were appearing on the fin. Treated with Antibiotics for 5 full days and they made a remarkable recovery. Started adding 1tbspn of aquarium salt per water change and they got their appetite back. One concern is they seem to poke each other once and awhile but no damage is done. One discus is darker than the other but I understand that is how the order of things work, I think.

So am I on the right track?? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[Carol_Roberts]

Hi Dan, welcome to SimplyDiscus

I would like to see you change a bucket of water every day. My pH is over 8 right now too. I'm not concerned that the pH in your tank is 8+. I do wonder what the pH is in the bucket of clean water . . . hopefully it's not too much lower than the water in the tank. If it is you can simply run an airstone in the bucket of water overnight to raise the pH closer to your tank water.

Salt is only used for a week or so for new or sick discus. We don't keep it in our tank all the time

Your two discus may strike a balance and get along with each other . . . . or one may pick on the other until it quits eating. . . . you'll have to watch and see.

In the meantime enjoy your new discus and read through the different sections of the board. . . .discus are addicting

[CHughes]

Dan:
Sounds like you are doing the right things. Carol is right about checking the water values (pH, GH,...etc.) of your change water. Extreme changes can happen in your water supply, so you may want to consider getting a larger tank for the Discus and using the 20 gal for a holding tank for water changes....oh boy more aquariums ;D

You are right about the pecking order. Somewhere (probably in this forum) 3 discus together seems to be a magic number...it works for me anyway!

My experience with flake and freeze dried foods hasn't been very good. You may want to consider frozen bloodworms, brineshrimp, beef heart, etc..

Keep us posted on your experiences.

Chris

[Carol_Roberts]

Actually four is better than three discus. My discus won't eat freeze dried foods, but will eat flake. Frozen bloodworms are good too ;D

[CHughes]

[quote author=Carol_Roberts link=board=21;threadid=8344;start=0#88959 date=1048907941]
My discus won't eat freeze dried foods, but will eat flake. Frozen bloodworms are good too ;D
[/quote]

Well, that means even more tanks doesn't it! Each discus needs 10 gals, so it looks like Dan you need at least a 50 gal tank. (And no I'm not a fish tank salesman).

But seriously, having lost a few in my earlier days of discus keeping, I've had discus pig-out on freeze dried and flake food to the point they bloat up causing float bladder problems; sad to say they all pasted on the the great big tank in the sky.

It seems the dry food rehydrates after ingestion causing pretty bad trauma to the fish. So now I refuse to feed my fish anything but frozen or fresh food.

Once again, this is just my experience, your mileage may vary!

Chris

[Ryan]

Chris,

You can pre-soak pellets and flakes in a cup of aquarium water for 5 or 10 minutes to prevent this bloating problem. This is what I do with the Tetra Colorbits that I feed.

Ryan

[Dan Annable]

Thanks for all of the advice, especially Carol for responding so fast.

Well, three weeks and still going strong. If the sun every actually goes out I will post some pics. Looks pretty good for a little 20 gallon

I have a 35 gallon community tank. If the discus thrive for some time I might consider doing a very very carefull change over or purchase a bigger tank.

One thing I have heard is leaving the water over night is very good as well before using it for a water change. Going to try this while still using the aqua plus of course without any aquarium salt. Heard this is a good practice as far as ph is concerned.

Interesting stuff on the food. No worries on the freeze dried worms as they have completely lost interest. They are still gobling up the floating pellets (Nutrafin For Discus).

Heard bloodworms carry parasites that can kill your fish, any truth to this? : :

[Dan Annable]

Here is the best pic I have so far at least until the sun comes out.

[Carol_Roberts]

Setting the water our overnight helps a little, putting an airstone in it to move the water around helps even more. (Stablizes the pH)

It's hard to get good fish pictures. I steal lights off other tanks and put several on one tank when I take pictures. I take about 20 pictures to get one good one. Thank goodness for digital cameras.