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View Full Version : Plant "Islands" - Calming Effect on Discus?



ikavia
Fri Feb 02, 2007, 01:54 AM
This is more of a discus behaviour question, but relating to plants so I have posted here.

I used to have my plants kind of evenly and sparsely spread over my entire 3 foot tank. I found that my 2 inch blue diamond juvenile was constantly hiding under the heater and would rarely come out, due to my 3 inch blue cobalt terrorising him (my larger pigeon blood just seemed to be above all of this and rarely touched either).

Recently I re-landscaped my existing plants into two "islands" - one substantially larger than the other. This was basically for aesthetics.

Almost immediately after landscaping I noticed that my blue diamond came out and appeared to have a lot more confidence. If the blue cobalt harrassed him he would quickly dive back into the thicker cover of the larger island.

The difference is absolutely amazing - the blue diamond now comes and eats out of my hand at the same time as the other two discus. I see him out and about a lot more and he appears less stressed.

I have two theories on this:
1) The thicker cover provided by the islang allows a quick hiding spot which means that the blue diamond can risk coming out. When there weren't any thick hiding spots he had to keep hidden most of the time as there was no where to retreat to.

2) Disturbing the plants removed old territories and all three discus as well as the other occupants were forced to find new territories.

Has anyone else experience something similar?

Dangerous Dave
Fri Feb 02, 2007, 02:34 AM
More likely that the redecoration of the tank removed the old territories and all the discus were back to square one.
You may also want to add to the number of your discus if you have the room.
Discus generally do better and are more adventurous if they are kept in groups of 5 or more.

ikavia
Fri Feb 02, 2007, 04:25 AM
More discus is the plan for sure - just haven't gotten around to it yet.

sonflowerjoela
Sat Feb 03, 2007, 03:17 PM
Do you have any pics of your islands? It sounds very interesting! :D

ikavia
Sun Feb 04, 2007, 11:41 AM
No pics at present. However I just mean that I have two planting groups in the tank. I got the idea after seeing the following post, which should give you an idea of what I'm talking about.

http://www.discusforums.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10284