My first attempt at Discus

[miscus]

Hi all. I am new to this forum and about to try my first discus. I have just set up a 2 foot cube tank (ie. 2 x 2 x 2 foot) with a pair of each of the A. cacuatoides, N. anomola, kribs and some peppermint catfish. After it has finished cycling and I have the water parameters just right for discus I am going to track some down (in or near canberra) and add them to the tank (after quarantine of course). My question is, the tank holds 215 litres (lets say 200 L after you take into account the plants, rock caves, gravel etc), so how many smallish discus can I start in there? It is filtered by a Fluval 304 external cannister filter fitted with a spray bar to reduce the current. Once I become addicted I will move onto restocking my 4 foot tank with them. But for now I thought I would try them in my dwarf cichlid tank.

Wish me luck

[kalebjarrod]

you can have one adult to 10 gallons of water.

don't bother putting the discus in the samll tank to see if you get hooked. fact: you will get hooked, let your family know now, seek councilling and a series of 4footers

LOL

[flukes]

First off welcome too the forum! 8)

An adult need 40litres, in that tank i would put 6 small discus. 6 is a good number to start with anyway.

The best thing too do is plan ahead. Healthy water = Healthy discus, so try design a system that will make water changes as easy as possible.

Can be as simple as a drum with a pump, anything is better than carting buckets around the house.

Also if you dont know ask, its better too find out from people who have been there before, rather than killing your fish.

Anyway thats it for now, good luck. By the sounds of it you have a fair bit of experience with fish already. Discus arnt that much harder to keep than other freshwater fish, its mainly about water quality.

[Merrilyn]

Hi miscus and welcome to the forum. Ryan is right - one taste of discus and you will be hooked on the 'king of the aquarium'. Your 2x2x2 tank will be ideal to begin with, and later you can use it for a breeding pair or for raising fry. That's a very versatile size. Discus are very picky about water quality, so we tend to recommend people start with bare bottom tanks. Good food and good water will give your youngsters a great start, so plan on changing 30% of the water in your tank about 3 times a week..... :D

[weird]

I like your 2x2x2, I wish I could change my 2x1x2, which 1 year ago was my biggest tank now my smallest into one.

Eventually you will require some size of a 4 foot tank though I think. I was just thnking today how my 4x2x2, would look better as a 6x2x2 ... oh, shoot if I could I would just fill the whole house with water !!!!!! Anyone got any huge plastic bags ?

[flukes]

Just use an epoxy and seal the whole house, dilcone any windows and do a few coats with a water proof sealant.


Thought of that one before... :wink:

[kalebjarrod]

how rude of me miscus, i din't even say g'day

i agree with flukes and the lovley ladyred, get a drum or a container of some sort and age your water, preheat it to the same temp as your tank (you may need to add some chemicals if depending on your area, i don't) and do 30% water cahnges a few times a week.

water is the key, spend some time getting thewater setup right and you won't have anyproblems :wink:

[miscus]

Gee thanks for the hellos and advice guys. Nice to find a helpful and also friendly forum. Yep, from what I have read, water quality is definitely the key to keeping discus. At this stage I always have at least 50L of water aging ready to go and I currently do 20% water changes every week on my other tanks so changes of 30% twice per week should not be too much of a problem. My garden sure does thank me for it, it just loves all that fish poo. :lol: I usually have the water at room temperature and then add some small volumes of boiled water til the temp comes up to the same as the tank. But the heater in the bucket sounds like a safer idea. I still have a couple of weeks before I will be happy with the tank being well cycled so then, discus, look out!

[flukes]

For a 215ltr tank, you will really want a bigger storage barrel than 50litres. I use a 200 and i hate filling that up every second day.

You can find cheap 200litres food grade storage barrels just about any where. Then just throw in a air pump and a heater. Add de-chlor when you fill it up and your right too go.

[kalebjarrod]

this place has been recommended on another forum

try www.drumpak.com brisbane company but i'm sure they can courier anywhere :wink: