New discus help!!!

[GrkBoy]

Greetings to all from Greece. I must say I LOVE this forum, its great help to us newbies!

I recently bought a mature 13cm pigeon pearl which I added to my 250l planted tank. My tank allready contains 3 juvenile discus ranging from 5cm - 7cm, and about 18 cardinals which were originally used to establish my tank. My juveniles are about 3 weeks old, although still very shy, when it comes to feeding time, they come out, eat like crazy, graze for leftovers, and then when they see a person approach the tank, swim like crazy to their hidding spots...

From the day I added my pigeon pearl (3 days ago), firstly my juveniles showed signs of being even more scared, they also are more aggresive towards eachother, pecking at eachother and fighting over food and hiding spots...

My pigeon pearl hasn't eaten anything since the day I added him, and at times (1-2 times a day) he attacks his reflection or dives into the sand swimming like crazy freaking out the juveniles even more. He occasionly swims arround, but then hides again, where he spends most of his time.

Now are the above reactions both normal for my juveniles and my mature, will they settle in over time?? and what could be the cause of my matures sudden freaking out?? At night they seem to be a little more active but im guessing that is because of less light they don't see me approaching the tank.

My water paramaters are -

p.h - 6,6
GH - 5
KH - 1
ammonia - 0
nitrite - 0
nitrate - 30
temp 29 deg C
I use a deionizing filter to get my desired water.

Any help or advice will be GREATLY appreciated. Keep up the great work on the forum, and forgive me for the long speech! :)

[nicholas76]

Welcome to the forum!

and thats coming from one greek boy to another from the other side of the world.

In my opinion the things you state about your newly acquired tank fish are pretty common and in most cases normal

For example my new fish are quickly scampering off and hiding when i enter the room but them come out and eat like pigs shortly after.

Its been just on a month now and they are starting to respond to me being in front of the tank.



A new discus addition to the tank which is scared will often scamper the rest of the fish . In other words if one does the bolt they all generally follow!


Noticed your nitrates are way too high. Get this down to 5ppm or less if your tank is bare bottom. Simply do more water changes.

hope this helps

keep smiling

NIck

[GrkBoy]

Thanks for the tips Nick, il keep up the water changes, and keep my fingers crossed.