Odd or even?

[sleepers]

Hey all. Would you say it's best to have an odd or even number of discus "schooling" in the tank? For purposes of heirarchies/lowered agression, etc.

[chris]

Have as many discus as your tank can handle, Discus thrive in numbers 5 or 6 schooling, providing tank is big enough 40l per adult discus, I think thats 10galon per discus, to grant them maximum growth.
Pecking order works it self out with those numbers untill they start pairing up and spawning, thats another story :wink: HTH

[Proteus]

once you have more than 5 Discus, odds & evens isnt relevant, however 3 Discus should never be kept together.

[Woll]

They say odd numbers look more pleasing to the eye....

[sleepers]

Ok, with that in mind, I am going to add a 5th discus to my 55. They're all about 2-3 long right now, pretty young. I've noticed some mild sparring between the two big males, and the female is "blossoming" if you will, becoming more obviously female shaped.

I want to try and add a golden sunrise (there's a discus breeder about 1 hour away from me), a female if possible. Can anyone advise me on the process of adding both a male and a female to the set? In terms of what the ideal size would be, how much I should feed or not, and whether the male female thing even matters... keeping in mind the other four might even be from the same litter since I got them at the same time.

[Merrilyn]

Hi sleepers, the sex of the discus you add to the tank will make no difference. It's probably better to get fish of a similar size to your existing fish to limit the aggression.

Two fish sparring, does not necessarily mean two males, it could also be two females. So hard to tell at a small sizel. I am often surprised by what I think is a big handsome male, and I discover that she is laying eggs :shock:

Just get the colours that you like, and they will work out the breeding arrangements themselves :wink:

[DR.V]

Keep discus in a group of at least 6