Some General Questions

[tsskinne]

I have had my first discus a blue turq for about 3.5 months now, each month i have added another one so i now have a total of three. A blue diamond, and another one called a some thing gold, its basically red, and white, with blue fins. Anyway i feed them a cube of blood worms in the morning and a cube of mosquito larvae at night and i was wondering if this is enough? I also do a 20% water change every other day. The fist are in my 55 gal. tank with one Black Ghost Knife, 2 loaches, and a school of 10 tetras. Also one small pleco too. I have a huge dual bio-wheel filter that is actually for tanks up to like 80 gallons, as well as a powerhead with filter attachment on it. Any advice i would appreciate, all seem to be doing well and growing somewhat, just wanted to make sure im making no errors with these beautiful expensive fish, thanks.

[jwight]

I would say you are not feeding them enough. I feed my fish 2 cubes of a variety of things about 3 times a day interchanged with sera discus granules another 3 more times. Also while I also have 3 in one tank for a short amount of time it is not the best option. Groups of 5-6 is much better. It is also better to add discus in groups to a tank once quaritined.

[nicholas76]

It sounds like you have a busy community tank.


Black Ghost Knife are not safe with discus. In fact i would also say that the other fish are not safe from them as well.

what size are the discus and these other fish? is the tank planted? or bare bottom

a picture tells a thousand words, are you able to post a picture for us?

[tsskinne]

Hey guys thanks for the advice, i have heard many things about the black ghost knife but he has been fine in my tank with everything, not aggresive at all and he is about 9 inches, two of the discus are about 4.5 inches and the blue diamond is really small maybe only 3. I'll post a pic too, but it was taken when i only had one discus in the tank.

[tsskinne]

Hey guys thanks for the advice, i have heard many things about the black ghost knife but he has been fine in my tank with everything, not aggresive at all and he is about 9 inches, two of the discus are about 4.5 inches and the blue diamond is really small maybe only 3. I'll post a pic too, but it was taken when i only had one discus in the tank.

[jim from sydney]

I have had my first discus a blue turq for about 3.5 months now, each month i have added another one so i now have a total of three. A blue diamond, and another one called a some thing gold, its basically red, and white, with blue fins. Anyway i feed them a cube of blood worms in the morning and a cube of mosquito larvae at night and i was wondering if this is enough?

to make sure im making no errors with these beautiful expensive fish, thanks.

Hi tsskinne.....
Discus have small tummies relative to body weight and size. Hence they like to eat relatively little but often.... best is to let them eat for a while to see how much they can take-in.....i give mine as much as they can eat in 1 hour and then remove the left-overs. i do this morning and night.....this works well....remove the left-overs as un-used food will create nasties like ammonia...that way your fish will love you forever.....Jim

[Merrilyn]

Anyway i feed them a cube of blood worms in the morning and a cube of mosquito larvae at night and i was wondering if this is enough? I also do a 20% water change every other day. The fist are in my 55 gal. tank with one Black Ghost Knife, 2 loaches, and a school of 10 tetras. Also one small pleco too.

Hi tsskinne, glad to hear your fish are doing well.

You've got a nice looking setup with that tank. I'll try to answer your questions one at a time.

Feeding: Bloodworms and mosquito lavae are good, but I'd like to see you add some good quality commercial dry food as well, for the added vitamins and minerals that your fish need. Flake or pellet is fine, but it may take your fish a little while to accept the new food. Offer it first thing in the morning, when your fish are hungry, and they will soon accept it.

Tankmates: The black ghost knife sounds fine to me. I've seen them in with discus before, without any problems. The purists will tell you that discus should be kept on their own, with no other fish in the tank, and I must admit, that is certainly the easiest way to keep them, but I have other tankmates in my display tank with my discus, and have no problems. It's all a matter of keeping a close watch on things, and stepping in at the first sdign of trouble.

Your tetras are ideal tankmates for discus, requiring the same water chemistry and temperature. My only concern is the clown loaches. They are a fast swimming fish, and active after dark, when your discus are trying to sleep, and may cause problems.

As for the pleco, it depends on the type. Most of the small ones are fine, but the bigger ones tend to get a taste for the body slime of the discus, and will suck on the discus sides. Your discus will be most unhappy about this, so keep an eye on it.

Filtration: Sounds perfect to me. Your waterchange routine sounds ideal. Can you post your pH, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and Gh. Also the temperature.

So far, things are looking good. Do you intend adding more discus to that tank. You can easily add another 1 or 2 without any problems.

[tsskinne]

sorry i wasnt more specific but my loaches are a striata, and a polka-dot, they basically play with each other all day and rest at night from what i can tell, im a college student so im usually up really late watching them and they seem fine. The pleco has not yet touched the discus yet and i keep an eye on that because i have heard of the problems. I do not do my actual own water test but i take it to my LFS and it has always turned up fine they say, im going to take some more in tomorrow and i will write down the results so i can post them on here, thanks again to everyone for helping, and also is my tank reaching max capacity, or do you think it would be good to have another one or two discus in there still? and also how big total do they get because i have heard anything from 5 inches to the size of a dinner plate so any help would rock, thanks.

[Merrilyn]

The "size of a dinner plate" is an interesting comparison :P

I would say most discus max out at 6 inches (plus tail) with very few going over that mark. You need to allow 10 gallons per adult fish, so your tank will still comfortably take another 1 or 2 discus without any problems.

HTH