Between two extremes, what's the truth about discus care?

[janedoe2007]

Hi
I'm relatively a new addition to this hobby, I've been keeping small hardy fish for about a year now (Tetras, Gouramis). I know I'm not ready for the big fish yet but I hope to have a nice Discus tank in the future. So I started looking up all I can find about this beautiful fish and getting as much information as possible in hopes of finding out all I need to know to start a Discus tank. Well, what I found was FRUSTRATING :? !! I read so many articles saying that taking care of discus is easy as long as you understand their requierments, and then later on reading about the extensive water changing needed almost daily, the constant cleaning of the tank which might prove challenging in case of a planted or decorated tank, and the very finicky eating habits, constant eating :shock: !!

I'm here to talk to real people who raise and breed Discus, is this all true?
:?: Let me put it this way, I live in a country where people don't take this hobby seriously and getting very advanced equipment and varieties of live foods is very expensive and vertually impossible, so if I can provide a 200L tank fully equiped (sponge filters, heater and not too bright lights), with fine gravel and some decorations along with few live plants (mainly Java Fern), and if I set the temprature to 30 C, our tap water is soft and slightly acidic (pH 6.6). Would it be ok if I buy 6 discus (about 5 cm each) along with 4-6 Corys and some Snails? What kind of maintenance do I REALLY need to do? And can I get away with feeding them a mixture of lamb heart, white fish, frozen blood worms and flake food and maybe frozen peas??

I love Discus and I would take care of a pet no matter what it takes but before having this pet (this responsibility) I have to keep in mind that I'm a college student and I have many obligations both inside and outside the house. I would appreciate any help or guidance you can give in order to make the right decision about having this fish or not.

I'd like to point out that I'm not really interested in breeding them at first, I only want to keep a nice small school.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help.
:)

[Benny]

Hey Mate,

My only advice for you, is to understock your tank, if you dont want to maintain your waterchange regime too strictly.

[janedoe2007]

Can you be a little bit more specific please? How do I understock the tank? Do I keep less discus, maybe 5 or even 4? Can I keep only snails for the cleaning without the corys? And if I need corys how many are best?? And in this case how many water changes do you recommend?

[samir]

the sponge filters will not provide enough mechanical filtration. 6 discus should be okay for the time being. when they grow to full size you will be better off with four. you need a canister filter at least 1000l/hr i reckon. you do not need to feed any live food. there's a beefheart recipe by ladyred in the food section, try that, you can adjust it to whats available. if you find a canister filter expensive you could buy a cheap top filter and use it along with the sponge. its not hard to keep discus, but they are not tolerant of dirty water. as long as you do a good clean of your gravel and tank about once a week, do a weekly 50 % water change, and a couple of 10-20% water changes in between whenever you can., you will get by with no problems. as soon as you neglect the tank for more than a week or so thats when the problems can start. you should get a lot of good advice here, there are a few around that could probably write a better book on discus than most available,

[janedoe2007]

Thank you so much for the help and advice, that was comforting.

[Jeroen]

Hi Jane

Discus (in my opinion) is not so hard to keep
Some basic rules will help a lot (I try to tell from my experience or/and how we handle the rules where I live)

+/- 50 liter for each discus is required

a group from minimum 5 discus is best (it's a school fish)

they live good between 28 and 30 degrees celcius NOTE....28 makes your discus live longer, above 30 many diseases have no change to survive.

the bigger your filter, the better, if this is to expensive or not easy to get you can build something yourself....with plastic tanks of 20 a 25 liter you can do a lot

Water values apreciated: Ph between 6.5 and 7...if you have Wild caught then Ph between 6 and 6.5

pick your plants by temperature...a lot of plants do not survive 30 celsius

VERY IMPORTANT: regular water change...I have a few tanks, on breeding tanks I do WC every day, on my showtank once a week 20% (this all depends also on your filter size)

I prefer a sand bottom, discus like it, bigger gravel bottom can fill up with poo and rests of food...this will rot

I hope this will help you a little
If you wanna see how my showtank is making progress look for my posts STAGE 1 and STAGE 2

Jeroen

[bushie]

janedoe,

love the fish in your avatar.
eye formation is brilliant.
would love to see a full size picture of that fish...... :D

look around on this site regarding water change and filtration.
many good ideas and suggestions.
there seems to be a bit of a difference of opinnion regarding water change.
it all depends on your what you want from your fish.
obviously in a perfect world we could all do a 50% water change everyday but in reality unless your are breeding and just want to keep some nice show fish, once a week is possible as long as you have good filtration and low fish/ bio load.
any extra water changes that can be done are a bonus.
feed small amounts frequently.
and watch your water quality.
different people have different views on discus tankmates.
I think a small group of corys are great cleanup crew. remember that corys also like to be kept in groups of five or six.
and a small group of tetras is also benificial as it helps to calm the discus.
I prefer cardinal or rummy nose tetras, but there are many that will swim happily in discus water conditions.

HTH

bushie

[janedoe2007]

Thank you all for the advice and help, I think I'm ready to take on the responsibility of having a discus tank, hope all go well
Best regards

[Merrilyn]

Good luck janedoe. We'd love to see some pictures when you get your tank up and running. :P