What is the maturing age for discus?

[yohann976]

I've had my five discus for about eight months now in a 90 gallon planted tank. When I purchased them from the pet store, they were only about two inches from top fin to bottom fin.

At first, they grew a little bit, maybe to about 2.5 inches. Then, for months they didn't grow at all. This past month, three of them have begun to grow again rather quickly. The largest one is about 3.5-4 inches. I cannot give you an exact number because I don't want to actually take the fish out of the water to measure it. I don't know why they stopped growing then started again.

I am wondering when they will reach maturity. I hope that they will get a little larger than what they are now.

[yohann976]

Know know that with most fish, you measure the size of a fish from mouth to tail fin, but do you do the same for discus? The measurement between the top fin and the bottom fin seems to be almost the same length (maybe a little longer) as measuring between the mouth and tail fin..

[wickedglass]

generally a fishes length is measured from the mouth to where the caudal peduncle and the tailfin join. This will give you an accurate measurement of the body length. This is done because fin length can vary (like in long finned fish). This is done for people, too. Consider the punk walking down the road with the 3 foot mohawk. She's still 5 foot tall, even though her combined hight makes her 8 foot.
your discus seem small for their age, how often do you feed and waterchange? Jack Wattley did an experiment at this fish farm where he put heavy duty filters on one tank of discus fry and did no waterchanges and in another tank he had the same amount of fry, some aeration and did 30% water changes every couple of hours. The waterchange babies ended up twice the size of those in the filter only tank (Warning: doing too few waterchanges will sslow your fishes' growthrate) ! This phenomenon is a lot more apparent in smaller fry and many people out here might have noticed at some stage theat their fry go through a growth spurt just after a waterchange.
Discus generally mature sexually after about 12 months.

[yohann976]

At first, I only changed my water once a week, but I noticed that my discus weren't looking too good. Now I change fifteen gallons of water twice a week. Every time I do a water change I notice that their colors seem to be more vibrant. Perhaps the recent rapid growth is due to the increased water changes. I know that by most of standards, twice a week isn't that much. I've read that some do 50% every day. That often isn't feasible for me though. The most that I would be able to do is larger water changes twice a week if that is suggested.

As for food... I know that I should be feeding them beefheart more often, but it is so messy. It gets scattered along the substrate and, for the most part, only the dominant discus feeds on it. If there another alternatives to beefheart?

[Bronx19]

To share my brief expereince with discus, I bought four fish almost a fortnight ago at around 2.5" and I've been surprised how fast they have grown. I actually asked two family members to check, incase I was seeing what I wanted to see, but sure enough, everyone agree's they've put on half an inch.

Ive changed 50% daily, fed twice a day.

[Dee]

Hello Yohann,

From my personal experience, Discus will generally be sexually mature from around 10-12 months onwards, having said that, I have had a pair that once produced wrigglers at around 6-7 months of age.

As for growth, they will generally not gain to much in size after 12-18 months, but will continue to "thicken out" after that period.

JMO

Cheers,

Dee :)