New to discus. Need the basics please

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
I just got 2 wild discus from a guy who had them for sell and he seemed to know what he was doing. But he said they had been converted off ro water onto our water. Im wondering if you have to do this with all discus? My wife really likes these two we have so were planning on ordering more. But I need to find out who to order from, what to get how to get them on our water because I wont be running an r o unit. I have kept rays pbass and alot of other fish but from what I hear discus are a whole new game. Any help would be great thanks

You don't need to do this with all Discus. Tank breed strains need to acclamated to "your" water just like any type of fish you get. RO water is not nessisary for these fish. As far as breeding goes again tank breed strains do not require RO water, however newly imported wild fish would benift from this and it would improve your chances of a successful spawn considerably. Some wild sp. of Discus are harder to breed than others, most domestic strains are not too diffacult to breed provided their needs are being met.
To answer your original question no you don't need RO water. If the fish was doing well and healthy in your LFS water chances your water is similar and they should be fine. Clean water and a stable water chemisry is better than trying to adjust it. You should be fine, keep doing your water changes and provide a healthy diet. Succesfully keeping domestic Discus isn't much more difficult than any other SA fish just remeber to keep the environment clean gravel vac at each water change and do regular maintenance on your filters. GL
 
Thanks aquanero for the opinion. Im starting to feel more comfortable with getting.more. I keep clean water and frequent water changes.

And my tap water ph is 8.2 last I checked.?

that will be fine just make sure you acclimulate them properly they shouldnt have trouble. i herd they can breed in as high of a ph as 8.6 personally ive only witness 7.8-7.9 (my local tap)
 
Well that's good to know even though breeding isn't the goal (as of now) and as for the acclimation process, will the drip method that I explained earlier work?

Yes if you run a drip for a couple of hours that should be fine. Like I said before if it's a LFS chances are pretty good the water they use is the same as yours. Ask them.
 
Thanks for the help guys. I will add to this post when I get the new ones. As for the 2 I picked up earlier, they seem to be doing great. They are eating bloodworms and some flake. Do smaller discus always have black "freckles" on their fins and upper body? The bigger of the two has no black bit the smaller one seems to be be doing better even tho its showing more black
 
the freckles are know as peppering. mstly anything mix with pigeon blood will get it
 
Can you post pics...I believe the black you see is peppering. It is from domestic pigeon strains. Pigeon strains are not wild discus...the strain was developed in asia.
 
Aquanero i like all your answer you even help me by the way can you tell what size they bcome adult please.
 
MonsterFishKeepers.com