Discus Care
You may have heard that discus are hard to kept or that they are to demanding. This is not the case! Discus are very easy to care for if you can meet a few simple needs! First of all, We cannot stress enough temperature. Discus that are breed in captivity like a higher temperature than there wild counterparts. Breeders often keep there tanks 84-90 degrees, This helps ward off disease. In doing this generation after generation, the discus have grown accustomed to higher temperatures. Second, specific pH is not crucial, but the stability of the pH is imperitive for the survival of your fish. We keep our discus at 7.5 but we have seen many people keep them in tap water with a pH as high as 8.2! Those discus were acclimated slowly over a few hours, but days would be better but unrealistic for most.) We have kept discus at tap water pH at LFS (local fish store) and have no trouble. We use the drip method of acclimation and have had great success. The reason we stress stability of pH is that we have seen many people try and keep discus at 6-6.5 this is hard to do, and often ends in failure. This has really discouraged alot of people from keeping discus. Also, many LFS carry very low quality discus as a result of going though cheap wholesalers. The norm is to typically import cheap B grade discus to generate the highest profit margin for the store. This lack of quality fish availability can also be very discouraging. Discus do better when they are kept in even numbers, also they do not ever do well alone. they are social animals (just like people) and need to interact with other members of their species in order to thrive. Adult discus cannot be kept with juveniles. The adults secrete a hormone that will stunt the young one's growth. Now we have come to the water changes. Discus demand 40-50% water change weekly. Discus do not tolerate nitrate well and levels MUST be kept low. If you test for nitrates regularly, you can do water changes whenever the nitrate gets to about 20ppm (parts per million.). Do not forget to heat the water before you make your water change. Rapid temperature changes can be stressful!
In short yes you can raise them in hard water.
Kory
