Discus in general

[chicken_boy_Kurt]

No offence to you guys but my Os have plenty of room to grow.

 

[ikevi]

If you don't mind what are the dimensions of the tanks... Obviously you don't feel there is something wrong with your setup... But well if your O isn't at least 7 inches by the end of its first year there are problems... Remember while an O may stop growing, its internal organs do not...

Here are a few tips for health tips:

http://www.oscarfishlover.com/content/view/15/29/

 

[chicken_boy_Kurt]

I don't know its a hexagon. And hes only like 5-6 inches. Actually its 2'x1'x18" but its a hexagon so its not exact.

 

[ikevi]

Ok so I am not even going to deal with making it into a hexagon... If you say your tank is an normal tank... it would be only 3 cubic feet (IE 2*1*1.5=3 cubic ft, ~7.5 gallons per cubic ft). That is only ~23 gallons... So in fact that size tank is likely even less than 20 gallons. And if you have 2 Oscars in there...

 

[chicken_boy_Kurt]

Just 1 and its at least a 40.

 

[ikevi]

Just 1 and its at least a 40.

Well I feel sorry for you fish, since you just told me that you had a 2" and a 6" (I will assume you have the 2" in a smaller tank than this "at least 40 gallon" tank that if it is the dimensions you gave me couldn't be bigger than a 20 gallon hex.

I am sorry but I am just going to leave this. I think you should read up on a lot of stuff before you start killing of fish. (Especially if you want to go into salt now too...) And you should real figure out what those dimensions are... if it was ~40 it would have to be about 2ftx2ftx1.5ft for a hex.

 

[ShadowBass]

I don't know its a hexagon. And hes only like 5-6 inches. Actually its 2'x1'x18" but its a hexagon so its not exact.

With those dimensions - and I'm not even sure how they even make sense - your tank is probably 15g or so at most. A rectangle with those dimensions comes out to 22 gallons and a hex would be much less volume.

Not sure how you decided it's a 40. Perhaps that just sounded like a nice round number? If your oscar stopped growing at 2 inches there is something horribly wrong with your water quality.

You won't even be able to keep discus alive in those type of conditions, whether your oscar eats them or not, so I would suggest passing until you have a setup that will properly house them and also learn to monitor your water conditions.

 

[chicken_boy_Kurt]

are discus worth the effort and what softens the water. are they really hard to keep. how do you test the hardness. i ask cause i think i want discus.

 

[Yanbbrox]

I'd love to comment in full but I'm having problems with my discus tank at the mo.

There are many products to soften tap water, if you want pure soft water then get an ro machine. Most people on here will disagree that you need soft water/ro to keep discus, search the forums and make your own mind up. There are many different ways of thinking that people on here keep there discus in. Wlydfya, one of the mods has massive ph swings everyday with no problems, others like myself have struggled to keep them at times in the text book(old fashioned) discus conditions, again search, read, search and read some more. Most tanks bred discus will be fine with anything they are used to.

The best course of action by far is to get your discus from a very good breeder/dealer and use what their discus are used to and go with that. I know at lot of people keep discus in a variety of water conditions and everyone who has them says their way is fine, simply because it works for them. If you get them from one good outlet and keep them in the same environment you will have less problems in the long term

 

[chicken_boy_Kurt]

Thanks are you saying to ask my LFS what their water parameters are and then copy that as best i can? Is the ro water machine almost necessary or just reccomended?