First time with discus
- Thread starter jacobfata
- Start date
I have read a lot on discus and chasing ph like you’re doing is a bad idea. They shock of going up and down in ph while you’re aiming for their natural ph level will harm the fish. It’s best to keep it at 7.6 and just keep it stable. They will be just fine in that ph level.
As for water changes, with the juvies you’re getting in, you really should do a 50-75% water change at least every other day. Juvies under 4-5” require a lot more water changes than adults. Once they hit 5”, then you can start decreasing water changes while monitoring nitrates to keep them below ten ppm.
That tank is a bit small for 11 discus, especially since you have several other fish in it. Generally, the rule with discus is one per every ten gallons, so a 55 should really have no more than six. Also, it’s not a good idea to keep a pleco with discus for a few reasons. The pleco can easily start feeding off of the discus slime coats. Also, the pleco is a dirty fish that will create waste that will bother the discus.
Your scape looks great, but when growing out juvenile discus under 4-5”, it’s best to do it in a bare bottom tank with no decor. Again, this all comes down to water quality. The juvies are very sensitive to water conditions and the decor and substrate gather detritus that fouls the water quickly and can harm them. With a bare bottom, you can easily see the detritus and remove it with a siphon. It does look beautiful though.
Basically, with discus, you have to either put in work or money to get large discus that are hardier and beautiful. Since you’ve opted to go for the 2” discus, they are going to require a lot of work to get them into the hardier larger discus that can be put into a nice display tank. The other option would have been to buy discus that are already larger and hardy, but that’s a lot more $$$.
Honestly, if you want to be successful with your new discus, I’d highly recommend you completely empty the tank of all fish, decor, substrate, etc, and use it as a bare bottom grow out tank for the juveniles until they reach about the 5” mark. As they grow, you will probably have to increase your water changes to every day since there will be so many in the 55. It will be a good idea to dwindle the stocking down as they grow so that you will eventually have fewer in the tank. Just get rid of the runts as time goes on. Once the get to the 5” mark, then you can reintroduce some substrate, decor, and plants. Just make sure you keep up with the associated maintenance when you do.
Lastly, be careful about the amount of flow in the tank. Discus can be easily stressed with too much flow because it tends to blow them around too much.
As for water changes, with the juvies you’re getting in, you really should do a 50-75% water change at least every other day. Juvies under 4-5” require a lot more water changes than adults. Once they hit 5”, then you can start decreasing water changes while monitoring nitrates to keep them below ten ppm.
That tank is a bit small for 11 discus, especially since you have several other fish in it. Generally, the rule with discus is one per every ten gallons, so a 55 should really have no more than six. Also, it’s not a good idea to keep a pleco with discus for a few reasons. The pleco can easily start feeding off of the discus slime coats. Also, the pleco is a dirty fish that will create waste that will bother the discus.
Your scape looks great, but when growing out juvenile discus under 4-5”, it’s best to do it in a bare bottom tank with no decor. Again, this all comes down to water quality. The juvies are very sensitive to water conditions and the decor and substrate gather detritus that fouls the water quickly and can harm them. With a bare bottom, you can easily see the detritus and remove it with a siphon. It does look beautiful though.
Basically, with discus, you have to either put in work or money to get large discus that are hardier and beautiful. Since you’ve opted to go for the 2” discus, they are going to require a lot of work to get them into the hardier larger discus that can be put into a nice display tank. The other option would have been to buy discus that are already larger and hardy, but that’s a lot more $$$.
Honestly, if you want to be successful with your new discus, I’d highly recommend you completely empty the tank of all fish, decor, substrate, etc, and use it as a bare bottom grow out tank for the juveniles until they reach about the 5” mark. As they grow, you will probably have to increase your water changes to every day since there will be so many in the 55. It will be a good idea to dwindle the stocking down as they grow so that you will eventually have fewer in the tank. Just get rid of the runts as time goes on. Once the get to the 5” mark, then you can reintroduce some substrate, decor, and plants. Just make sure you keep up with the associated maintenance when you do.
Lastly, be careful about the amount of flow in the tank. Discus can be easily stressed with too much flow because it tends to blow them around too much.
Thank you for your input. There is absolutely no way I’m dismounting the entire setup after putting so much work into it over the last eight months. You really feel like a sand bottom and some live plants and a piece of driftwood is going to cause a bad influence on their development? I know ten is a large bio load on the aquarium but being two inches I’m thinking about letting them grow and choosing the ones I like most and separating the others. I was told the two inch pleco would keep the aquarium algae free and with eleven discus the option for him to feed on the mucus would be so far spread out it wouldn’t harm the fish. What do you think?
My boyfriend and I setup the aquarium together. It’s our baby and we want it to thrive and mature. I have a lot of live plants and I plan on adding more to fill up the aquarium. I have moss and more driftwood on the way. I don’t want an ugly bare bottom aquarium. I may be growing them out but I want them to feel at home, they’re not objects to me they are living creatures and I feel like the least I could do is provide them with something similar to their nature habitat as much as possible.
You really feel as if 50% water changes daily are needed? I’ve never heard that from all of the other opinions I’ve gathered. I have 15 one inch tetras and a female beta. The pleco (which I’ll try to remove) along with ten two inch fish... are going to require daily fifty percent changes? I mean I have two aquaclears running which is double the filtration I should have along with two powerful powerheads along with sponges. 50% sounds like over kill and too much of a disturbance to me. I consider the tank full but not currently over stocked with their current size. Can I get some more opinions on water changes? I expect weekly 50-75% would be more than enough. Especially with the filtration and live plants that I have. But I want to do this the right way, whatever it takes.
And let me add; I’m not intending these fish to forever belong in a 55 gallon. I’m growing out the babies and keeping who ever pairs up and separting the rest. I DO NOT INTEND ON THIS BEING THE LIFETIME SETUP.
Also, stop trying to decrease the ph and leave it at regular tap water ph level? People keep telling me I need RO water, is this really needed or will my discus be just fine with tap water and prime? My entire life I was told discus need a low ph.
So are you saying my discus will not be ok in a setup with sand, plants and driftwood with 50-75 weekly water changes? I thought I was creating them an excellent setup until I read this.
Your set up looks great. I can see both side of the table here regarding the decor and lack there of.
I do not own discuss and most likely never will. But I do have rays which are also very sensitive to water parameters, and high waste producers. I also have chosen to have sand, driftwood, and live plants in my tank. Oops on behalf of maintenance, but it looks nice.
You are not required to strip the entire tank in order to keep the perameters where they need to be. But unfortunately what Travis is saying isn’t too far off. The decorations and plants and whatnot collect detritus and all sorts of gunk. This is why it is almost a daily cleaning job. I suck roughly 5-10 gal out every day. And I do a 70% weekly.
The 2”fish may not require this right away, but what you do need to do is watch what is happening and adjust to the new sizes as they come. They will get bigger and as that happens you need to adjust your cleaning and maintenance habits to suit their needs.
As for pleco cleaning a tank
let me guess the person selling it to you told you that! Lol. Such a falicy. If you like plecos as a fish they can be fun, I love them and have a small collection of them happening. But as for them being cleaners, not very likely. Check out some of the pleco section stickies to learn more about pleco behaviour. Some of the messiest fish I have ever had next to the rays.
One last concern is how you have gravel under your sand? I’m guessing this is a newly set up arrangement? I’m not trying to be a bearer of bad news by any means, but sometimes we need to hear things we don’t like in order to learn new stuff. Typically sand will fall to the bottom and the gravel will be sitting on top after a gravel vacuum going through it enough. One of the most irritating things about sand, is you have to regularly vacuum it in order to sift it around, or else it will often accumulate dead pockets of waste within it. If these pockets are left for a long time they can cause some seriously toxic areas in your substrate to (fart) off gas into your tank which could potentially kill all your beautiful little plates.
The gravel may not surface much, but I have a friend who had this mix and you don’t See any sand in his tank anymore. Also I have a tank with small gravel mixed with sand and all sand is on the bottom now.
I think your tank is beautiful and I would say it can work, but it may be more maintenance than you had originally anticipated.
I do not own discuss and most likely never will. But I do have rays which are also very sensitive to water parameters, and high waste producers. I also have chosen to have sand, driftwood, and live plants in my tank. Oops on behalf of maintenance, but it looks nice.
You are not required to strip the entire tank in order to keep the perameters where they need to be. But unfortunately what Travis is saying isn’t too far off. The decorations and plants and whatnot collect detritus and all sorts of gunk. This is why it is almost a daily cleaning job. I suck roughly 5-10 gal out every day. And I do a 70% weekly.
The 2”fish may not require this right away, but what you do need to do is watch what is happening and adjust to the new sizes as they come. They will get bigger and as that happens you need to adjust your cleaning and maintenance habits to suit their needs.
As for pleco cleaning a tank
let me guess the person selling it to you told you that! Lol. Such a falicy. If you like plecos as a fish they can be fun, I love them and have a small collection of them happening. But as for them being cleaners, not very likely. Check out some of the pleco section stickies to learn more about pleco behaviour. Some of the messiest fish I have ever had next to the rays.One last concern is how you have gravel under your sand? I’m guessing this is a newly set up arrangement? I’m not trying to be a bearer of bad news by any means, but sometimes we need to hear things we don’t like in order to learn new stuff. Typically sand will fall to the bottom and the gravel will be sitting on top after a gravel vacuum going through it enough. One of the most irritating things about sand, is you have to regularly vacuum it in order to sift it around, or else it will often accumulate dead pockets of waste within it. If these pockets are left for a long time they can cause some seriously toxic areas in your substrate to (fart) off gas into your tank which could potentially kill all your beautiful little plates.
The gravel may not surface much, but I have a friend who had this mix and you don’t See any sand in his tank anymore. Also I have a tank with small gravel mixed with sand and all sand is on the bottom now.
I think your tank is beautiful and I would say it can work, but it may be more maintenance than you had originally anticipated.
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For your substrate, yes, I do think it will cause an issue with the juvenile discus development, especially with how deep it is and especially since you have larger gravel underneath the finer sand. Even though the sand is fine and appears to only have detritus sit on top, it doesn’t. The detritus will get down into the sand and will foul the water too quickly for what the juvenile discus need. You just won’t be able to see it like you can on a bare bottom tank. The same goes for the plants and driftwood, although those are easier to get in and clean out during water changes, so I can see them being ok if proper maintenance is done.
You are definitely on the right track of narrowing down the ones you keep as time goes along, provided the tank size stays the same. If going to a bigger tank like a 125, then you’ll be fine to keep them all.
As for the pleco, the two main problems are it dirtying the water because they have a heavy bioload and if it gets the taste for discus slime coat. The dirty fish part won’t go away and it will not be 2” for very long. The bigger it grows, the bigger it’s bioload will be and the worse it will be for growing discus. The slime coat eating is not a for sure thing, but if it happens, the pleco can do a lot of damage in a short amount of time. Even if it spreads its attacks out across the group, each fish will be stressed and prone to infection and may never fully recover. It’s best to get rid of it and combat algae with proper water changes, tank maintenance, and plant nutrition. Look into what your plants need to flourish, but be very careful if you decide to run co2 because discus are very sensitive to it and can easily be suffocated. Also be careful in what you add for the plant nutrition because it all affects the water quality and can have adverse effects on the discus.
For the water changes, yes, I absolutely think 50-75% is necessary for juvenile discus under 4-5”. People telling you otherwise either never dealt with growing out discus or they have poor quality and unhealthy ones. Once they get over the 5” mark, then the water changes can begin to slow down, as long as the water quality remains up to par. Discus over 5” are far more hardy than those under.
For the filtration and water changes, the amount of filtration has nothing to do with the number of necessary water changes. You can have 25 FX6’s on the tank and the waste produced will still be the same, which will still require the same amount of water changes. This again comes down to your decision to get not just juveniles, but very young 2” juveniles. They are extremely sensitive to the amount of nitrates and TDS in the water...much more so than any other fish I know of. This is why they need water changes so often. If you do not keep up with these water changes then it will cause the fish to become stunted and unhealthy, which will be irreversible damage to the fish’s wellbeing. This is also why the substrate and decor are bad ideas for growing out discus. They hold detritus that increases nitrates and TDS in the tank.
For the other dither fish, they would be fine if the tank were bigger. However, with the size of the tank and the number of discus you’re getting, I highly recommend going with the discus only. They are a very skittish fish that is easily stressed out, even by smaller fish.
The powerheads should be removed. The filters themselves provide plenty of flow to keep the tank healthy and discus have a physical build that makes them unable to handle high flow situations very well. Again, this will add to their stress, which will cause them to become unhealthy and stunted. Instead of relying on flow to keep the tank “clean” you will need to use the gravel vac to suck out any detritus you see settled on the bottom of the tank whenever you’re doing a water change, sometimes even in between water changes. Along with this, make sure you do filter maintenance a few times a week. The detritus that gets caught in the filters is still putting waste into the aquarium until it is removed.
To touch on ph again, you will definitely be fine with your tap water as long as you treat it with prime. It would help to age it and preheat it in a barrel or brute trash can for at least 24 hours beforehand, but it’s not required. You can certainly go the RO water route, but make sure you are using a supplement that will remineralize the water afterwards. They make supplements specifically for discus. Either way you decide to go, don’t go chasing ph. Just be consistent and the discus will be fine. They are much more sensitive to ph swings because you’re chasing that correct ph than they are to higher ph levels. Discus Hans uses just tap water and he has some of the best discus in the industry. I remember hearing that the ph of the water he uses is at or over 8.0.
This is all knowledge I have gained looking into discus for years. I am a member on the Simply Discus forum and have spent countless hours reading on that forum about discus care. That is an entire forum that is for only discus. I have not bought discus for myself yet because I do not have the time or money to care for them properly since I have a family, house, full-time job, take evening classes, etc.
I see two routes for you to go here if you want healthy, large, colorful discus. First, you can take the advice I’ve given you and convert your tank (or get another one) into a bare bottom growout tank and do the necessary water changes until the discus are grown and can be moved into a scaped tank. Or, the second option is to cancel the order for the juvenile discus and instead order six larger discus that are 5” or bigger.
There is a reason why the larger discus cost so much money. It’s because of the care it takes to get them there. They require many many many water changes and a lot of time siphoning the bottom of the tank. If they only required a 50% water change once a week in a scaped tank then the adult fish would be way cheaper.
I’m truly not trying to be difficult, I am just trying to be real with you so that you are setup for success and not failure. I’ve seen a ton of threads over on Simply Discus where people start exactly like you’re describing and then come to the forum because their fish keep dying or won’t grow. Then, when people over their tell them what they’re doing wrong and how to do things right, often times they come back with stuff like “the guy at my LFS said all I needed was to do a 50% water change once a month.” Often times they don’t believe the forum members and often times they lose most or all of their fish.
I truly wish you the best of luck with your discus endeavor and hope to see some beautiful pictures of them. They are definitely one of my absolute favorite fish.
