the tank is the one in my signature except if i did the discus then it would only be the angels, tetras and cats (none of the other cichlids, but maybe still the HRP, depending on whether he minds his manners or not) but yeah so how many could i comfortably add, it would be my first time with discus. and i currently do 50-70% weekly water changes, i was thinking 4? when they are still young i was planning to do water changes every other day to every 2 days and then gradually move it back to once a week once they were larger would this be adequate? (i know there are mixed feelings on the amount of water changes discus need so i just wanted to get more input on this as well, i am definitely not motivated enough to do daily water changes on such a large tank, but if they need daily water changes as juvies i do have a 20g long i could grow them out in that i can easily do daily water changes on)
How Many Discus Could I Add?
- Thread starter Sarah88
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How big are the discus you are getting? If they are small, I would not put 4 in a 120 gallons tank.
im not sure exactly how large they are going to be but i think fairly small, are you saying that because they wont be able to get food or is there some other reason? but yeah i have a 20g long i can grow them out in if they are really small thats right by my sink so its very easy for me to do large daily water changes on, but would 4 be good for the 120 as adults or do you think i could safely add more than that? i dont know how much waste they put out so i was just thinking that would be a good number so that once grown it wouldn't be too crowded
Sarah88;4365239; said:
There's a woman on the local forum here in my city, that breeds discus. She does ( I think ) about 15-20% WC everyday, instead of the weekly 50%. Just thought I'd add that...She has fry like crazy...
thanks for the input geronimo, and yeah i know a lot of people do daily water changes with the guys and i wish i could as well but i just know if i tried doing that on my 120g tank that i would get burned out quick and it would only last a couple weeks before i got fed up with it, and i wouldnt enjoy my tank as much if i was having to do that many water changes, and my nitrates barely ever even reach 10ppm throughout the week so i dont know what benefit daily changes would have anyways since my nitrates are already so low (but of course on the small grow out tank i would definitely do daily water changes)
Yes.. 4 little discus will get lost in a big tank like that. If your goal is to grow them out, it's not efficient to use such a big tank. Depending on their age, but I would rather keep them in a smaller tank for a few months.
I put about a dozen of baby discus (about 1") into a 20 gallons tank until they are 3"+ before I moved them into a bigger tank. Keeping them in a small tank, I could feed them more frequently and do a few WC a day.
I put about a dozen of baby discus (about 1") into a 20 gallons tank until they are 3"+ before I moved them into a bigger tank. Keeping them in a small tank, I could feed them more frequently and do a few WC a day.
ok yeah that is what i was thinking you meant so yeah i would definitely grow them out first in the 20g tank then, but do you think i should stick with four or could i safely do more than that (asking in terms of long term adults in my 120g with the stock i said and not have to do more than twice weekly water changes)
I would bump the number up to 6 or 8. I kept all my babies in our 20 long grow out, and moved them to our 75 gallon after about 3 months in the small tank. (I would power feed them, get them pumped and healthy, then move them). In the small tank I did 20% a wc daily, and when I moved to the 75, I did 30% every other day for about a month, before I finally took it back to my normal weekly 50% with the other tanks. I personally wanted them to get over the fear of other faster fish, so I have a pretty busy tank. We have a big shoal of clowns, but have a couple rainbow cichlids, a Flagtail, a couple senegal bichirs, a dwarf giraffe cat, striped ralph, a BGK, ABK, a few baby plecos of different sorts, and a few others (ID sharks too before they got moved). My two in the 75 right now, are very curious, they don't care about anyone else. They hid for about a day, but since then have had no issues. No hiding in corners. My loaches (about 40 of them) will swarm the front of the tank come dinner time and the discus are right there with them. I do have to make sure that they eat enough though, so the Discus are hand fed their bloodworms while everyone else is eating. Then they go around after they ate and find the left overs of the pellets, shrimp etc. I We are going to be moving our big tank residents into a pond soon, and convert that tank to the final discus tank/loach tank. 
My concern is, in a tank such as yours the Discus will be out competed for food. Being slow grazers you have some aggresive eaters in there and I'm concerned the Discus wouln't get anything to eat. Even Angles take the food as the Discus blow it up off the bottom of the tank. My two cents.
This is how I grow mine out as an experiment. The video is about 1 month old when they were @3 age. They are now in a 75gal as they are getting bigger and starts to develop their color and pattern. This was my first attempt to grow them in a 20 gallon tank and this is the only way I would do it in the future.
click to see video.
http://s662.photobucket.com/albums/uu341/DiscusOnly/?action=view¤t=IMG_0154.mp4
click to see video.
http://s662.photobucket.com/albums/uu341/DiscusOnly/?action=view¤t=IMG_0154.mp4