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Hello

Happy new year to everybody

i've jsut statrd setting up my 60 us gal tank (100cmx45x55) again after it standing empty for over 12 months.

it is cycling at the moment with just few plants and some bogwood.

My plan is to have a shoal of rummynose tetra - amount?
a shoal of ottos to keep any algae in check.
then a shoal of discus again how many do you think for my tank?

any other advise on keeping these fish will be very helpful

i've kept fish for many years and have always want discus.

thanks

Shekoi

www.blooming-brilliant.co.uk

Hi SheKoi

it is cycling at the moment with just few plants and some bogwood.

You probably know the tank needs more than that to cycle. You need a source of ammonia. Don't use your Discus to cycle the tank with. They should only go in when tank is already well & truly cycled.

While this forum is a great place, if you are going to take the discus plunge, I would recommend you join one of the discus forums. They will give you heaps of great information. Two that I am involved with are:-

http://forum.simplydiscus.com/ and http://www.discusforums.com/

You can fit 6 maximum in your tank (10US G = 1 adult discus). Discus are a schooling fish, so a minimum of 5 would be best. Rummynose tetra are fine with discus.

From what I've learnt in my 3 years of discus keeping, the important thing is that if you look after the water, the discus will look after themselves. Keepings things clean & constant will make for happy discus.

I haven't found my routine altered very much at all with the introduction of discus. For the first 2.5yrs of keeping discus, I kept to my routine of 50% water change weekly. I've recently moved to 2 x 40-50% wc per week. I don't think discus deserve their reputation as being hard to keep. If you don't like doing at least a minimum of 1 or 2 water large changes a week, they're not for you. You can get away with 1 x 30-40% change a week, but be prepared to up the frequency at the first sign of trouble. They're big meaty fish who like clean water. As long as you're ok with the water changes, you should be fine

Cheers
TW

thanks for the reply

i've added some bacteria start, to help thinks along, these should remove the ammonia from the tap water, then after about a week i'll add a few rummies to get thinks really going.

i think i'll go for 5 discus, would it be best to get them from the same place and introduce them all at the same time? so that a couple are never on their own!

Shekoi



www.blooming-brilliant.co.uk

well they are to small for ur tank but look great with discus are freshwater sting rays like the riticulated ray or motro would be fun to have if u plan to upgrade to a much larger tank.

Rummies are sensitive fish that require good water. They may not survive the cycle.

Are you able to do fishless cycle with pure ammonia? When you do a fishless cycle, once it is cycled you can add a full tank load straight away. But if you cycle it with a bunch of small fish, even when it is cycled it may be too much for the existing bacteria to deal with 5 discus at once, unless they are quite small.

Do a google search for fishless cycle and you'll get lots of info.

Adding 5 at once, all from the same source, is best. That way you don't have to worry about QT. If however, you only get 3 now, but later get another 2, you should quarantine the new ones for at least a month (I do it for 2 months).

I really recommend a discus specific forum. By reading through the threads there & asking questions, they can help you avoid the mistake of buying a discus that is in poor condition. I've been keeping them around 3years & haven't found them so difficult, but have used the discus forums on numerous occasions if I have struck trouble.

Are you getting juveniles or adults? Juveniles, to grow properly, require extra work, but are usually cheaper. For them to grow properly & not end up stunted, they need to be fed around 4 times a day with daily water changes. This is hard in a planted tank, so BB or thin layer of sand is best. I was given this advice as a discus newbie, but didn't follow it. I have 2 stunted discus as a result. I still like them, but they will never reach their potential.

You can tell a discus is stunted if the eyes are too large. If you were to draw a vertical line from the top of the discus head to his chin, passing through his eyes, you should be able to imagine around 7 eyes along that line. If you send me a PM with your email address, I can copy a page from a discus book I have with a sketch of this, if it's hard to follow.

A quick tip if you plan on eventually having them in a planted tank is that some discus get "peppering". Looks like freckles & sometimes is so thick on a discus that it looks like it is dirty. This only happens to discus that are pigeon blood based. The peppering seems to be worse in a planted tank with dark substrate & background, as the discus tries to blend in with it's surroundings. So you might bring home a nice clean looking pigeon discus & in certain tank environments, it may pepper up. Move it to a BB or sand bottom tank with a light background, the peppering usually reduces. I have been lucky, I only have one pigeon blood in my planted tank & it only has slight peppering. It depends on the individual pigeon discus. If you don't mind peppering, not an issue, but peppering is usually considered undesirable, but at the end of day, if you like peppering, it doesn't matter a bit. It's just
something for you to think about.

Turks & Blue Diamonds, Alenquers, Browns, Albinos & many others will not pepper at all.

Other good tank mates are cardinals (either get them bigger or grow them up in a bigger tank 1st - still no guarantee that discus won't eat them, but mine are fine), apistos, rams, sterbai cories, otos. There are others, but these are the ones I have.

Anyway, good luck with your discus tank.

Cheers
TW