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I have a 125 gallon community tank. I had a pleco that was getting agressive, so I turned it in to the store, and with the credit, got 4 discus. 3 are about 3 or 4 inches, and one is about 6 inches.

The other fish in the tank are balas, silver dollars, and gouramis. All the fish are getting along fine, however the Discus are rather dark and tend to hide a lot. 2 of them have thick slime layers.

Is this only because they are new and getting used to the tank, or should I be more worried? I am new to discus, so not sure if this is something to worry about.

Thanks for any help.

dark is not good - it means they are stressed. if the slime coat is whitish, even worse. discus are a highly specialised fish that need a lot of lovin - much more than the tankmates you mentioned! without knowing your water parameters etc its a bit hard to comment further - but your discus require soft, acidic water with a high temp (29 minimum up to 31!) and lots of clean water changes. their high-protein, messy diet requires a lot of clean-ups. i would recommend visiting a discus-specific site to get more info. they are hardy, beautiful fish (which i kept for about a year before the maintainance got too much for my lifestyle) as long as their water is pristine.

take them out the fish in theire may get to aggressive towards the opeacful discus ..... evn a udden move by another fish can scare discus .... get them a 55g and put them in there (after it has cycled of course make sure all water parameters are the same as u got now)


6x2x2 - Firemouth and Oscar Tank
30+ royal pythons.

Back in the game after 4 years out ..

Well forget that. These fish will be returned before I go through the expense of setting up another tank for them... let alone one as large as a 55 gallon. I don't have a fish room or anything like that.

However, I did read up a bit more as jase101 suggested. As it was the first day the fish were in the tank, I think most of the coloration and slime issues were due to stress. I did treat the tank with MelaFix and the slime coat issue is about 90% cleared up (6 more days of treatment to go). Not sure if it was a fungus or bacterial issue, or just stress, but 3 of the 4 Discus are back to normal. One is still a bit dark and filmy.

I also lowered my pH from 7 to 6.8, and softened the water from 8 to about 6. These parameters appear to fit for all the fish in my tank, so that should be good. Water purity is not a problem as I have 2 Magnum 350's going on the aquarium - you never can have too much filtration!

I do have one question though - The discus are all from the same store, and they won't eat anything except live blood worms. Should I try to supplement their diet with discus food I have seen at the pet shop, or are the worms enough?

Hi there,

You need to vary their diet, so try them on as many foods as you can.

Trace

when i first started with discus, the breeder i bought my first bubs from had a lot of good advice. when i asked about fussy food habits, he said "if a healthy discus isn't eating, it ain't hungry enough!!"

provided your water quality is excellent, discus will easily handle a day of fasting, followed by the introduction of new food groups - or mix your foods up, eg press some flakes into the bloodworms before feeding.

glad to hear your fish are improving.

The discus are still loving the blood worms (live), and I bought a feeder funnel which keeps them from dropping to the bottom of the tank so fast.

In addition I have mixed it up with a frozen variety food that includes spinich, brine, blood worms, daphnia, and beef heart. They seem to be taking to that, and the other fish love it too. This is good because the frozen stuff is a lot easier to store than live worms!

One discuss still not looking great, but the other 3 have moved right in, and actually hang out with the silver dollars quite a bit!