# Discus Troubles



## vetter (Feb 20, 2006)

I have bought six discus froma local breeder that were inche long. They seemed fine and healthy for a while, but they havent yet grown that much in 4 months. One has just recently passed away, before it died it wasn't eating much and I have had the same problem with a few others. I am feeding them beefheart, brineshrimp, and flakefoods that I have purchased from someone locally for he makes homemade fish foods. There seems to be one dominant discus, and it is the only one that seems to be growing at a considerable rate.
The tank is definately large eneugh at 72 gallons, and is only ket with minimal amounts of fish such as 3 ottos, 6 golden rams, 5 algae eating fish, and about 12 shrimp. I keep my ph at about 6.9 with co2 injection, and i do a 40-50% water change once weekly. The tank has an abundant amount of plants, but the discus still dont seem to be happy and healthy. Also the discus havent yet developed much colour as compared to the breeding pair of discus.


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## jsenske (Mar 15, 2004)

What is your water change regimen?


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## JanS (Apr 14, 2004)

What kind of algae eating fish do you have? They could be part of the problem.


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## nopain00 (Jun 12, 2006)

Changing 40-50% weekly sounds like a lot. Is there a reason you're changing so much? Usually, 10% weekly is better.


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## Catastrophi (May 23, 2006)

He might be dosing EI and it requires 50% waterchanges to rid of excess nutrient buildups.


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## JanS (Apr 14, 2004)

nopain00 said:


> Changing 40-50% weekly sounds like a lot. Is there a reason you're changing so much? Usually, 10% weekly is better.


That's the first time I've heard that... Usually most experienced Discus keepers change at least 10 - 20% _daily_. And if they let it go longer than a few days, they will do at least a 40 - 50% change.

I've always been an advocate of regular water changes, and there is no such thing as too many water changes, provided you don't over clean the surfaces that contain the beneficial bacteria.  Think of it as the "flushing the toilet" analogy.


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## erik Loza (Feb 6, 2006)

nopain00 said:


> Changing 40-50% weekly sounds like a lot. Is there a reason you're changing so much? Usually, 10% weekly is better.


No, 40%-50% weekly is ideal. Not necessarily all at once, but over the week, AT LEAST that much if there were issues with the tank. Threadstarter, another thought occurs to me: Any chance you just ended up with some runts? Not pointing fingers, of course, but what are the chances you didn't end up with the "best looking of the group", if you get my meaning. Domestically produced discus, are after all, highly inbred. That happened to me with some Tanganyikan cichlids once. They ate and behaved normally, but never grew and died off prematurely, one here and there.

If the rest of your fish are doing well, nobody is fighting, and the tank is otherwise healthy, there doesn't seem to be anywhere else to point the finger. Sure, discus might not breed or color up the best if water quality is slightly less than ideal, but that wouldn't stunt growth. Know anyone else who got some fry from your breeder to compare notes with? That's might tell you something. Good luck in any event.


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## Mikee (May 8, 2006)

My discus do fine with a 40-50% water change every week around, although it is better to do a 10-20% water change daily to keep the water clean since clean water is a must for discus. Daily water changes should be made especially if the discus are young. Doing large water changes every day is not that great since you get rid of bacteria which is good to have therefore 10-20% daily is safe or 40-50% weekly. Another thing I dont recommend is keeping sand in my discus aquariums as it becomes harder to clean the floor and keep it clean..although some have success doing it this way. Another thing is temperature make sure your temperature is 28-30 degrees celsius (this is what i keep mine at right now as well as my young) this is also why discus do not do to great in planted aquariums mainly because plants do not like a high temperature. Are you adding any chemicals into the water? anything for the plants? not sure but this could also affect your discus. what type of filtration are you using? for me id say the best filtration is sponge filters. Easy to maintain and prob best for biological. I have 2 of these in my 50 with around 30 young discus which i do 10% water change daily all are eating and doing well. Keep us updated with how they are doing please


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## Mikee (May 8, 2006)

And good luck!


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## standoyo (Aug 25, 2005)

What is the temperature of your tank? IME low temperatures typical of planted tanks[25-26c] reduces their appetite.
Could be the breeding pair bullying the others and depriving them of the food. Breeding pairs are very aggresive/territorial when mating.

Regards

Stan


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## KeIgO86 (Jun 23, 2005)

I heard from a LFS owner here in Singapore that discus requires large amounts of water changes regularly not because of water quality. A super huge filter should settle the water quality problem. 

From what vetter has said, it seems to prove that what the LFS owner said is true. Discus, and most other cichlids produce a chemical which stunts the growth of other discus in the tank, so that the strongest will remain the biggest and most dominant. Something like alleopathy in plants. The large and regular water changes is to remove this chemical in the water so that the other discus will not be stunted.


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## standoyo (Aug 25, 2005)

When young adults mate, they get more interested in jiggying and lose interest in food.
Perhaps the sight of the older fish jiggying make the kids lose interest in food too. :jaw: :lol:

Seriously, from experience if the young adult discus[4" head to peduncle] are allowed to mate while still growing up they will automatically lose interest in food and concentrate on taking care of their young. Their size is also only moderate 4.5-5" compared to the giant size 6.5-8" that you see in competitions.

Regards

Stan


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## vetter (Feb 20, 2006)

thanks alot for your help all of these are possibilities, the temperature of my tank is 85F, I want to keep it high because i thought I could speed up the metabolisms of the discus. I filter the tank with an eheim professional 2 which is capable of filtering a 150 gallon tank. The chemicals I add for my plants are mastergrow, flourish excel, flourish phosphorous, and flourish potassium. The only problem with the discus is the size differentiation between the one largest one and the others for he is 1-2 inches bigger and is very dominant and picky. What KeIg said could be very true for the discus that is larger keeps growing and the others just stay small. standoyo also had a very good point in which I believe is very possible for some periods of 2 weeks they all seemed just to loose intrest in the food.

anyways thanks for all of your help!


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## Ajax (Apr 3, 2006)

KeIgO86 said:


> From what vetter has said, it seems to prove that what the LFS owner said is true. Discus, and most other cichlids produce a chemical which stunts the growth of other discus in the tank, so that the strongest will remain the biggest and most dominant. Something like alleopathy in plants. The large and regular water changes is to remove this chemical in the water so that the other discus will not be stunted.


I have read that in a few books on discus as well. Although I'm not sure how much this will really affect them since most discus breeders keep large numbers of discus in one tank, and they all seem to stay about the same size. I bought 7 blue diamonds back in the mid 90s when they cost an arm & a leg which were all the same size. I wasn't able to test this though since mine paired up within 3 months, and they were real aggressive toward the others. I ended up basically giving away the other 5  But on the bright side, I had 3 successful spawns and got raise baby discus.

Discus definitely do better when you change a large volume of water regularly. I was doing 50% twice a week on my discus tank. I also used RO water during the WC. Now of course this isn't necessary, but with discus you can't over-do water quality IMO. They can be some picky little fish at times.

Are the smaller fish eating at all? Do they come up to the top when it's feeding time? Your temp. looks good. It's certainly possible to keep plants at that temp., some species might not thrive though. Most echinodorus, vals & crypts will certainly do well at that temp.


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## diablocanine (Jul 25, 2004)

Temps no less than 86 degrees and always add a little salt to your water. Best temp for new Discus is 90 degrees for a few weeks. Skip a day of feeding after adding salt and raising temp so they get cleaned out and real hungry. The stunt hormone has never been proven. Water changes need to be structured around your TDS and fert schedule, typically at least 50% weekly, if you are doing EI than once a week. New Discus, especially domestics that were spawned in a bare bottom tank and placed in a planted tank may take weeks to get comfortable and develop appetites. Use 100% RO water. Sit with new Discus for several hours a day to acclimate them to human activity.....DC


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## Ajax (Apr 3, 2006)

diablocanine said:


> Sit with new Discus for several hours a day to acclimate them to human activity.....DC


That's one of the great things about having discus in planted tanks. You're in the tank so much doing other stuff that they get used to you being in there. My discus would always come over and pick the little air bubbles out of the hairs on my arm. It was about as close to cuddling a fish as you can get :lol: Although the Amano & cherry shrimp I have now crawl all over me every time I put my hand in the tank too. I just think they are hungry little buggers though.


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