keeping discus in a community tank?

Question

I was talk ing to the manager of my local fish shop and he told me that it would be ok to keep discus in my community tank. My tank is big enough to keep these fish. All i can find on the internet about it is that they are delecate to water quality. So my question is will they be alright? will they kill all my other fish? or was he just trying to push for a sell? the fish shop had guppys in with some discus.

Answer 1

HI there.

I am currantly switiching my angelfish over to soft water in the hope of keeping discus with them.

First off, you will need an RO (Reverse Osmosis) unit to soften the water to Take all the metals and impurities out of it, discus can not live in hard water, most breeders and shops keep thier discus at a rate of 20ppm KH and anything over 20 to70 ppm will kill them stone dead.

They need a ph of about 6.5, no higher than 7!

the techincal side of keeping them is very complicated, its not just a case of throwing in some chemicals and be done with it.

You have to take into account the buffering actions of your water when you try to lower the PH and if you have RO water then you need to add enough tap to balance out the mineral loss from the RO unit.

Some fish can live in these water conditions, others wont. although they are cichlids, most other cichlids wont tolerate these waters as they need brackish waters (slighlty salty)
angelfish, corydoras, cardinal tertas, Rams and a few others will live happily with discus, but not many others.

Discus also need frequent water changes, about 3 to 4 times a week of 25%.
they are high maintenance fish, believe me, i have read so many books on them now, i have been changing my water parameters for the last 3 months to prevent shock to the angels and should be ready in about another month.
This is taking so long so that all the metal traces are no longer present and to allow the angels to adjust to the new water parameters.

you also cant use any metals in the medicines you use so if your communtiy tank has had medicine with coppers in it (eg, some whitespot treatmets) then you will have problems there too.

these are very delicate and expensive fish that really need a lot of attention to detail in the water they live in.

PLEASE please please read up on the subject very carefully before you buy any of these fish as if you just stcik them in your community tank how it is, they will more than likely die and you will have wasted your money and poisened the fish.

Answer 2

you dont necessarily need an ro unit. i am starting up a discus aquarium. I have been told that its not the ph that will bother the discus. its the amount of bacteria. as long as the ph is below 7 they are fine and then you can keep all kinds of schooling fish with them. but with an ro unit the water will be a 6.0 ph. making it almost impossible to find any fish that will be compatible. but the only other thing i could think of would be temperature. discus like a temp of 82. and i believe that guppies llike 78 or something like that. so i would just keep the temp at 80 and you should be fine

Answer 3

A friend of mine used to keep discus in a large community tank without any real problems. Guppies fin nibbling was the worst thing that happened
They are a little sensitive to water quality so you do have to know a little of what you are doing because they're quite an expensive to buy and so easily lost.
Beautiful to look at though:)

Answer 4

I don't think Discus are particularly aggressive fish, they may have the odd pop at a weak or injured fish, that is natural for most species. Some fish prefer brackish water but on the whole if you keep the water quality good and monitor the ph levels on a weekly basis you should be ok.

Answer 5

Discus belongs to the cichlid group of fishes, they may not be as aggressive as other cichlids but still the gene is the same, so you should think twice before putting them in a community tank.

Answer 6

discus are very placid fish and cant be mixed with lots of fast darty fish as it scares them. the tank has also got to be kept spot on. go to the library or search google for how to keep discus this will give u a better idea. good luck

Answer 7

Discus fish generally tend to like higher temperatures and pH than other tropical fish or cold water fish hence are not recommend to be kept in community tanks, another reason being that they tend to be loners and after pairing up tend to guard their side of the tank ferociously damaging other fish and restricting space.

Answer 8

I kept my Javelin in a community tank fine.

Answer 9

having worked in a pet shop once, i would have said ur fish manage guy would know wats right, it aint really in his interest to feed you rubbish, but if u unsure why not call around a few other shops and see wat they say....you never know

Answer 10

Here is a compatibility chart for you to decide what you can mix together.
http://www.liveaquaria.com/general/fwcompatibility_chart.cfm
http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/categ.cfm?pcatid=830
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