Discus And Angels

[nmonks]

What about Cichlasoma (Mesonauta) festivum? That's a lovely cichlid, and has similar requirements to angels and discus. Has anyone tried keeping them together? I have some festivums once, and they were sweet natured and as nice as pie towards their tankmates.

Cheers,

Neale

 

[kev_kb]

thanks guys im gettin a baby discus 2morrow hopefully yay!!!

abirose

I don't want to put a downer on things, but have you research tank and water requirements for discus?

You shouldn't keep one, it will not do well in the long term. Look to keep 5-6 adult Discus, babies should ideally be kept in larger groups, of course this depends on your tank size. Give each adult discus 10 gallons of water. I hope you have the larger trigon as the smaller one won't be suitable.

Theres plenty posted on here about water parameters, but ideally soft and acidic is best. You may need to use RO water to achieve this. My best advice is to match the parameters of your Discus supplier, and maintain them in that.

Oh, and if you want to raise babies your better off keeping a bare bottom tank, as they can be stunted/misshapen/ill/die if the water isn't kept very very clean. You'll find it much easier to buy a group of larger fish though, and if you did this they could straight into a planted tank.

Forgot to mention I've also kept Angels with Discus and it didn't work out. They will out compete your Discus for food no question, and if your discus are in the slightest bit shy they will not want to eat.

 

[jellybeanqueen]

Yeh iv researched it but I didnt want to add to many at one time im planning to get more than one but im giving each fish a few days to settle in before i add more so that i can observe its behaviour, this means if anythings wrong i can sort it out before i add more fish.Im adding them in gradualy (spelling? lol) Il be getting another baby in a couple of days.

abirose

 

[demonmagus]

I think 'tis probably best to add em at the same time (all of em), wait for someone else though lol

 

[kev_kb]

It would be with sub/adults, not sure if the same applies to babies. With adults if you added one at a time the new comer would also be subject to some aggression. The group of discus will have a clearly visible 'pecking' order. Each time you added one you would be disturbing this order and it could result in a whole lot of fights. Again, I'm not sure if the same applies to babies, probably not as much so, but still they are fish that like to be groups and so they should be kept in this way.

Are you matching your LFSs water conditions? How's your tank setup?

 

[KageBunshin]

My experience with discus and angels:

I have own discuses for a while now. One month I added a pair of angels with my dicus. Theoretically, Angels and Discus are perfect for each other because they require the same water parameters. but my experience proved to be very enlightening. Opon acclimating the angels, they seemed very happy in their tanks, and the discus seemed to not mind them... BUT when feeding time came, the angels swallowed MOST of the food that was dropped into the tank.... They are EATING machines. Soon the angel's stomach was as big as a marble and the discus were left hungry. Angels are like sharks while discus are more like manatees. There are many mixed experiences on angels and discuses, but there is mine. After two weeks I had to give my angels away for fear of my discus starving.