Discus adjustment time

[catTV]

I've got my first discus tank going and am a little surprised they're not settling in quicker. I bought 4 of a guy's school of 15 five days ago - all adults (18 months or so) and all looked very healthy. They're pretty skittish in my tank. The turquoise ones hide out in the back corner behind the driftwood and are fairly dark in color, and the melons cruise around and have good color but are "peppered." I read that these colorations are stress indicators. On the good side, everybody's eating.

Here are the basics: 50g tank, heavily planted, water's all zeros on ammonia/nitrite/nitrate, 85 degrees, 6.6 pH, 4 carbonate hardness, 8 general hardness. 4 adult discus, 12 cardinals, 2 cories, 1 SAE, 1 dwarf gourami. I thought that would be a nice setup.

Is this pretty standard behavior or should I be watching something else?

jim

[Catherine]

Hi Jim, those parameters sound perfect, I have been breeding for 5 years. I do have a few questions: What is the background like? If it is dark, that may encourage them to darken up to "blend in", same for dark driftwood. You have a planted tank, that is gareat. Do you have any big swords, like Radicans, Marbles, Amazon? Discus really do like tall plants, it is natural to them (skinny thin fish). Do you have CO2 going? Sometimes if it is running at faster than 3 bubbles/sec it can stress them out.
Don't worry so much about the colouration. Stress bars are really mood bars. They will show up when the fish are establishing dominance, territory, mates or getting ready to spawn. They also show up when fish are not enjoying something.. Are there are other fish in the tank that may be stressing them out.. the cardinals are cories are perfect, I am not sure about the gourami.

[catTV]

those are good points. thanks for the thoughts.

i've got a black background (and black Eco-complete substrate, come to think of it). plants are dwarf sword, red c. wendtii and anubias in the foreground, needle leaf ludwegia at one side and back, aponogeton on the opposite side (big, shading its corner, where the turquoises hide out), an amazon sword (still growing, not huge yet) in middle-back and rotala along the back. no CO2 (i'm a low-tech type). i agree the gourami was questionable, but he seems intimidated by the discus. I adopted out a large angel to ElijahTurtle that i figured would cause trouble and snarf all the food. so things seem peaceful. the tank is in a bedroom, so it's usually quiet during the day.

probably i just need to be patient. i've just never kept them.

jim

[Kathy]

My first thought was CO2. That seems to effect mine very quickly. I think Catherine is right...the dark background and dark substrate is probably what is causing them to darken.

Were they in a planted tank before you got them? Discus can lose a lot of personality if they have something to hide behind. However, that will usually improve once they get used to their surroundings if all of the other conditions stay good. I threw some culls in my planted tank just to see how they would do and it took them months to get back to color and greet me at feeding time again.

One other thing that might be a factor is discus do better in numbers. If they were used to having that large of a clan, they may not feel as safe with just the 4 of them. I think that was a big factor with my planted tank culls to. They went from being 4 of 35 to 4 of 4.

Kathy

[ElijahTurtle]

Jim, it took mine a couple of weeks to settle in. It's probably apples to oranges though since mine are in with angels.
BTW guys this a great looking tank he has!

[catTV]

thanks, kathy. they were indeed in a completely bare tank before. they're certainly no worse and probably looking a little better, and are eating (a hungry fish is a healthy fish, i say). so i'll just cool it and do my water changes.

and thank you for the compliment, amon. glad the angel is working out.