Discus community tank

Am converting my 300l tanganyikan tank to a discus community tank. I will be planting it and want to keep cardarinal tetras which I am growing on in my 200l tank atm. and a shoal of corys which are also in my 200l. I really like the wild type discus, but am afraid to get actual wild discus as I have never kept discus before but I don't like the look of the brightly colored discus for my tank because I would try to make it look as natural as possible so I have a bit of a dilema.
I suppose my first question is is it possible to get wild type discus that are use to aquarium conditions and where could I get them ?
I will be getting an ro unit so ph, gh and kh should not be too much of a problem !
I suppose I am also looking for any other advice you might have ie how many discus could I have in a 300l tank or any other advice ye might have

Thanks loads in advance
Mick

Hi your best option to get some WC Discus is to contact a good specialist shop such as aquatic village Brittas or wackers long mile road. Both can be contacted through the sponsers section of the forum. There are a few discus experts here too that i'm sure will help ya when they're online.

Yan would be good to check out Wackers this weekend as they have a 50% Off sale they have nice big discus too

Hey Mick
Love your idea but it seems unlikely that you will be able to achieve your goal of keeping wc discus in a planted tank. Firstly, wc discus are notoriously shy and when first introduced require the lights of the tank to be left off for a prolonged period, if not indefinately. Even if you manage to acclimatise them to aquarium lighting, it is unlikely they'll respond positively to the strong lighting conditions which would restrict your planting options.But I suppose this may suit you in terms of your goal to have a natural looking tank.
Water quality will be another huge challenge, even with RO water. No ammonia,nitrite or nitrate will be tolerated. The ph will have to be kept low, although making the water too soft will result in fluctuations and will restrict the fishes growth (bone formation will be significantly hampered with calcium in the water).
Of course there is also the ethical question of keeping wc fish, which is something I dont intend on getting in to.
High quality captive bred discus can be just as stunning (I'm not refering to colour here, but rather shape and similarity to wc) and rewarding to keep as wc ones, provided you get them from the right source (not mass produced Czech ones that have a shape like a hybrid between an angelfish, or worse, a severum).
Seems to me that it could be worth shopping around and hitting some of the more specialist stores such as Finatastic Aquatics and the Aquatic Village to see whats on offer in captive bred discus. Discus Ireland has had some great wc looking discus in the past. But if you are indeed set on getting wc discus, maybe have a chat with Dimitri in Fintastic Aquatics, I'm sure he'd be only too happy to help you.
Good luck.

Is it possible to get f3 or even f6 that would work in my tank or even just domestic discus that look like wild type ?

Hi Mick

As passing from ciclids if I whould be you I whould start over as I think is too much hassle to bring the water from 8 ph to 6 at list for domestic and less for wild and with this ocasion you can give a good clean to the tank as well and get rid of anything(unwanted) you might have in your tank.
This is gonna take time and I do recomend you to take it as discus are gonna cost you a few bab and I presume you whould like to have them in your tank for a while after you pay for them not bin them the next morning or in a weeks time.

If you like I have two young red scribles I dont want and you can have them for free when your tank is ready for them to see how you are doing. If you can keep them happy and healty you should be ok in getting in to discus.

In my opinion discus are easy fish to keep and hardy enough if your water parameters are stable.

Hi Mick,

I will have some Browns hopefully to go in a few more weeks if you are interested and all going well , they will tolerate any water conditions once its clean etc, they are currently in pH 7.8. They are still very young but closest I can offer to a wild strain at the moment. They are Babies from F3 . Smashing looking fish, but probably I would advise a little bigger than these for a planted tank but it would be your call , the worst thing I found about discus is the little ones are hard to rare to full size in a planted set up as they need alot of food, clean water to develope, something which is neglected in a planted tank due to trying to minimize Algae from not overfeeding the tank. maintain Co2 levels etc with out over gaseous exchange reduces O2 levels. Nitrates from ferts , list goes on why its hard to rare them successfully.

Here's the female,

Or you could try one of thisB)

Ok ye have all given lots to think about, I think as you say calvusklein, a hi tech planted tank is out of the question will stick with a low tech planted tank!!

Xeon I have a new tank arriving for my tanganyikan cichlids in the middle of july so I will break the 300l down and start fresh with it again. Thanks so much for the offer of the discus, I looked up photos of them and they are really beautiful fish. but I really like the sound of the brown Discus.

Well Zoom, would love a few of those brown Discus. My ph is 7.8 also so they fit perfectly with my 200l setup. It will be the middle of july before I have my 300l converted to take the discus. This means I am in no rush to get the discus but my 200l tank is steup and will take them if you want to move them on quickly. In a 300l setup with approx 35 cardenal tetras and 7 corys, how many discus would you advise ??

Aruba I would love to have my 300l setup in the same style as your two tanks. I will look for a master class when resetting my tanganyikan tank !!

Hi Mick ,

Middle of July would be perfect for me If all goes well , Its early days yet only 5 weeks old at the moment , so your name is down for some. Give me a shout when your ready.

Thanks so much Zoom I love the thoughts of the brown discus with big healthy cardinals swimming around bog wood and a few plants. The cardinals are in my 200l tank with my bueneos aris tetras which are spawning and the cardinals are loving the cavier !!! And getting very fat, my corys are also spawning and the cardinals are picking these eggs off the glass. The cardinals seem to be benefiting from this extra food. It seems to be a very fertile tank at the moment.

How many discus would be suitable for my 300l tank ? Any opinions ?

Zoom would you post a few photos of the discus would love to see them. Thanks again !

Well guys

Am about two weeks away from setting up my new discus tank. zoom Just wondering how the baby discus are getting on did any of them mature for you if they did I would love to know how they are doing ?

Have my water down to about 7.1-7.2 ph which is cool.
The cardinals are maturing really well and will look fab around my new setup

Mick

Some pics perhaps would be great ?

Mick have about 12 fry left, dont know if much will come from them they are still a little small for their age , never reach their potential size I reckon, you be better off with more mature fish IMO.