Tank Size

Hey Guys,

Just wondering what the minimum tank size is for discus. I know these discussions can usually start a heated debate but I'm just curios.

Thanks
Wayne

How many discus? Are you intending breeding or having them in a part community set up?

Gavin

eh... hadnt really thought bout that. Lets say just discus for breeding? how many litres per fish. For instance my tank at the min is 120L. Small enough in perspective but these are slow moving fish. Not sure if thats a factor?

Wayne

Hi Guys,

Bringin this topic up again as I am seriously thinkin of setting up a discus only tank. Any tips also are appreciated.

Wayne

WayneDub wrote:

eh...Small enough in perspective but these are slow moving fish.

Not until they start to move...nothing slow about them..

The smaller the volume the more water related problems there will be as there will be with stunted growth and bullying.

See the potential Tank and buy the next one up.

Kev.

As Kev says.....there's nothing slow about these guys. And being a medium large and heavy cichlid they have some power to go with it. I've lost more discus through bolting at speed at the side of the tank or the lid (after a fright) than through poor health.

It is difficult to give defos on the minimum tank size for a discus. A better value would be minimum effective water volume (a slight difference).
If you have 40 litres per fish tank volume then you'll probably need more than double (or treble by some guidelines) that in 'effective volume of water' for each fish.

This is where effective filtration and water changes come into play to pump up the effective volume of water.

Personally, I think that you could easily keep a small group of discus in a 120 litres if there are good regular partial water changes, good balanced diet, and an oxygenated filtration system (ie a filter system which is supplied with a rich oxygen supply such as trickle filter system).

It is, however, easier in a much larger tank.

But, as I said, I hate stating the min volume for each fish.

ian

Thanks for all the feedback. Been thinking bout it tonight. I do wanna move to discus. Ive heard they are very rewarding fish to keep. At present I have a 120L but I will def be upgrading to approx 200L by end of summer. unfortunately this is all I have space for at the min. Hopefully this time next year I will have a decent 4ft/400-500L.

Would it be suitable to keep say 4-6 young/juvenile discus and as necessary upgrade to bigger setups? I dont wanna rush into it without the info, but I also dont wanna put it off unless I would be looking for major issues that would just make the whole experience unenoyable.

Thanks so far lads,

Wayne

there are differing opinions on some finer points of discus keeping (just like anything) but there are a few key items that most keepers would agree upon.

For your first discus, I would recommend avoiding the wild-caught specimens for starting with (they can be tricky, they may arrive in tatters, and a death of a large fish is off-putting). But, certainly something to aim for in the future.

Source a good stock of captive bred discus.....good quality does not always need to be uber expensive either.
There are a few shops around at present with some nice younger discus.

I don't see anything wrong with having 6 youngsters in your tank for an initial period (although, the ideal would be to have young fish in a proportionally much bigger water volume than adults to avoid stunting ie if an adult needs x-litres per inch of fish then a youngster should have more than x-litres per inch of fish).

For that tank, increasing the biological filtration capacity would be needed. So, have a biological filtration system that would be equivalent to handling a 6(fish) X 100 litres = 600 litres tank.
This doesn't necessarily mean getting an over-priced high-output filter either.
For a smaller tank, an overhead trickle filter system will work wonders (but I'm not on about the expensive tunze things either).

If your filtration system has its own oxygen supply (= the air, as in an overhead trickle filter) then that will lessen the oxygen demand competition between the filter and the fish.
This particularly important with discus because they tend to be kept at higher temperatures, have a high metabolism and require a lot of food. (a growth of one in discus puts on a large amount of total body mass when compared to a more torpedo shaped fish).

Water changes.....I'm a big fan of frequent water changes even if superb 'wizard' technology is installed.!!
In a smallish tank with discus, the frequent partial water changes need to be seen as the key part of keeping the fish healthy and growing. (again....different keepers have different rules on this)
No fancy filter system will compensate for that.

Crowding?? there is a balance that needs to be met with discus (and many other similar fish). In the wilds, discus hang around in large groups. In the home tank it is often difficult to get the balance between the large group and what would be overcrowding. So just watch out for that.
Discus can be bullies.....crowding can lessen the concentration of bullying.

To lessen bullying, you could arrange your tank to have multiple open areas and loads of retreat areas. Feed in multiple areas of the tank.

As for water parameters and food etc......that is for a thread on how to keep discus. But the requirements are not difficult to meet in today's availability of heaters, filters, test kits, Tetra AquaSafe (and similar high quality dechlorinators) and food.

ian