Tropical Fish Forums

[Serkan]

This is a repost of an old thread that wasn

[Serkan]

I want to get some Discus.

What

[FiftyCalibre]

Silver dollars won't be suitable for discus IMO

The "general rule" is 1 discus per 10 gallons. However, with discus you will need to change water VERY frequently if you want to stock at or over capacity. IMO you should understock, so you don't have to change water as often. I would only stock about 8 or so in a tank that size.

[fishlover888]

Go to SimpleDiscus for more information on discus. You need to do some reading before jumping into this one. Plus, you could check out the discus breeders there to get good discus. After all, these are not cheap (about $30 for 2.5" to 3" average fish, some better looking ones could be higher. If you are going for bigger ones, they could cost over $100 each).

You can put about 14 discus in the tank, leaving some room for tank mates. Silver dollars will have to go. They don't go well with discus. Plus, they get WAY TOO BIG and you will not have any room to add any fish in the tank with 2 silver dollors. In fact, I'm not sure 150 is big enough for two silver dollars.

Check out the tankmate section of simply discus. You can get a good idea of what to put in with your discus.

Yes, you do have to make lots of water changes. For the tank size, you will need to do at least 40% water change twice a week while the discus are young. Maybe once a week after they are bigger.

Here is the link
http://forum.simplydiscus.com/index.php

I hope it is OK for me to post the link.
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125 g discus tank 13 discus, 5 Sterbai cory, 3 clown loaches, 1 Albino BN pH 6.3 50% WC x2/wk
2 g nano tank 3 Danio, pH 7.6 80% WC/ 2 days

[FiftyCalibre]

go to www.discusforums.com , which is an Aussie discus site.

40% of that tank 2x a week is a lot, considering we r in a massive drought.

You are in syd right?

[fishlover888]

I'm in USA.

If you can not keep up with the water changes, maybe discus is not the fish you want to keep. They are really picky on water conditions and if they don't have fresh water all the time, they will not grow big and you will have all kinds of problems with keep them alive.

You may get away with once a while not change water that often. If you plan to do that all the times, you are asking for trouble and you might as well kiss your money good bye. Stocking a 150 g tank with discus will not be cheap. We are talking about at least over $400 of fish. If you can not get a local breeder, you will have to pay about $70 per shipment. For that many fish, you need at least two to three shipments. We are talking about close to $600 then. There is no point of spending that much money and knowing the water change is going to be an issue to keep these fish happy and alive. Bisides, they don't show good color for you if the water conditions are not good.
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125 g discus tank 13 discus, 5 Sterbai cory, 3 clown loaches, 1 Albino BN pH 6.3 50% WC x2/wk
2 g nano tank 3 Danio, pH 7.6 80% WC/ 2 days

[Serkan]

Okay, I guess discus aren

[Serkan]

Oh man, I'm so confused. Such a large tank, so many possibilities with so little knowledge on the subject.

I feel like a person in a library with books in a language I can

[fishlover888]

A tank full of rainbow fish would look really nice for such a big tank. Or Cichlids will be good too. Cichlid do have nice color. The problem is that some of them are very aggressive and you have to be careful with stocking them or you will end up one killing the other.

I used to have cichlids, rainbows. They were both good. I just had to have the discus after I saw them. Nothing even comes close in terms of fresh water fish.

If you really not up to the water changes but do want to keep discus, you may want to buy bigger ones (cost you much more) and you could get away with once a week water change as long as you do not have more than 10 of them in your 150 g tank.
_________________
125 g discus tank 13 discus, 5 Sterbai cory, 3 clown loaches, 1 Albino BN pH 6.3 50% WC x2/wk
2 g nano tank 3 Danio, pH 7.6 80% WC/ 2 days

[FiftyCalibre]