# how many discus



## the serpent (Aug 29, 2012)

hi I have a 4 foot tank by 16 inch by 18 inch and was wondering how many discus I could put in there with 10 cardenel tetra 10 Cory cats 6 dwarf neon rainbowfish n 10 hatchets I also have a 3 foot sump but is not fitted yet 


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## Dan12345 (Sep 5, 2012)

Hey, 
having been through the same questions a couple of years back i feel i can give you some advice here. 
If your looking at younger discus (2.5-4") you want to go with at least 6 and up to 10 would be better. They do much better when younger in larger groups.

I'm sure you've done a lot of research into Discus and there not nearly as fussy as everyone may think. However they do require the basics of top quality food and top quality water, the best thing you could buy would be a HMA or RO filter. You can pick them up used for cheap as chips and will save a lot of £'s and heartache in the long run.

There is also a load of good information on them now. If you do the research there a great fish to keep!

Good luck!
Dan


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## the serpent (Aug 29, 2012)

I already have a hma filter how many adults would fit in there because I don't want to buy smaller ones n have to sell em when there older n I got no space for a bigger tank do u think I would get away with havin 6 adults ? 


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## Dan12345 (Sep 5, 2012)

It all depends on the time your willing to invest in water changes etc.
If you were to add 6 Adults to your tank it would need decent water changes to keep it in tip top condition. Probably somewhere in the region of 40% weekly. 

If you don't feel like you would want or have the time to do that you could still have the 6 adults but I would maybe think about losing the hatchets/rainbows and possibly just keep the cardinals. This would make it a more manageable set up.


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## the serpent (Aug 29, 2012)

40% a week ain't bad I do a 20% water change on all 3 of my tanks every weekend anyway so ill just have to take double the amount out of the discus tank. will they become territorial over space when they are adults though ?


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## Dan12345 (Sep 5, 2012)

To an extent yes, they can be nasty little buggers when they pair off.

Your tank may be big enough that they have enough space to get out the way of a pair. I had my group in a 200 litre corner tank at the time which aint great for giving them escape routes lol.
I ended up having to make a choice between keeping the pair or the other 4, I kept the pair and they currently are having happy breeding days in a 20 inch cube with some sterbai.

I'm not sure how keen you are to keep dither fish in their with them, but you would probably have a even better chance of success by getting rid of all but the cory's (make sure they are ones that can live in discus temps) and bumping it up to 8 discus.


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## the serpent (Aug 29, 2012)

do u think I could keep the other fish with them happily until they get territorial then move the other fish in to a different tank just keeping the corys and the cardenel in with the discus ? I want the cardenel in there because I have read that when the discus see the cardenels swimming about it tells the discus that it is safe and they don't hide so much 


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## Dan12345 (Sep 5, 2012)

Its true that having dither does help them settle in. 
"do u think I could keep the other fish with them happily until they get territorial then move the other fish in to a different tank"

The aggression won't be from the discus to the hatchets/rainbows. It will be discus on discus aggression lol. The only reason i suggest moving out the other fish is purely tank space and upkeep of the tank. 

If your willing to do the water changes you could probably get away with 8 discus/ 10 cardinals and the cory's.


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## the serpent (Aug 29, 2012)

I think I will stick with the fish I am going to put in until there is space issues then I can take out the rainbows n hatchets and put them in my other tank and add a few extra cardenels every week (because they are small ) until the tank is full but there is no fighting 


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## Daniel White91 (Jun 7, 2012)

General rule of thumb is one adult discus per 50lts of water would move the dwarf neon rainbows from your tank as they do better in carder water. All your other fish are fine with discus 

Dan White


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## the serpent (Aug 29, 2012)

my tank is 240 litre and the sump makes it 300 litre could I have 6 or is it only the water in the tank what counts. how about blue rams instead of the rainbows ?


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## ZicoZ (Sep 18, 2010)

Incidentally , what type of food are you guys using for the Discus ?

I don't currently keep fish but a few years ago I had a lovely , healthy group of Discus doing really well on chopped beef heart .... funnily enough mine seem to thrive on neglect ! I was just starting to "go off" the fish due to discovering the wonders of snake keeping and stopped cleaning them as much , even stopped cleaning the glass and lo and behold they started breeding !!


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## the serpent (Aug 29, 2012)

I feed mine on tetra prime and beef heart they are only small at the moment but I hope they breed at some point I know what u mean with all the cleaning I have 3 fish tanks soon to be 4 and 6 snakes sometimes its hard to keep on top of it all especially when there's loads of work on 


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## ZicoZ (Sep 18, 2010)

the serpent said:


> I feed mine on tetra prime and beef heart they are only small at the moment but I hope they breed at some point I know what u mean with all the cleaning I have 3 fish tanks soon to be 4 and 6 snakes sometimes its hard to keep on top of it all especially when there's loads of work on
> 
> 
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Yes , I also used to put a few fingerfulls of Tetramin veg , I think


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## Blurboy (Feb 9, 2007)

I kept a shoal of 10 in a tank that size with loads of Cardinal Tetra's and other Amazonian fish like L series Plecs (Royals etc) and they were kept in a tank full of bog wood and it looked stunning and very natural. I also live in a very hard water area and didn't bother treat the water as I didn't want breed them and they lived perfectly happy and thrived.


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## Zincubus (Sep 6, 2010)

Blurboy said:


> I kept a shoal of 10 in a tank that size with loads of Cardinal Tetra's and other Amazonian fish like L series Plecs (Royals etc) and they were kept in a tank full of bog wood and it looked stunning and very natural. I also live in a very hard water area and didn't bother treat the water as I didn't want breed them and they lived perfectly happy and thrived.


I too kept a small shoal of Turqoiuse discus (7) with a few Dwarf Plecs L200 springs to mind and they appeared to do well together in the brown peaty / bogwood water BUT after a few weeks I noticed horseshoe shapes on the sides of the Discus and after hours of close scrutiny I was shocked to see the plecs were randomly sucking on the sides of the Discus . I separated them immediately for my piece of mind .


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