# Discus fish



## Martin in Holland (8 Aug 2016)

After a long startup of my discus fish tank and some help from my good friend Wayne Ng (discus breeder from Hong Kong) and one of his running sponge filters I've got my fish. 
There are only 4 as I'm looking to get a pair out of them and move the other to a friend or in my other tank.
The tank isn't scaped what so ever, but I wanted to share this with you guys.


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## Derek113 (8 Aug 2016)

Those fish are bursting with colour. They look fantastic


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## alto (8 Aug 2016)

Lovely fish 

I vote for keeping the "extra's" in your other tank


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## Tim Harrison (8 Aug 2016)

So there you are...good to put a face to a name at long last...the occidental on the right?
Nice fish btw


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## darrensp (8 Aug 2016)

Very nice colours in those fish


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## Manisha (8 Aug 2016)

Beautiful fish!


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## Martin in Holland (9 Aug 2016)

Tim Harrison said:


> ...the occidental on the right?


The guy on the left doesn't look Dutch to you?


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## Martin in Holland (9 Aug 2016)

Tim Harrison said:


> ...the occidental on the right?


The guy on the left doesn't look Dutch to you?


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## roadmaster (9 Aug 2016)

Very nice fish.
Get em eating all you can (variety), so they don't bull up and  refuse anything but Blood worm's and beefheart.
I managed to grow out a group of juveniles some year's back on New life spectrum pellet's,Ocean nutrition flake (High protein%), tetra bit's,spirulina brine shrimp, hikari bio-gold cichlid pellet's, and bit's of red worm's (bait shop).
Purist's scoffed at my refusal to offer beefheart and blood worm's but have had issues with both so I stuck with the afore mentioned.
Fish grew from roughly 5 centimeter's to adult's in about eight month's with three feeding's a day, and three 50 % weekly water changes.
Best of luck with handsome fishes.


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## Martin in Holland (9 Aug 2016)

Thanks roadmaster, I can get a good beefheart mix and blood worms here, but I want to try some pellet and/or flakes as well. I'll be doing a 40 to 50% water change each day to keep water parameters as constant as possible.... so far I want to keep doing as Wayne Ng suggested as he is the master and I'm lucky to have him as a friend.


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## Ryan Thang To (9 Aug 2016)

nice one martin. amazing discus can't wait to see the scape

cheers
ryan


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## roadmaster (9 Aug 2016)

Yes,Is good to have advice from one who is successful and can impart their knowledge that obviously work's well.


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## Tim Harrison (9 Aug 2016)

Martin in China said:


> The guy on the left doesn't look Dutch to you?


Haha...I'm a Dutchman if he does
Didn't know you were Dutch


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## Martin in Holland (10 Aug 2016)

Ryan Thang To said:


> nice one martin. amazing discus can't wait to see the scape
> 
> cheers
> ryan


This tank won't get scaped, it is a fish only tank.


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## Martin in Holland (13 Sep 2016)

After a cleaning pipes disaster, my building management didn't inform us that they would clean the water pipes and they used more bleach than you would find in any swimming pool ...... I lost one Discus fish, now I was down to only 3, so a good excuse to get some more 
I went to Hong Kong and got 4 more Discus at Wayne Ng's place, according to Wayne I could easily keep more fish in my tank as long as I keep up with daily water changes (I change 70-80% on a daily base), but for me it's still a grow out tank and most of them will end up in my other tank.
Anyway, I made a movie of my trip to Hong Kong....here is the link


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## Lindy (13 Sep 2016)

Very interesting! Couldn't hear much of what you were saying though due to music.


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## Martin in Holland (14 Sep 2016)

My comments aren't that interesting to listen to anyway .... but indeed the music came out louder than intended.


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## alto (14 Sep 2016)

I'd be happy without the musicover too        I kept straining to hear the Real Guy


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## Martin in Holland (22 Sep 2016)

Someone asked for some pictures of my Discus....well, here they are. The smaller (less blue) are still pretty young and a different colour variation (bigger once are "Blue Knight", smaller once are "Violet Reflection, all of my fish came from the same breeder (Wayne Ng)


 

 

 

 
Enjoy


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## alto (28 Oct 2016)

missed these photos somehow ... suddenly realized you really mean *Wayne Ng*!!!!

 

(I'm a bit slow sometimes   )


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## dean (28 Oct 2016)

Martin it's good to put a face to a name, please re touch the video and remove or reduce the music 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Martin in Holland (29 Oct 2016)

alto said:


> you really mean *Wayne Ng*!!!!
> 
> 
> 
> (I'm a bit slow sometimes   )



Yes, I really mean Wayne Ng, he became somewhat of a friend of mine and my go to guy for anything/ question about discus.


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## Martin in Holland (29 Oct 2016)

dean said:


> remove or reduce the music


I wish I could, it is indeed to loud, but it's added somehow in a way I can't change it unless I remove it completely.


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## EdwinK (30 Oct 2016)

How old/size are these? I'm a bit bothered about a triangular fish in the first pic.


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## Martin in Holland (31 Oct 2016)

The fish are still very young, a month or 2 (about 5-6 cm)


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## Martin in Holland (15 Nov 2016)

The fish are doing really great, 80-90% water change per day, beef heart mix, 2 sponge filters seems to work well for me.


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## Martin in Holland (30 Nov 2016)

Update video


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## sciencefiction (10 Dec 2016)

It must be exciting watching them grow...Good luck with them. I love their colour and they look very healthy and happy to me.


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## three-fingers (10 Dec 2016)

Beautiful fish and very enjoyable videos.  Agree that the first video would be better with quieter music, but found it interesting and enjoyed nonetheless. Sorry so hear about the bleach problem. Thanks for sharing your experiences!

I will keep _Discus_ myself one day...not really a suited species for the low maintenance heavily stocked planted tanks I set up for clients (despite _Discus_ being very frequently requested), but maybe in the future with hardy captive strains.

Is the only filtration in this tank air-powered sponge filters? What power/model air pump do you use? It seems your relying 100% on biological filtration, do you not use any easy floating plants to help? Plants may help with fish boredom too .

Also curious about what your feeding them?  Beautiful fish .


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## Martin in Holland (11 Dec 2016)

@three-fingers 
I only use sponge filters only because of the daily water changes which can take a few hours in winter (cold water needs to get heated in the tank so I poor it in veeeeery slowly) and external filters could have some trouble in keeping bacteria alive. I also rely on big water changes every day. The air pump is some Chinese product without a name, but is works.
I am thinking of placing some wood in the tank with some plants on it, but I'm still unsure about this as this could also give problems.
My discus are being fed 4 times per day in total; 2x beef heart mix, 1x Tropica D-50 and 1x dried or frozen brine shrimp. The beef heart is their main food, it will make them grow fast and healthy, but I do mix in some pallets just to make it stick better and to add vitamins. 

Having Discus fish in a planted tank is a challenge but not impossible, you need to clean the filter more often as Discus are messy eaters and food will go to waste in the filter, a sump would be my first choice, simply because it's easier to maintain than a canister filter.


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## sciencefiction (11 Dec 2016)

Why not using external with sponge pre-filter. You can clean the pre-filter sponges in the same way one cleans a sponge filter but with the benefit of more powerful filtration...I have sponges on all my filter intakes because whether you keep discus or not, the food will get in there if you have big externals, and also lost of the detritus which isn't ideal for the bio-bacs.


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## HannahFergusonFan (13 Dec 2016)

With some good hardscape or aquascape tank these Discus fishes will look perfect.


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## three-fingers (13 Dec 2016)

Martin in China said:


> @three-fingers
> I only use sponge filters only because of the daily water changes which can take a few hours in winter (cold water needs to get heated in the tank so I poor it in veeeeery slowly) and external filters could have some trouble in keeping bacteria alive. I also rely on big water changes every day.


How about just putting the external filter inlet literally on the tank floor? That way water can still flow though it, even if you do a 80% water change? An external inlet shouldn't be as tall as a discus anyway. Unless the filter is turned off for hours every day, I cant see how there would be an issue keeping bacteria alive in an external filter vs. air powered sponge?  The water extra water circulation from a proper pump and mechanical filtration can only help .



> Having Discus fish in a planted tank is a challenge but not impossible, you need to clean the filter more often as Discus are messy eaters and food will go to waste in the filter, a sump would be my first choice, simply because it's easier to maintain than a canister filter.


Indeed, it's certainly not impossible, there are loads of examples of beautiful planted discus aquariums . Personally I've not noticed that discus are particularly messy eaters compared to other similar fish like angels though? I can think of much more messy fish commonly kept in planted tanks anyway . Many strains are particularly sensitive to water conditions however, so any "mess" is definitely more of an issue for them. Given that you are already doing fantastically with limited mechanical filtration from just air-powered filters (due to water changes), I can only see plants and wood as beneficial to water conditions .

What are your tap water stats like there? (Other than very, very cold sounding!)


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## sciencefiction (13 Dec 2016)

I think the problem with discus is that they've been kept in sterile conditions for so many generations in captivity that their immune system is really weak..Plants, substrate, dritwood, all harbour micro-organisms which discus can't cope with...They do come from soft/acidic water and soft water is not a friendly environment for a lot of pathogens we deal with in aquariums. Once exposed to fish tanks, discus get sick from what not....And no one has tried to breed them for immunity and breed just fish that have overcome certain diseases and have perhaps build up immunity against those pathogens. These fish are normally not the best looking because perhaps their growth rate was affected from the disease, so they get destroyed. And instead the "beautiful" ones are bred. There are plenty of soft water fish that were not babysitted like that and are now thriving in normal tap water...without too much fuss...


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## KipperSarnie (13 Dec 2016)

I think to some degree with what you say is true except to say all my Discus, Wild as well as tank bred, are in planted tanks with driftwood, even my breeding pair & the fry are raised in the same sort of set up.
The wood I use is Twisted Hazel from my own garden & the tanks are planted with mainly Echinodorus.


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## Martin in Holland (14 Dec 2016)

three-fingers said:


> What are your tap water stats like there?


As I'm living in south China the water here is nice soft with a pH of 7 and no chlorine or chloramine added (except once a year to clean the pipes). I've got my fish from Hong Kong, which is 10 minutes from my home and they have the same water parameters, this makes it a lot easier on keeping my Discus.

The choice for my setup like this is that I want to grow out the fish first, see which once are male and female, and see if I can get a nice breeding couple. This is the same setup as Wayne Ng is using, so way change a good thing...hehe... The Discus grow out tank is not a display tank, thus no real need for decoration.
The "left over" fish will probably go into my planted tank.


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