May I ask why I wouldn’t be in for an easy ride for discus in my aquarium? Also I have in my aquarium so far
12x cardinal tetra
5x Congo tetra
3 x Cory
5x otocinclus catfish
1x snail
4x Celestial Pearl Danio
All doing really well in the setup with no issues
Tank water spot on with temperature of water around 28-29
Ph of the tank is 6.8
I have been to taverham aquatics and knoticed they had some for sale but was looking on getting for the tank
1x
Yellow Checkerboard Pigeon 4/4.5 inches
2x
Altum Flora discus 2/2.5 inches
And have looked into food and have that saved so when I decided to purchase the discus I have everything ready 🙂
It's hard to write a reply without sounding critical and combative, which genuinely isn't my intention. The thing is at the moment your fish stock is very bitty, which is fine if you want a community tank but not the best if you want discus. Discus really do best when the tank is dedicated to them and built around them.
It's better to keep certain fish in higher numbers, 3 cories isn't ideal, they really want to be kept in 6-8 minimum and depending on the species they don't do well at high temperatures (sterbai do but panda for instance won't), cpd's like cooler water and 4 isn't a sizeable enough group for them to be very bold. Congo are nice fish and can be very impressive but can make other fish like your cpd's shy because of their size/activity and ideally when mature they'd need a slightly larger tank, 5 is about the minimal you'd want to keep. Cardinals are a classic mix with discus and can do well with them but have also been known to be eaten by larger discus. I don't think that's a huge problem though.
So sorry for ripping through your stock list, it sounds overly critical but by having less species but more of them you really get a better outcome with more interesting social behaviour, more outgoing fish and a harmonious tank.
Finally getting to the discus it's very much as discussed above, they are big messy fish that have a complex social structure like all cichlids do. They frequently don't settle if you don't have a big enough group because it's hard wired through their evolution to be a group. If you keep them in to small a number they can bully the weakest fish or just constantly hide away, which may lead to health problems. It just means you are less likely to enjoy them in all honesty, whereas if they are kept as kings they can be glorious.
A pair can be kept and breeders do keep them in similar or slightly smaller tanks but breeders tend to be very familiar with the family and do what the average keeper would think was excess maintenance. I'd really suggest either rethinking your other stocking and focusing more on a pair of discus, which still most people probably wouldn't agree with, or go for a different cichlid species like apistogramma which would make your life far easier.