We here at Seaview have had numerous people ask the question about sexing discus and how to breed and look after these beautiful fish. So we have come up with this discus care sheet which out lines a few of the basic things needed to look after discus as well as answer a few questions that people ask.
SEXING DISCUS
Sexing discus has always been difficult at best. However, there is a method that we use here that has proven to work and been very reliable for us. The method uses "geometry" to determine sex. Picture a discus facing you on the side. Find the Dorsal (Top) and Anal (bottom) fins and look where the fins slope down toward the Caudal (tail) fin. Make sure you're looking at the fins after they have curved back toward the tail. The Dorsal and Anal Fins become almost straight after the fins curve down or up toward the Caudal Fin. Extend an imaginary line along this straight section of the 2 fins back toward the tail which just touches the Dorsal & Anal Fins past the Caudal Fin. These two imaginary lines should intersect behind the fish. The key to sexing the fish is where the lines cross the Caudal fin. If they pass through the Caudal Fin, the fish is most likely a FEMALE. If they miss or just touch the Caudal Fin, then most likely it is a MALE.
N.B. This method can only be accurately used when the fins are fully extended and minimum size of discus being 10cm, also it has been noted that the male discus being 12cm in size or larger develop a small ramp or hump on there head.
HABITAT:
Discus are most commonly found in dense planting and wooded areas in slow moving rivers and backwaters in the Amazon river system. These waters are soft, warm and acidic, with little current. Their natural flat shape and colour pattern is designed to give camouflage in their natural home. They can usually be found in large groups, and when not spawning are mostly a social cichlids. Their natural food is comprised of aquatic inverts, insects, small fish and fry and any other naturally occurring food that may be available. Many other commonly kept South American tetras and cichlids can be found in these waters.
TEMPRAMENT, BEHAVIOR AND SIZE:
Discus are Cichlids! This means they are fishes of changeable behavior, but also of character and personality. They can on occasion be aggressive towards their own kind and others, mainly when pair bonds are formed, or when territory of fry are involved. If some consideration is paid to this, in cichlid terms they are generally quite mild in behavior.
The main problem is with bullying within them selves. Often, in small groups of fish the individual at the bottom of the pecking order is on the receiving end of a great deal of bullying, which can result in death or stunting in growth. This can be avoided or minimized by keeping a group of no less then 4 discus, minimum of 6 so the pecking order is always changing and the group is to large for one discus to dominate the heard.
Size wise, roughly 8-10" round is a good side for an adult discus. There have been individuals that boast having 10, 11 or even 12" Specimens!!!
AQUARIUM REQUIREMENTS:
This is one of the areas that gives rise to the greatest amount of arguments between discus keepers, but this is what we feel is a good basic guide for keeping discus in the home aquarium.
Water conditions for general keeping: pH 6.4-7.0. Water hardness is just as important as pH, a kH of 70 - 150ppm and gH of 150 or below. The fish may live in harder water, but for long term they need soft to medium water to thrive and breed.
Temperature: a range of 26 - 31 is acceptable, (juvenile prefer higher temperature 29) although many fish keepers use higher temperatures of up to 32C.
Water quality: The higher the quality, the better! Tanks must be mature and stable, with 0 ammonia and nitrite, and nitrates. Trying to keep the water as free of metals, phosphates and other contaminants will also help. Weekly 10% water changes are recommended. Additionally for extra water quality and to help reach natural habitat conditions, additives such as Discus trace and Discus Buffer by Seachem should be added and are recommended
Filtration: Being big messy cichlids, efficient biological filtration is needed, but filtration that doesn't produce too much current. We suggest small internal power filters where the flow can be regulated such as the Rena internal filters, external filtration is by far more efficient however flow rate is something to consider as some externals can produce to much current for discus. So some consideration should be made to make sure that the right size external canister is used, sometimes bigger does not mean better when it comes to keeping discus, the Rena canisters have a good range that will suit almost any aquarium size and have the advantage of having a tape reducer inserted into the outlet to reduce the flow.
Tank size: There are 2 main requirements we look into when housing these beautiful fish, tank depth and volume. Because of their size and swimming habits, a minimum of 18" is needed for tank depth, with deeper being better. Volume wise, a rough guide is that each adult discus will need 40 liters of water. Larger tanks will also give more stable water conditions, and taking into account other considerations the minimum size for a discus display tank should be roughly 200 Liters.
Feeding: A varied diet is the order of the day; this may include a high quality dried food up to about 50-60% maximum of the diet, which the discus will take with greed. We suggest Tropigrow by Red Sea , Discus bits by Aqua Magic or Discus colour from Sera . Other foods should be frozen brine shrimp, blood worm, mysis shrimp, also frozen beef heart and discus diet by Fish dinner, chopped earth worm, etc. Discus can be susceptible to internal parasitic infections, so take care with live foods.
Tank mates: tank mates should be none aggressive fish that are not too active or skittish, and will tolerate warm soft acidic water. Dwarf south American cichlids, cory's, tetras, asboras, pencil fish among others will provide good friends for discus. Shoals of tetras or similar will act as dither fish, making the discus feel more safe in their surroundings
Tank Set-up: Discus certainly don't require bare tanks, and furnished display aquarium may even be advantageous. Tall planting round the back and sides of the tank, together with an inert substrate will limit the skittish behavior of the fish. Driftwood and perhaps a little inert rock work will also be accepted, but the fish should be supplied with ample open swimming areas in the tank centre.
BREEDING:
Once people have mastered keeping discus, there attention often turns to breeding. While not being impossible, it can be hard work, but is also greatly rewarding. Like all cichlids, discus choose a spawning site then guard and rear the eggs and resulting fry.
Pairing: Discus don't take well to arranged marriages, so the best way to get a breeding pair in general is to buy a group of young unrelated fish of the same colour type and let them pair up themselves. This may happen from when the fish are half grown, but generally spawning doesn't start until the fish are roughly ¾ of their adult size. Once a pair is formed it will often remain for the life of the fish.
Spawning: Discus choose a near vertical smooth spawning site, which is cleaned before 80-400 eggs are laid by the female, and fertilized by the male. It takes 50-60 hours for the eggs to hatch, and another 36-48 hours for them to become free swimming, at which point the fry will start to graze off their parents. It may often take a few attempts for the pair to get it right, but two females can lay eggs and appear to be a pair.
Breeding Tank: Breeding tanks are best kept simple, with simple air powered filtration, spawning sites (Discon by JBL , PVC pipe, broad leafed plants or slate) and no substrate. Water should be very soft to allow the eggs to develop properly, with excellent water quality and a temperature of about 29 degrees. The tank need not be as large as the display tanks, but something of the order of 24x18x18 is certainly suitable.
Feeding and conditioning: The parents will need a good and varied diet not just to condition them to spawn, but to provide nutrition when they are feeding their fry. Large water changes should be done weekly of about 30%, a temperature drop and heavy feeding is often a good spawning trigger.
Fry rearing: The young discus fry start life by grazing mucus that is secreted by both parents through their skin. The fry gather around one of (or both) the parents and eat this mucus (Discus milk) as a first meal after consuming the initial food stored in the yolk sacks that they hatched from. The parents often take turns in this duty so that not any one parent is stripped of its slime to the point where it is vulnerable to attack from disease or parasites. This initial mucus feast is very important, and the fry should not be removed from the parents for at least the first 4 Days, as the bacteria in the mucus stimulates the digestive cycle in the newly hatched fry's' guts. The fry do best when given additional feedings of small foods whilst with the parents, such as baby brine shrimp. After 3-6 weeks, the parents will be exhausted, and the fry, having grown so fast, should be removed to relieve the parents from their duties and regenerate their strength. This is where lots of tanks and water changes are needed to achieve a decent growth rate.
Although this is just a fraction of the information available, we hope that this simple guide helps in some way. Enjoy and if there are any questions please ask one of our staff as they will be happy to answer any questions that you may have.
