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Discus at 78 degrees

23K views 15 replies 11 participants last post by  KrypleBerry 
I'm not aiming this at any of the people responding in this thread, but I wonder how many responses to Discus threads have come from people that actually successfully keep discus? I hear things mentioned as if they are hard facts all the time- "You can't keep discus in anything but a bare bottom tank" "You MUST do a 90% water change daily" "You can't keep other fish with Discus" "You MUST keep Discus at 86*-90*". I've had Discus on and off for 40 years. My tanks have never been above 84* and for years I ran them at 78* but I have a community tank so I used to run it a little lower than I would if it was just Discus. Even at 78* my fish have been FAR from sickly or frail. Wild caught strains might need more time to slowly adapt to lower temps but it can be done. My Staendkers were happy at 78* or above as they're many generations of tap water breeding away from their wild predecessors. About a year ago I had one fish that was getting picky about food, so I SLOWLY moved it up to 84*. Now I would consider 78* the very bottom of the scale, so 82*or above is fine. I see no need to go above 88* unless you have a wild caught fish with specific needs. They're naturally a semi timid schooling fish, so don't keep just one. 4 or 5 to start in a 75 gallon.

Acclimating new Discus you should lower the tank to about 78*-80* as the shipping water will be cooler and then after they're in SLOWLY go up to your desired temp. Don't try to feed them for at least the first day and you may even want to leave the lights off for a day.

Here's some of my guys a few years ago (at 78*):



Tommy
 
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While you may have felt they were happy, unfortunately, your photo shows that they were stunted. Their eyes are out of proportion to their body size and well maintained discus should be shaped like a disc, not a spade.

Our discus were kept in a bare bottom tank at 84F while juvies & when they were at least 5", they were moved to the 135 gallon planted tank with the other adults at 82F, unless they paired off, then they got a 20H bare bottom "condo" for making babies at 82F. All of our discus tanks got a 50% water change every other day.
Here are what discus bought at 2.5"-3" look like with that level of maintenance for roughly 2 years.




This was my runt. He was shaped more like your discus:


Very nice livestock, my friend, but my fish are far from stunted. The fish in my photo were <2.5". Show me one of your 2.5" Discus that is perfectly round like a 5". Stunted fish have oblong, bulging eyes, not round and flush. Another sign of a small Discus, not stunted one. The eyes stop growing at about 3" so older ones seem to have smaller eyes.

Tommy
 
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