The discus fish is a species of fish from the Amazon. They are called "discus" in reference to their appearance; they are shaped sort of circular and come in bright flashy colours. They are used to the rivers and streams of the Amazon and they like lots of dense vegetation in their habitat along with soft water. While these beautiful, flashy, Tropical fish have been the rage for the last ninety or so years they are not the easiest to keep. They can be considered a very delicate type of fish and easily disease-prone.
When caring for discus, you need a very large tank for them to stay healthy. At the age of only six months they are about the size of a tennis ball so that should tell you approximately about what size tank they will need, normally around a minimum of 10 gallons per adult fish as a rough estimate. As they do better in a larger group, about six to eight together, from this you can see that a rather large tank is indeed required.
Discus fish Maintenance Tips
Water - needs daily attention and weekly total cleaning. The temperature should stay at a steady twenty-eight to thirty degrees Celsius. Discus Fish like to have slightly acidic water with a P.H. level of at least 6.0 to 7.0. Also carefully monitor their tank for nitrogen waste.
Aggressive Fish - Don't house them with aggressive fish as they don't do well. They are fine with more docile fish but really prefer more of their own species. Be careful not to house them with much smaller fish as they might consider them food.
Discus Disease
Proper aquarium maintenance is probably the most important aspect of discus care; water plays a key part in keeping your discus healthy. If the temperature in their tank isn't watched carefully they can become depressed. If you see the colours of your discus start to fade then you know that you have an unhappy fish, an unhappy fish will stop eating and you may even notice that they start breathing faster. If you start to notice that they are passing a white-rope-like stool then they have become ill due to the tanks temperature. But this is easily addressed by fixing the conditions in their tank that are undesirable.
Care must be taken in choosing the type of fish that your Discus are housed with as they can become stressed by aggressive house-mates and then become ill. If you notice that they are acting like they're stressed, than simply removing them from the other fish will help them. A common mistake is housing them with an algae eating type of fish and thinking that this breed is harmless to them.
Discus Fish can get diseases caused by worms. One of the more common of which is hole in their head disease. This can be treated by commonly available medicines. These can be used with their frozen food. There are a number of other more serious diseases that they can get but, in the vast majority of cases, can be avoided by keeping a clean tank and the right water temperature.
To learn more about keeping and breeding Discus fish, go to my Discus care website, there you will find out about preventing Discus disease and also a complete list of common Discus diseases
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