dsicus aggression info

[henward]

ok, initially i had 8 discus.

2 were large, same size, and the rest where small to medium. the large ones never really chased the medium sized ones.

i intro today, 2 large ones, same size as the original large ones, and the checkerboard is showing aggression. only hiim though, not the others.

this is obviously n ormal as it was their territory, even number? should i add one more big one?

to make it an odd number?

advice would be awesome!

[phoenix44]

bigger tank, more hiding place. if you are constrained with tank space like me, you may have to resort to thinning out more dominant personalities.

I removed my red rose from the tank and my checkerboards are out and swimming for the first time in weeks.

[Dave+Amy]

how big is your tank? Maybe add some plants to make them think they are able to hide?

I've gone through a good half a year of adding and subtracting members to try and make a stable group..and it seems to work now that I have a 6 female:1 male ratio

[henward]

i will keep observing.

they are inevitably going to a massive tank.

they will be fine in there.

ill see how i go.

ill keep the plants in mind or removing extremely agro fish.

so far, it has stopped after 1 hour of initial agro, they are just hanging out now

[Aquila]

It sounds like they were just sorting out the heirarchy. Even if there is days of one fish chasing another, I would give it more time for them to work it out between them (unless the weaker fish is getting seriously beat up). Most of the time it works itself out and they will act like best friends after, or at least co-exist peacefully. Occasionally the head bully will remind all the others that he is still in charge

My leopard is king of the castle and will chase and headbutt the same-sized white butterfly but will not touch the smaller Turq. The white butterfly will in turn act submissive to the leopard but give the little Turq a hard time. Next minute you look at them, they will all be hanging out like best buddies at one end of the tank...

I wonder what will happen when I finally add my youngest 2 discus in a few months. I bet the Turq will be happy that he/she finally has someone to chase

[firenzenz]

General tank dynamics aside -The rule of thumb is 50lts per Discus so at this stage -10 in 260ltrs-you will have issues.

The problem with Discus is that once they go downhill it is really hard to convince them otherwise.

They don't like being shoved around like you can with other fish so your issue will be how long they will continue before one decides it's had enough.

I've seen two year old Discus that were still 3cm even though they eat like the others because they just stopped growing due to the stress they underwent early on.

You may already have pairs as well which will provoke the situation.

Are any paired up or showing signs of it- you may want to remove them both, as a male who is retreating from another male protecting his female has little space to do so in that set up.

As Aquila has said they tend only to squabble with the closest to them in terms of heirarchy

Can the biggest Discus go into the 1200 now?

[Adrienne]

I would say that this is the dominant male in the tank and he is going to continue to stake his claim against the other male in the tank. My two males with girls used to scrap daily. At the moment they are separated.

[henward]

the newly introduced male albino is the biggest male in the tnak, massive forehead too!

but its new so i guess sorting out the heirachy.

there is a snow white, it doesnt get chased but submissive definately. the checkerboard was the dominant from what i can see.

it only really challenges the big albino male.

none have paired up so thats not the issue.

i can move them to the 1200 litre tank soon when the red aro gets picked up.

but for now, staying there abit. if the checkerboard keeps giving them grief, i will move it. i will give it time.

but whati have done is - whcih works for some other fish.

i caught the checkerboard and put it in a net. then put it back into the water.

as soon as i did that, with in 10 mins, the snow white could more comfortably swim around and so can the male albino. the checkerboard does not seem so insistant on chasing the albino.

yeah, i understand the tank is smallish - but its not permanent, just for a few weeks max.

[henward]

lol ok

catching the aggressor did not work, hes back to challenging the new ones now.

only the new ones though

will observe in next few days see how it goes.

if doest subside, i will remove the checkerboard until such time i can put them in the 1200L.

[henward]

anyone in auckland can temporarily look after a checkerboard discus?

im going away on 15th, if the aggresion doesnt stop before ill hve to remove it until i come back whcih is 26th may.

got over zealous with buying up discus when i saw some avail lol my bad.

[k1w1y2k]

Try putting a clear divider in, with the new discus on one side and the others on the other side and leave it in for a couple of weeks. This will going the older ones time to get used to the new ones.

Another thing to try is take them all out and change the tank around alot, them add them all back in, putting your new ones in first. As all the territories will have changed they will hopefully be ok towards each other.

If neither of these work them you just have a very dominate male. We have used both the above methods and had it work both ways.

[firenzenz]

General tank dynamics aside -The rule of thumb is 50lts per Discus so at this stage -10 in 260ltrs-you will have issues.

Without repeating myself they need space. All the "time out" in the world wont change that. Discus are 'stress merchants. I would suggest banging a Adult Discus into a net for 10 mins will lead to behaviour almost the complete opposite of that which you desire. Not only have you upset the territory you have completely freaked it out.

Try putting a clear divider in, with the new discus on one side and the others on the other side and leave it in for a couple of weeks. This will going the older ones time to get used to the new ones.

So now you will have 2 X 130 ltr tanks with 5 discus each. I can see this would be a good idea based on the assumption that the tank isn't already completely over loaded with a lot of Adult cichlids that have just been newly introduced to a new environment and to each other.

[Adrienne]

Be very careful you don't upset them. They are temperamental fish and if they decide to sulk and not eat then nothing you do will start them eating again.

[phoenix44]

I think henward; for the first time ever. you have too many fish and not enough space in the tank

The world as I know it has come to a halt.

[henward]

yeah fair enough.

i have already started to explore contingencies.

problem is that i got carried away!

and the guy picking up the aro is not delaying.

i wnt to check them out just now, the snowwhite has started to challenge the checkerboard. and the checkerboard stopped chasing it.

the big male albino is eating already! a fair bit might i add. eated 7 to 8 pieces of colour bits from the ground and as it fell.

when i went there, they were all haning out, but when i fed, the checkerboard started to pick on the albino male. must be the feeding - smell of food makes it territorial.

i will have a contingency plan if checkerboard does not stop chasing - hope the albino male will challenge the checkerboard too.

the checkerboard is fair bit smaller than the albino.

yeah admit, i overbought discus!

my bad.

[henward]

the albino male is eating, everytime i drop food, he is chasing it, but the checkerboard seems to not want to leave him alone.

so to be careful, im gonna take the discus to davids tomorrow!

just the one.

and reintroduce when the 1200L tank is set up.

the 1200 litre tank is gonna be designed so there is a few plants and wood - to partition the tank from the fish' point of view.

im sure they will be ok then, if not then i will have to sell or re house the checkerboard, it can go into the RTG tank by itself

[phoenix44]

you should make your 1200 a planted dutch tank

[henward]

lol

maybe not.

tempted honestly.

but the tank is not designed to have that much light pass through. the bracing for one is tinted black glass.

limits light already - but it did cross my mind.....repeatedly also:D

just annoying, why this darn checkerboard had to be annoying lol.

hope they will be ok in the 1200L, its 2400length!

that should be enough space for the otherone to stay away?

or is discus one of those persistent chasers?

[Adrienne]

Time will find out. I found with my 5ft 450 litre, that for the majority the 6 discus were fine, but when they decided to scrap they had really good sessions. I just left them to sort themselves out. I have driftwood in the tank and if any discus was being picked on it would go hole up under or behind the driftwood for several weeks. Make sure there are hiding areas in the tank.

You probably know this already - they don't like the bright overhead lights. Give them some floating plants or - like in my tank - have great swords and tiger lotus with their leaves at the top of the tank blocking the plant lights.