Discus Fish Secrets Pdf Free Download
Darleen Lamphere
If you want to successfully keep and breed discusfish, then you have to be aware of all of their secrets. One of the mostimportant Discus fish secrets is that they are schooling fish. This means thatthey prefer to live in a group with other Discus fish. If you purchase just one Discus for your tank, you will likely end up with an unhappy and unhealthy Discus. You should always get a minimum of five Discus fish so that they will beable to school. This will reduce their anxiety and help them stay healthy. Atank size of 30 to 40 gallons is good for a school of five.
Their behavior is another of the important Discusfish secrets. Discus are shy and become easily agitated. They prefer to havelittle intrusion in their tank. Although the discus like plenty of plants tohide in, they should be plants that require little upkeep so that you will notneed to disrupt them frequently. They also do not like bright lights or noise.Be sure to keep your aquarium that is away from busy, noisy areas of your hometo keep your Discus happy. If you see that they are hiding even at night, itcould be a sign that they are unhappy with their environment. A small change inthe placement of the tank could be all it takes to make your Discus more atease.
Another of the important Discus fish secrets is that Discus can be susceptible to disease. They need fresh water changes weekly tokeep ammonia and nitrite levels from building in the aquarium. This lowersstress levels with the Discus fish so they are not as susceptible to illness.At the first sign of illness of your Discus fish or of its tank mates, it wouldbe advised to pull the diseased fish and treat in a separate tank. The delicatenature of the Discus fish makes it highly vulnerable to disease and illness canspread rapidly throughout your Discus population. Discus love live worms andyou must be very careful as the Discus can get internal and external parasitesfrom feeding this to them.
Discus fish are considered the kings of aquariums, not only for their beauty, but also for how delicate they are. They require special care in their feeding and water quality which makes them spectacular but refined fish. If the food or water is not right, they can easily get sick or have parasites, but if they are properly cared for, they can live up to 12 years.
They belong to the Cichlid family. They can be easily recognized by their distinctive flattened body and round shape. In terms of color, we can find them in shades ranging from dark blue or yellow to white or intense red tones. They can be up to 40 centimeters long and move very quickly. They are native to South America and usually live in the rivers of the Amazon or in lakes with little activity in small schools.
As we have mentioned, one of the keys for taking care of them is food, and it is important that they get the correct proportions of all the nutrients they need. For this reason, it is becoming increasingly popular to make your own mush at home by mixing fish, seafood, fruit and vegetables with agar agar.
Once the mush is ready, the problem is how to feed it to the discus fish, and here is where agar agar comes in. By adding agar agar, the mush acquires the necessary consistency to be eaten and can easily last several hours without dissolving under water. In addition, you can make several servings and freeze them without losing their spongy texture when taken out of the freezer, as would happen with gelatin.
Wattley took discus from the same birth batch and divided them into two groups. He put one group in a smaller tank, and the other in a larger tank. The smaller tank was just large enough to place a pitcher in it to remove the water. This small tank had no filtration, and ninety percent of its water was changed seven to eight times every day. The larger tank held a sponge filter. Ninety percent of its water was changed one time every day.
After a month, the discus in the smaller tank were double the size of their siblings in the larger tank. All because their water had been changed seven to eight times daily, they were huge. Both tanks had fish with the same parents and ate the same diet, and the tank that grew larger discus was smaller in size and did not even have filtration. But the frequent water changes led to double the growth.
Why would the frequent water changes lead to explosive growth? Wattley explained that frequent water changes cause the water to be clean so that discus can grow to their fullest potential without toxins and bacteria that would hinder their growth and development.
Unfortunately, discus fish are notoriously difficult to bred and keep in captivity. 'Hobbyists didn't succeed in rearing them until the 1970s,' explains Buckley. Having imported 30 adults from breeders in Malaysia, the team reproduced the breeding conditions in the Amazon during the dry season to encourage the fish to spawn. They lowered the water level and left it for a few hours before topping the tank up with cold water, and repeated the process until the pair was ready to lay their eggs. Buckley also collected samples of the orange mucus from the fish's flanks before they spawned and at various stages after the eggs had hatched, and monitored the parent's behaviour as their offspring grew.
During the first 3 days after hatching, the fry remained attached to the cone where the parents laid their eggs, absorbing the yolk and gaining strength until all of the fry were able to swim independently. Then they left the cone en masse and began feeding on their parents' mucus, feeding for up to 10min by biting at the parent's side until the parent expertly 'flicked' the shoal over to its partner to continue feeding. The parents diligently fed their young intensely for 2 weeks. However, 3 weeks after hatching the parents' behaviour began to change as they started swimming away from their young for brief periods. At the same time the fry began biting their parents less and investigating other food sources. By the fourth week the parents were actively swimming away from their brood for the majority of the time and the fry barely bit them at all.
'There are a lot of parallels between the discus fish's parental care and the parental care that we see in mammals and birds,' says Buckley. Initially the parents invest all of their effort in raising their current batch of young, but wean the offspring when their investment in the current brood might begin affecting later broods. Buckley suspects that he sees signs of the conflict often seen between mammals and their young -- where parents want to wean their offspring and the offspring continue pursuing them -- in the fish's chasing behaviour during the third week after hatching.
Monitoring the composition of the parents' mucus before they spawned and through to the end of their parental responsibilities, Buckley found a huge increase in the mucus's antibody and protein levels when the parents laid their eggs, similar to the changes seen in mammalian milk around the time of birth. The protein and antibody levels remained high until the third week and returned to pre-spawning levels during the fourth week after hatching. Buckley suspects that the sudden increase in protein levels at spawning is hormonally regulated, much like the changes in mammalian milk, and is keen to find out more about the hormones that regulate the fish's mucus supply as they care for their young.
Discus keeping is not an easy hobby! Knowing more about discus fish, will help you keep your discus healthy and happy, and success in maintaining the health of your discus, will provide you with greater enjoyment. In this care sheet, you will learn some simple tips and guides on how to keep, and take care of your discus fish.
Beginners are more subject to the risks of the keeping discus fish as they have a lowest practical experience on this beautiful sensitive fish. There is absolutely no secret and everyone will find discus keeping easy if they follow our guidelines. Here is some basic tips on how to keep discus healthy and active.
Choosing and buying healthy and high quality discus is the first and most important part of discus keeping. Never buy discus from aquarium stores and/or tanks that have any obvious sick discus fish. Unhealthy discus often hide or are dark in color. You also must check the Discus for signs like hanging white string of feces, hole in the head, and heavy breathing. To make a good selection, we highly recommend you to read the how to choose good discus fish article. As a new discus hobbyist, there are many signs and symptoms that you are unable to observe, or deal with, on your own. Sadly, not all diseases are treatable, and there are conditions and diseases such as discus plague, that not only kills all discus fish in the affected tank, but goes airborne from one room to another, and affect all live discus fish in the environment. You can buy discus fish from Discus Co. online store and we promise to provide you with the healthiest possible discus in the USA. The care that our discus receive at Discus Co. is wonderful.
Newly bought discus are prone to the Discus Black Disease or Discus Plague. There are also many other diseases such as external and Intestinal/internal parasites, fungal and bacterial infections, and etc. A plague attack is obvious when most of the discus fish in the aquarium stack together or rub against aquarium objects, or when their bodies turn black and the eyes become cloudy. If you bought your discus fish from a trusted source and there are no other fish in your aquarium tank, then you may place the new discus directly into the new aquarium. If you already have discus or any other fish in your tank, then you have to quarantine the new discus in a separated tank for at least 2 months. Quarantine tank should be especially set up for quarantining purpose and located in a separate room, as it is a must in discus keeping. For more information about quarantining discus fish read how to quarantine discus fish article.
A bare bottom and large enough tank is a good choice to start discus keeping. Bare bottom aquariums are much easier to care, helping you to have healthier discus fish. A disease-free and healthy discus in right water parameters, grows faster than what you might expect. So you will need at least a 230 Litter(60 gallon) tank with a minimum of 60 cm in height. Discus prefer deeper tanks. More depth in the discus tank, will help the fish to have less stress and to grow faster.
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