New to Discus

[sthh]

Hello all, i am new to Discus fishes, and i just got these 4 3inches fishes to keep in my very old and established 3ft tank that already had some spawning cories.

They are already happily swimming around looking for food every where.

Can someone tell me what are the colouration of these fishes, as i am not too familiar with discus yet?

I am planning to feed them tetrabits complete and frozen bloodworm sparingly. Will this be a sufficient diet for these juveniles to grow well?

I usually change 70% of tank water weekly, together with my goldfish tank, will this be too much for the discus?

Thank you

[KOA]

Nice pigeon and the yellow discus there in the plant tank, like the yellow discus especially. As it is a planted tank 70% wc weekly is not sufficient but I am not too sure about the plants. If possible you may do twice wc weekly instead of once weekly. As for diet, i will think tetra bits may not be good for yellow discus but is ok for pigeon. You can feed other discus pellets.
Happy discus keeping, I am look for yellow discus also may I know where you bought them from ?

[jazzyboi]

To keep the discus in top condition, you should keep the water temperature with at least 28 Degrees Celsius and above, also to prevent any outbreak of white spots. When temperature is high, do remember to keep the water well-aerated. High temperatures comes with low oxygen levels in the water. Also, I notice you have plenty of mosses, they might be doing well in high temperatures. Mine just melt away in that heated water. Best plants would be Ammania Gracilis, Cryptocorynes, Amazon Swords, Java ferns, Nanas, Tiger Lotus, Didiplis Diandra, Elatine Triandra, Giant Red Rotala, and many other plants that can tolerate high water temperatures. But beware of frequent outbreaks of algae like BBA on the plants.

Keep the PH at around 5.8-6.5, I keep mine at PH 4.6 as I have 10 Altums with my 3 large and 2 small discus, some Cardinal tetras, Pygmy Cories, Keyholes cichlids and Apistos. I think your cories will do fine in soft waters, as they are probably coming from around the South American rivers. I keep mine at that PH level by introducing aquarium peat moss in my canister filter. I feed mine with FBW, JBL's Novobits. Azoo's freezed dried blood worms (they love it equally, do not get those of other brands which are made locally). My discus grew from 1 inch to about 3 inches in just a few months.

Welcome to the discus community! Happy discus keeping!

[jazzyboi]

Forgot to add. I just notice that you have some shrimps keeping, try to get a smaller tank and house them separately. First it's the water temperatures that the shrimps will not be able to take it, secondly, it could turn into food source for your discus. If you want your planted discus tank to have some shrimps, what I did is I get the very cheap live ghost shrimps feed for Arowanas, they can tolerate high water temperatures and they do the cleaning up of the tank equally as the Amano shrimps do. Cheap and good!

One more, Discus love clean water! so twice weekly 50% WC is necessary to keep them in good health.

[sthh]

Thanks for all the replies and help.
The fishes are now fed 4-5 times daily with beefheart, and have all grown by nearly 1 inch.
Yup, have been doing my reading up, and have increased water change of 70% 3 times weekly. Advantage of a very old planted tank is that the nitrate is always very low, lol.

Thanks for the suggestions, jazzyboi. My tank is full of red tiger lotus, which have been sending many offshoots in the past 8 years, and there are quite some crypts there too. Glad to know that Discus is able to take low ph, as low tech planted tanks usually have low ph