Very shy wild Discus

[BETTA03]

Purchased 3 Wild discus (2 wild green and 1 wild spotted) 3 wks ago, till now they are still very shy, swimming away to hide when I go near. They are eating and don't look starved. Currently in a 4ft densely planted tank. Discus expert please advice, really want to see these discus in their splendid colours.

[mictok]

It will take them quite a while to settle down,it will help if you have some matured ones inside to led them.

[BETTA03]

Currently the other occupants of the 4ft tank consist of Rasboras and various types of exotic dwarfs Gouramis, these 3 are the only discus inside there. However I often see the discus coming out to feed and hunt when the lights are off.

[mictok]

Give them more time,wild discus is more difficult to get use to tank enviroment as compared to tank breed.

[Toshika]

Hi there. i see that you are into wild discus too.same here. anyway, they will take about 1 month to come out and they do take only blood worms (at least for mine).they will not starve, they will hunt for food when the lights are off and are very shy during the first month.i do add in 100s of malayan shrimps to allow the discus to feed on at night too. maybe you canalso consider putting in a school of schooling fish. this will help the discus to come out as they sense that there is no threat aroudn, hence building up their confidence. i learnt alot from Heiko, you may want to PM him with regards to wild discus as he is the MAN for this topic.But the way, where you bought them from?hope it helps.

[BETTA03]

There is a already a established school of Rasbora in mine tank. Got mine discus from WuHu. Mixed in their tank of normal wild green and Heckel discus, there are also Spotted wild green discus, a type is not easily available locally. Saw it and I quickly bagged them home. Thanks for the good advise, meanwhile I have slightly up the temperature and reduce the lighting duration. Beside being shy, their fins are erect and eating, think mine discus are going to be fine.

[wks]

Rasbora can steal food easily from your discus since they are fast swimmers. The latter may not be to compete and will slowly starve to death. Its better to net out the rasboras first and reintroduce them when discus feel at home in the tank.
Make sure you leave some exposed substrate suface to serve as feeding ground. Wild discus biotope does not have any aquatic plants at all. Discus would not pick up food that is trapped between the plants.

[StanChung]

3 discus is a bad idea. One pair may/will form and the other would be slowly bullied to death.

The ideal number-
2-a pair -2ft planted tank.

5-6 for a 4X2X2 planted tank. [headache when they pair up]

7-10 for a 6X2X2 planted tank. same as above.

Wild discus do not come from planted habitat. Flooded forest yes. They need soft acidic, clean[from Nh3+, organics, bacteria, slow flowing water.] Some black some murky water depending on location and season.

I have a 5x2x2 densely planted with 7 discus. They love blood worms and that's all they'll eat at the moment.

[BETTA03]

Thanks for the good advice, not possible to net the Rasbora because the tank is very densely planted. The discus are now alot less shy. I feed them blood worm mixed with Cyclop-eeze and the occasional live brine shrimp, eating well too.

[StanChung]

Hi Betta03, maybe you should change nick to Discus03.

I've got RSG's too. I let them hunt malayan shrimps but so far they're not very keen.

They'll eat Hikari-Marine algae, Mysis Shrimp, Bloodworms, Brine shrimp and a few of them would eat beefheart. [not supposed to feed them that but they were looking a little thin!]