Discus Fish - What You Need to Know Before Keeping Discus Fish

With a compressed rounded body shape and gorgeous colors of green, red, brown and blue, (There are 4 ‘real’ discus variants, with their own Latin name. The rest of the color variants are captive bred and the list of these color variants is nearly endless. They have exotic names like, ‘White Diamond’, ‘Blue Diamond’ ‘Snake Skin’, etc… ) discus fish are among the most popular aquarium freshwater fish in the world. Native from the Amazon River, Wild caught discus fish first started to appeared in the 1920s, discus fish are spread all over the world being part of true industries in Asia, for instance. When they reach adulthood, discus fish are no bigger than eight to ten inches and they make great pets, bringing an excellent array of lively color to your house. Make sure you know everything about the needs of this fish breed before even thinking about keeping them, though discus fish are not very fragile, they still require a lot of care.

Discus fish make excellent aquarium inhabitants and they can be combined with other species in the habitat, the best choices would be the uaru or the tetras species. Normally discus fish are very serene creatures; they are a bit sensitive to stress and a disturbing environment but most fish are. However it is not too great an idea to combine them with fish that are quite a bit smaller, as the discus fish may eat them. It is also totally unadvisable to combine any variety of discus fish with catfish since you might find you just end up with fat catfish and no discus. Like all aquarium creatures, discus fish require optimal living conditions; otherwise they are exposed to disease and may die.

As the natural water temperature the discus fish are used to, is around 26-31 degrees Celsius ( 79 to 88 °F ), you will have to recreate and maintain very similar conditions. The hardness of the water ranges from 3 to 10° dGH. Additionally, in the wild, the environment discus fish live in is slightly acid, so make sure you adjust the pH values to such coordinates, between 5.5 and 6.5 the pH is completely friendly to your pets. If the discus fish were bred in captivity they may just as well adapt to higher pH values, but not during the mating season when you really have to provide optimal conditions.

Keep in mind that discus fish are very clean animals, and the water you put in their tank has to be really clean, without the any trace of pollution whatsoever. You need to use a high capacity filter to cycle the water constantly.