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Size

Creating the proper environment for discus fish involves a certain amount of work and documentation for achieving the best living conditions exotic fish needs. The first question you need to answer about your discus aquarium refers to the tank size. This very much depends on the room you’ve got at home and your financial availability. The discus aquarium should include a deep tank as these fish feel better in lots of water, not to mention that the more the water, the more stable the conditions. Hence, the discus aquarium should be at least 120 cm x 40 cm x 50 cm.

Position

The position of the discus aquarium is very important precisely since the discus are very shy fish when they distrust the surroundings. Make sure the discus aquarium is far from any noise or direct heat and light sources. Heat in excess causes plant overgrowth, while also reducing the level of oxygen. The discus aquarium should also be positioned somewhere high as these fish are disturbed by movement, and it is not advisable to cause them undue stress. Then, the next big issue for a discus aquarium is the stratum you place on the bottom.

Display

In case you create the discus aquarium for display purposes then fine gravel is great to place on the bottom of your tank, but if you use it only for breeding than leave the bottom uncovered. Thus, the discus aquarium is easier to clean as you need to disturb the fish as little as possible during the mating period. As for the plants for your discus aquarium, it is best to go for the natural ones, even if the plastic may look great. Presently you can even order the plant selection for your discus aquarium by mail and have it delivered at home.

Decoration

Since many people are concerned about the aesthetic dimension of their discus aquarium you may choose rocks and driftwood as decorations. Such items are close to the discus fish native waters where they mainly serve as shelter. Be careful with the kind of rocks you use in your discus aquarium since they should not contain any metal ore or other contaminants. Rocks of the same color and texture are recommended though you may bring diversity to your discus aquarium. Similar texture prevents functionality problems particularly when the rocks have the same provenience, so, you may have to sacrifice some of the good looks for the health of your pets.

What steps I need to take to breed discus fish?

More and more people take up the fish breeding hobby, which would explain the large number of materials and documentation sources that teach breeding discus for beginners. Whether you choose an online e-book or a guide you buy from the book shop, breeding discus for beginners may prove more easily said than done sometimes. You need to pay all the attention, because if you follow some very strict guidelines, the rest of the breeding discus for beginners is truly piece of cake. Let’s see how you recognize the best materials about discus.

Create close-to-natural environment for discus



First of all, if you have no knowledge of the living conditions of the discus in the wild, the material about breeding discus for beginners should help you learn how to recreate the most close-to-natural environment you can. In the same category of breeding discus for beginners falls the understanding of the feeding specificity. Normally you feed the discus frozen blood worms and shrimp, but you may learn that a bag of moss placed in the water will create a closer imitation of the Amazon, as the normal background of these creatures. Thus, breeding discus for beginners requires lots of detailed information and good will on the part of the apprentices.

Learn from e-books and videos

A great place to learn the secrets of breeding discus for beginners is a site such as www.discus-fish-secrets.com revealing you plenty of tips about the tank conditions and the prevention of disease too. Lots of e-books and videos that deal with breeding discus for beginners are advertised online, the good part is that they come up with solutions that are close within reach and not too difficult to understand. Make sure you choose one that looks reader friendly meaning that you don’t need a huge amount of work to understand the supposedly easy breeding discus for beginners techniques.

Participate in forums and chats

Be selective even if you’re looking for information on breeding discus for beginners. Many forums and chats online may bring something new for you to learn, given the fact that many people who enter online conversations have lots of experience in fish breeding. Plus, it is a lot easier to learn from someone else’s mistakes and questions than to apply the trial-error kind of experience on your own. It takes a little time before all the breeding discus for beginners items find direct applicability in daily practice, but time comes for everything. May you be successful in every attempt to you make!

Know your discus fish behavior.

The last decades have seen more materials written about keeping discus fish than about any other fish species. Anyone who thinks about keeping discus fish in the aquarium should get well informed before actually purchasing them. They are considered royal fish native from the calm and warm Amazon waters that charm through their behavior. Keeping discus fish requires some background knowledge about what to expect from them and what to offer to make such pets happy. Discus fish are considered creatures of changing behavior that also manifest personality.

Keep your discus fish in small groups.

When keeping discus fish you’ll notice that they are calm and shy in general, but when they make couples they often can become aggressive to their own kin and others due to breeding territory protection. Keeping discus fish will bring lots of both challenges and rewards. First of all, within a group it is often common that the weakest discus be severely bullied, a treatment that can sometimes result in death. Therefore, keeping discus fish in groups of minimum six individuals is considered ideal. Thus you increase the confidence of the group members and lower the risk of “community” misbehavior.

Respect your discus fish habits.

When keeping discus fish you have to respect their habits. For instance mating is a matter of personal choice when it comes to parenting. Therefore, arranged matches are not to the like of the discus that are independent in their choice of a partner. Keeping discus fish that go through the breeding process is best achieved in a separate tank especially prepared for the purpose. In case you’re keeping discus fish in couples together with the rest of your aquatic pets, you risk having some nasty violent behavior because of territorial claims. Discus fish prepare the perimeter were they are going to have their babies by cleaning it first and defending it throughout the whole period.




Assist discus fish parents

Once you have fry, you’ll be surprised that discus feed their young alone. However, when keeping discus fish of such different ages together, it is good to assist the parents’ effort by also giving some special food to the fry too such as baby brine shrimp. After three or six weeks at the maximum, keeping discus fish together with their fry is not at all recommended. You should separate the fry and leave the exhausted parents recover. Use a special tank for the fry only and feed them at least three times a day to support the accelerated growth rate.

Are discus fish ensitive creatures?

Since discus fish are natively from the Amazon River, they are not too fragile or sensitive creatures. However, all breeders should be aware of the risks of discus fish disease, as they are often exposed to various health problems because of improper care conditions. The truth is that breeders are most often the ones responsible for the discus fish diseases. Improper care, poor or inadequate living conditions, co-inhabitance with other breeds are usually responsible for the various discus fish diseases.

Poor water quality

The most common discus fish diseases are the ones common to fresh water fish in general. For instance the ammonia poisoning is a discus fish disease that appears because of improper nitrogen cycle in your aquarium. Don’t add tropical fish in the water until the ammonia has been eliminated in the water, and maybe the filters don’t function properly. In order to avoid this discus fish disease, change the water regularly and avoid over-crowding the tank. The symptoms of this discus fish disease include red and swollen gills and the fish staying at the water surface gasping for air.

Another discus fish disease that results from poor water quality is the Ich or the white spot characterized by the appearance of white spots on the fish body and fins. The best way to fight this discus fish disease is by increasing the water temperature and administrating medication available in any pet store. Before adding the medication for this type of discus fish disease, take the carbon filter out as this may absorb all the useful substances. In case you want to bring other fish to the tank, make sure you use a quarantine aquarium in order to prevent any discus fish disease.

Water temperature

If the water temperature is not appropriate you expose your pets to another discus fish disease such as the oxygen starvation. A higher water temperature also requires an increased level of oxygen in the water. Therefore, you can easily avoid this discus fish disease by taking care of the aeration level, speeding up the flow rate of the filters. You may want to turn off the tank light for a while, as this also causes temperature to rise and exposes the fish to the risk of the oxygen starvation discus fish disease. All in all, keep in mind that the proper temperature for the discus fish is 31 degrees Celsius at the maximum.

For further professional information on breeding discus fish you can always turn to the advice available on www.discus-fish-secrets.com.

Is breeding discus fish difficult?

It is common that exotic fish owners find breeding discus fish a little bit hard to get baby discus. The most diificult part about breeding discus fish is finding the right mates, sincediscus like to choose their own partners, and not anyone suits their “taste”. As such you got two choices for breeding discus fish: you can either buy a couple or raise them together in a group and hope they will make couples. The first variant is not the happiest, since a discus fish couple can be as expensive as a few hundred dollars, which is a lot.