CichlidFish.com - Fish That Think.

I planned to buy a new (used) tank, she has 3 6" discs in there. I have a blue jack dempsy (8") and a parrot (6") the same size. Can discus live together with dempsy? Those discs are about $45 each so I don't want dempsy to kill them or should I not buy the tank at all? This is a 80 gal tank, 4 ft length.

No a discus would be killed by those other fish. The only fish that go well with discus are angelfish and cory cats.

claire

Discus require very special water conditions to thrive. They prefer soft slightly acidic water with a temp. around 85 degrees. They can be kept in a ph of 7.0 but don't do well in much higher. They need new purified water daily (25%) to reach max color and health. It's almost impossible to mix fish like Dempsey's and Parrott's, that are pretty hardy fish with the fragile Discus. You can mix Discus with Cardinal Tetra's as well. That set-up looks very nice by the way. A large tank with about 7-8 discus with a shoal of about 30 Cardinals is amazing. Well just a little insight from a guy who really knows nothing at all!!!:D

I would think a discus would eat the cardinals!!!!

claire

They actually get along pretty good. As far as aggresion goes the Discus are very timid. The LFS that I saw the display in had about 12 full sized Discus (7") and about 100 cardinal's along with other small fish and bottom dwellers. The tank has to be about 200 gal. very impressive display, one of my all time favorite tanks. They guy I talked to, said they have had all the fish in the same tank for over a year, no problems. Now Oscars and Cardinals I think would be trouble.

Keeping cardnals and discus together is pretty common and seems to work well.

Alot of people are also keeping blue dempseys with discus because blue dempseys are so passive.

Parrot I wouldn't mix with either.

12 full sized Discus (7")

small ones


attached a picture for the discus fans

and for the people who think discus are small sissy fish

Quality's not the greatest I know

The discus in the pic that look like little dots - were 4" discus
(not mine but I can hope )

I don't really know how blue dempsys could be passive.. is it because they are blue??? I mean what diffrence does it make they are still a dempsy! And dempsys are named after a boxer!! That does not seem to me like they are known to be passive!

claire:D

Blue dempseys are 100% different then normal dempseys.
It's even often hard to keep blues and normals together especially at smaller sizes because the normal beat and/or kill the blues easily.

They're timid,fragile and sensative to water conditions.

O.k, O.k maybe saying full sized was the wrong way to put it.
They were very nice looking at any rate. I had no idea that the blue's require special water conditions.

Anyway, now that your on here Stillearnin I've been meaning to ask you a question. At a LFS I found a Dempsey that they called a powder blue not an electric blue. There was much less blue, more like a slight frosting instead of the solid blue. Have you heard of people breeding for this trait? Or is it something completely different? It was a very attractive fish.