agressive behaviour

[WILSO]

ok 4ft tank
2 DISCUS (ADAM and JAI)that have been in a well planted community tank for about 2 months.
introduced 2 new discus yesterday (NATHAN and LUKES)
The 2 new are about 20% smaller in size than ADAM Aand JAI.
The larger of the originals (ADAM) has gone crazy and is chasing both the 2 new ones and also picking on his old mate JAI.

Will this stop???

Or does ADAM have to go?

[Mulisha]

Hey mate welcome to the Discus Forums..

They should stop chassing each other it's like putting new people in your house you will become defensive and make trouble just give it like a week if they still chase each other maybe you might need to ask soeone else just make sure you place enough food in the tank so all of them get it not just the more out going discus


HTH :wink:

[Merrilyn]

Hi Wilso, and welcome to the forum. Agression in discus is pretty normal, especially if you introduce smaller fish into an existing tank, where adult fish have already staked out a territory.

Now, there are a couple of things you can do. The first one is to remove all the fish into a holding tub while you rearrange all the decore in the tank, including plants and driftwood and do a big water change. This effectively breaks up the old territories and makes it a new tank. Next put the fish back into the tank, with the new residents first, and let them settle in for an hour or so first. Then add the other two, with the aggressive one last to go in the tank. Discus are a schooling fish, and they should all hang together in this strange new territory if you have made things different enough.

This on it's own is sometimes enough to make things settle down. If not, then the larger fish may need to go into another tank for three weeks before returning to the tank. This will have been long enough for the other to establish a territory, and the large fish will be the newcomer, and hopefully mind his manners.

Sometimes even all this doesn't work, and you need to permanently move the aggressor into a tank on his own, or with just a mate.

Good luck. Hope you have success with the settling in.