# 60 Gal. w/ Discus, Betta, and Neons?



## huckleberry77 (May 31, 2014)

My husband and I really love the look of Discus. Online, it sounds like they are terribly hard to care for... but the people at the fish shop say that they need clean, warm water, frozen bloodworms, and are not hard to keep. They said buy big discus, who are healthy and eating before you get them. 

We are thinking of maybe venturing into the world of big community tanks and starting with a 60 gallon tank, a discus, neons, and a betta. I would likely do a fishless cycle, or fish-in cycle with just one betta and lots of water changes to keep the betta safe.

On a side note- the LFS had an LED light with a "storm" setting that mimicked lightning and was pretty amazing!!

Does anyone have a successful tank similar to what we are thinking of? Any advice on this one? What would an acceptable stocking number of neons be if there was one discus and one betta?

Thanks for any suggestions!!


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## lilnaugrim (Mar 27, 2013)

The Betta and the Discus will be fine as far as I can tell however make sure to know his temperment with other fish as sometimes they can be very nasty towards others including larger fish. I would forego the Neon's though, they are very nippy and rambunctious and will stress out both your Betta and Discus. Instead why don't you try a shoal of Rummynose Tetras? They are amazing, their red heads dull when water quality is less than perfect which makes them a neat little indicator of the water quality! They also school constantly and stay towards the bottom which will be good for the Betta and Discus.

Remember that Discus do need other Discus around, they are a shoaling species from what I can tell. Some have had success with keeping them singly but they are a social species and would benefit from at least 3, I'm not sure if a 60 gallon can support three or not as they do have a high bio-load compared to the Rummynose and Bettas.

Also another thing on Neons, they prefer a colder water setting so make sure you can pick fish who will live comfortably in the 83-85*F range which is what the Discus need to survive ^_^


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## huckleberry77 (May 31, 2014)

Thank you for this info!! The rummy noses sound nice too.

The LFS employee told me to get only one discus, because if you get more than one then they develop a pecking order and the lowest one always gets beat up... or she suggested that we get 2 discus, and a "peacemaker" fish called a wahoo (or something like that) who would not permit the discus to fight. I initially thought we could get one discus, one betta, and some schooling fish... maybe adding the 2nd discus and peacemaker later... but perhaps this won't work?


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## lilnaugrim (Mar 27, 2013)

It does depend as I said, most of them will enjoy the company of the others but yes they will form a hierarchy which is why 3 should be a minimum number I believe, same as betta Sororities but the more the better the tank will look and the happier the fish will be. Again, I'm not sure how much a 60 gallon can support so someone else should have to chime in for that. I would assume you'd have a nice heavy duty filter though for them, that might not be so nice for the Betta though.

Doing some more research and you can apparently have 5 Discus in a 60 gallon that is taller since they apparently need height as well which does make sense. I'm assuming that's just the only fish in there so I also assume you could have 3, a betta if you still want and a nice school of Rummynose as they don't contribute that much to the bio-load as the Discus will.


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## jaysee (Dec 9, 2009)

I do not agree that neons are nippy and stressful to other fish. That being said, neons are not the warm water fish that discus and bettas are so they are not the best choice.

Moving on to the cycle - doing a fish in cycle with a betta in a 60 gallon is not going to require lots of water changes. It wouldn't require many water changes at all to keep the fish safe due to the comparatively massive volume of water. Probably wouldn't have to do a water change more than once a month in order to keep the fish "safe". It would likely take a while to cycle that way due to the small amount of ammonia being produced.


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