9 Steps – To Acclimate New Discus Fish Into Your Tank

When adding your new Discus fishes to the tank, you should be careful on how to do that, the reason why is because Discus fish is a very sensitive type of freshwater fish, they are sensitive to water temperatures and water parameters as well as other factors like what type of other compatible fishes you can put in the same Discus aquarium in order for all to live peacefully and healthy.

Table of Contents

• How To Acclimate New Discus Fish Into Your Tank?
• Acclimating New Discus Fish Purchased From A Local Store
• Acclimating New Discus Fish Shipped From Overseas
  • Why you shouldn’t open the Discus bags directly from overseas?
• Conclusion

How To Acclimate New Discus Fish Into Your Tank?

To acclimate new Discus fish, follow the below steps:

1. Open the Discus plastic bags.
2. Put the bags floating in the tank’s water.
3. Add some water from the tank to the bags.
4. Leave the bags floating in the tank’s water.
5. Add a general Aid medication.
6. Leave the bags floating for about 15 minutes.
7. Use a fish net, grab and drop the Discus into the aquarium.
8. Through the empty bags with their water.
9. Turn off the aquarium light for some while.

Acclimating New Discus Fish Purchased From A Local Store

Purchasing new Discus from a local aquarium shop should be followed by certain steps to be healthily acclimated into your tank as below.

To acclimate new Discus fish from a local store, follow the below steps:

1. Open the Discus plastic bags they came in.
2. Put the Discus bags floating (with the Discus fish inside) in the tank’s water.
3. Fill the same amount of the bag’s water with your aquarium water, you can do that by either using a cup or pushing the bag’s opening into the tank’s water.
4. Leave the bags floating on the aquarium water while opened.
5. Add to the bags a general Aid medication.
6. Leave the bags for about 15 to 20 minutes floating.
7. Use a fish net to grab out the Discus and drop it into the aquarium.
8. Through the empty bags with their water away and not in the tank.
9. Turn off the aquarium light for some while so the Discus can feel safe in the new place.

Note I have asked you to grab the fish using a net so you throw the bags with their water away and not added it to the tank.

Acclimating New Discus Fish Shipped From Overseas

You should also note that in case you purchased Discus fish from overseas, the shipment might take several days to be delivered to you, with that being said, the Discus fish will be very tired from this long trip and might take like 24 hours to acclimate the new environment and to look healthy, however, they might look not that bad.

So, in order to acclimate new Discus fishes delivered to you from overseas, follow the below steps:

1. Prepare a separate tank for the Discus fishes as a quarantine tank.
2. Put all the bags floating in the tank’s water for 15 to 20 min (without opening them)
3. Prepare an empty bucket with your fishnet.
4. Cut the top of the bags quickly and throw the bag’s content into the bucket through the fishnet.
5. Using the net, transfer the fish into the quarantine tank.
6. keep them in this tank for few days till you find no health issues shown.
7. Transfer them into your tank afterward.

When you receive a Discus package, you might see the Discus fish looks like its dying, do not be afraid this is so normal, once you transfer it to your tank, turn off the light and leave it till the next day you will find them looking perfect as expected, however, you might see some dies after a couple of days and this is also normal.

Why you shouldn’t open the Discus bags directly from overseas?

The reason is that the bags have almost no oxygen inside of them due to the long transport journey, and due to that the water pH should slowly decline and this is normal and there is no issue with that as long as the toxicity of the water at this low level is very low (which is something good), however, when we open the bags, the oxygen will enter again causes the pH to rise back quickly causing the ammonia toxicity to be fatal to the Discus fishes in there.

Conclusion

Discus fish is a very sensitive fish, so adding a new Discus into your tank require you to follow certain steps in order for your new Discus to acclimate to the new environment, so be sure to keep healthy Discus by following the steps provided to avoid having health issues or in worst case scenario dead fishes.