Maybe Discus Aren't All That Great? Discus vs Angelfish 

Triangle fish vs circle fish.

While I cannot speak to anyone else's experiences, I will say that I have kept both. Started out with angels as the centerpiece and we loved them. They are beautiful and durable. The group ended up with two who paired off and that's when things changed. They spawned regularly and while doing so occupied the ENTIRE 55 gallon tank - pushing everyone to the side except for the corys. They literally dominated the tank and were super aggressive. We ended up splitting the group of 7 up among friends. In hindsight, I should have probably added more angels to the group. I finally made the move to discus and couldn't be happier. Our water is well suited to them and I always enjoyed the maintenance aspect of the hobby so that was not a put-off. I have a group of 7 discus in a 90 gallon community tank and wouldn't you know it - two of them paired and spawn pretty much every 5 days. Unfortunately, our water isn't quite soft enough for the eggs to hatch but they behave very differently than the angel pair. The discus parents won't push anyone away unless they're within about a 5-6 inch circle and even then, it's nothing of concern. They are nowhere near as aggressive as my previous angels were and the rest of the tanks many inhabitants are free to be themselves. My water is 3-4GH, 7.8pH and 85F with 20-40ppm nitrates between water changes for all the plants. I always appreciate that you encourage continued learning and help educate others, and I come to this channel as well as others to help further my own knowledge as well as other non-youtube sources:) I have also learned from the experiences of others and appreciate comment threads (usually) for this purpose. I think the true end result most of us are after is enjoying our tanks and their inhabitants, much of which comes with continued education, experience, consistent maintenance as well as learning from others. This channel helps me do just that. Keep up the great videos!

Loved how you changed scenes periodically throughout the video, let’s us admire the fish room while we listen

Many years ago, I co-owned an aquarium shop. As the only shop in the local area, we knew our regulars quite well. We routinely had both angels and discus. While the prices were considerably lower back then, the spread between the cost of a discus and and angel was the same as you stated. While it would have seemed that we had a financial incentive to push the discus, we we much more apt to be guiding our customers toward the angels. Only the true, educated hobbyists were able to cope with the finicky discus. My husband would sometimes comment that you could raise and breed angels in a garbage can! Big exaggeration, of course, but as shopkeepers, it was a lot more fun to have a customer excited about his brand new baby angels than to try to figure out why someone's discus wasn't thriving. Home visits were sometimes the only answer. Go angels!

I have never owned Discus but my Angles are adorable. They have so much character - they are curious and line up to investigate new things when I add them in my aquarium. They turn 90 degrees upwards to eat, they stare longingly at the top of the aquarium when I’m not feeding. I love my triangles! And yep in Australia discus are $120-160ea compared to $5-25ea for various angles - depending on breed.

Really love the Angel fish patterns and colors and their fin varieties. I like my aquariums to be low maintenance and my fish to be hardy, so I would always choose the Angel fish.

I just got a pair of marble veil tail angels and I absolutely love them! They have the funniest personalities. They always want to know what I'm doing and never miss the opportunity to beg for food lol

I was fortunate as a beginner getting dicus i ended up with two breeding pairs within a year but as a beginner you need to do your homework first especially buying your discus they tend to stress more than the larger and be gentle and eventually they will eat off your hand and follow you around they swim to me as soon as i walk in they know thier owners..

I'll take a wild caught Angel over any other discus or Angel. An Altum is a dream fish of mine.

I'm building my 120 gallon angelfish tank now. Went with them because of the ease and wider range of mates.

I just got 3 Blue Pinoy Angels and added them to a 90 gallon tank with 4 Red Scribble Discus and a dozen Neon Tetras. I am looking forward to keeping them together!

Discus are beautiful...to watch in someone else's tank. :-). I've always been drawn to the angels. Just getting back into the hobby and plan to have some angels as my show piece.

I love the looks of the fish room. I would take my PC and sit on a comfortable chair and do all my work there. It gave me ideas for a future office.

This really great comparison video

I always wanted discus since I started in the hobby. But back then they were mostly wild caught and a bit difficult to keep. Setting up a 125G and considered getting a couple but don't really like the higher temps and my limited tank selection of tank mates and plants. I've kept and bred angels since the early 70's so I'm not sure if I'll put a few of them in instead of discus. 🤔

JASON is there any way you can make a video in the future about pleco proof a aquarium plants ? My BNPs have cost me a fortune over the years in plant replacement

I am now keeping 2 angels and 6 discus in 112 gallon tank. Over a year now and everyone is thriving. I do a partial WC every 2-3 days. Bare bottom tank. Temp at 81 degrees. Also some clown loaches in there. I feed mostly frozen foods.

Hey Jase great video I just started getting into discus I have them in a 180 gal mixed tank with anglefish and a few mollies I got a bit carried away. have a few to many fish in there but running an fx4 and 6 on the tank and do a 25 % WC every week so far so good. Then in a 75 I have 8 of them the first two I bought have laid eggs don't know if they are male and female i never see who Lay's the eggs they both protect the eggs so far eggs are not fertile. There are some great sites I've bought my discus from that are running great sales now and even ebay.

Great video Jason! Love both species so hard to choose between the two, also is that shirt available on your site? Tried looking for it and I can’t seem to find it

Great topic. Just picked up a few silver angels a few weeks ago. Getting back to one of my first fish in the hobby 😎

How about Vieja Synspilum vs Severums? I’d love to have an update on your Vieja.

I have kept both, Angel fish are so much hardier, and easier to breed. Great channel.

I grew up with angelfish, they are among my favorites. I miss having them, but I don’t have space for an appropriate tank at the moment

I tried to keep discus years ago but wasn’t successful. However, thanks to channels like PTA I may give it another try. 🤗

👍😎 Never kept either. Now you’ve got me scratching my head, hmmm?

I have the German Discus. I'm on well water with a ph of 7.8 with a hardness of 150. My fish are growing and doing great. Temp is 85 and change 12% water every 2 days on average .

excellent info, I've kept both over the decades. I find angels to be less sensitive than discus. Lately discus are a little more hardy then wild caught of the past. I do find that angels fight a lot and even a large tank of them will result in a pecking order and some of them getting beaten up as angels almost always want to pair up and breed. Hard to pick a winner, get a tank of each!

Nice video brother. 👍

I miss having angel fish in my tank.

I had 8 beautiful small angel fish in a 55 gallon aquarium. I went to feed them one day, they had gotten very large, and 4 of the fish, 2&2 were lock jaw together trying to rip each other apart. I bagged them up and drove a 3hr round trip to the "local" pet shop and left them at the pet shop. I don't have the space to separate fish. I only have 2 aquariums, the other one has goldfish. Now both are fancy goldfish. very peaceful. Tanks 50g and 60g -not large enough for discus, but I would choose discus.

I love Discus and Angels, both. I never had luck keeping Angels and have been too intimidated to keep Discus.

Angels are so fun to watch. Love them.

To be honest, I'm more interested in your Synspilum in the background, they're looking good!

Love discus, but so hard to enjoy the hobby when you're a slave to them due to the high maintenance. Angelfish are less colorful, but in my opinion they are beautiful and much more enjoyable to keep as a hobbyist specially if you have MTS. Note that a lot of angelfish are not so angelic when they have paired up so having another tank or a huge tank so that other fish don't get harassed. A good hardy alternative to discus is a red/gold severum, they have the size, the nice color of reddish white with gold/red speckles, very hardy and peaceful for a cichlid. To me, the extra upkeep and husbandry the of discus is a big dealbreaker, I would not recommend them for newer or intermediate fishkeeper. I'm at a stage of this hobby where I want to enjoy them more than anything else.

What kind of discus are those at 2 minutes 40 seconds

Where is that tank that you showed in the very first B-roll? That looked amazing!

I’ve kept both species in my community tank and have one of each in there now. In my experience, the discus are much hardier than people give them credit for. I like their less aggressive personalities but don’t care for the warmer waters they need

I love beautiful planted aquascapes. 78 degrees and angels is perfect. 86 degrees and discus is a problem for most plants

hey questions for you, abt how many mbunas could i put in a 40 gal

Great vid as usual. 10k away from 200k subs. You guys rock....

I own fresh and saltwater fish. I own Angelfish and discus. Yes, Discus is very close to saltwater fish in color. Discus high maintenance especially with expensive foods vs angelfish

I HAVE BOTH.....DISCUS TANK AND ANGELFISH TANK......LOVE THEM BOTH.....I DO 50% WATER CHANGES TO ALL MY TANKS EVERY WEEK.....AS LONG AS YOU DO THE PRPER MAINTENANCE.....THERE SHOULDN'T BE TOO MANY PROBLEMS....BUT THE DISCUS ARE A LITTLE MORE DELICAT THAN THE ANGELS FOR SURE.....

I had learned the hard way with my angel fishes attacking my discus 😅

I wish I could get big discus for just over $100. In Australia I'm not getting change from $400 for a decent sized one

I have both and find them water sensitive wise to be identical, as long as you keep water at around 6ph 3kh low gh and around 82f they are all easy to keep. As far as personality Angelfish are far more aggressive when breeding, though even though discus do fight less their fights are way way worse when they do happen, and have a nasty habit of attacking eyes. I have also noticed that discus show significantly higher signs of longer memory then angelfish. Also I like the fact you can keep a lot more discus together then angels, since male discus will form harems and don’t breed with only one female as the whole discus pairing thing is simply a rumor. Where as angels will pair up with only one other and attack all other angels. Overall I find discus to just be the better pet, they are smarter, more interactive, and more colorful.

awesome

Angels also have more personality, recognize and interact with their owner more I believe. Have owned different Angel's for years, never discus, am I wrong?

Nicest Discuss tank I've ever seen.

Really appreciate your channel Jason especially the water chemistry series. I am in the process of setting up 160 gallon aquarium with a sump for Corys, Rummynose tetra and discus. I have Chicago water as well but my thought is to set up continuous drip at a half gallon per hour of RO water and a half gallon per hour of tapwater to achieve the correct water parameters I am planning on doing a lot of testing and of course the discus would be added last. I would be interested to know what others think of my plan 😊

could an angelfish coexist with a gold gourami

Personally I really love the unique shape discus have, and the brown discus is probably one of my favorite fish because of of that unique shape paired with a beautiful natural coloration and handsome patterning, but I feel that their size and care requirements are beyond my abilities Meanwhile angelfish have a very unique and interesting shape, love their colors and patterning, they seem like they'd be much easier to care for, and I'm very curious about their personalities and what it'd be like to have one as a wet pet centerpiece fish Tbh a koi angelfish is probably one of my dream pets, along with german blue rams (Oh speaking of rams, how do they compare to discus? They're both south american cichlids that prefer soft water, high temperatures, don't do well in poor water quality, and come in a number of color variations, but one stays at a much more reasonable size for most fish keepers)

I feel like angel fish are hardier for the beginners, leading toward them being more prevalent.

I think I might get an angelfish

I love discus but unfortunately can’t have a tank of the size they need. I’m not too crazy about angel fish; although, koi angels can be cute. I think that once I scape my 72 bf, I’ll have a better idea what to stock it with. Planing is part of the fun!

I absolutely love the discus but because of their high maintenance I have angels

Once my angel fish chases a mono angel who is 6 times bigger...scary guy...

Can I keep 1 discus in a 55 gallon

Angel fish Vs Discus? I'm going to choose...the Severum. Lots of colors, very showy fish, and I think better personality and hardiness than either the Angel or Discus.

Breeding is pleasure😁acres of angels ✌️

I honestly think dwarf Cichlids (Apistos, Kribs, Rams and Checkerboards) are a better option than both. That said, having to choose I'd find Discus to be a good challenge to be accepted. Also, I have had some bad experiences with bouts of aggressivity from Angelfish, which have made me not that enthusiastical towards them.

Both pretty to look at. But you know me my hart is at the bottom of the tank with the cellar dwellers !😊

Happy Monday oooooops sorry Sunday:)

I think discus win unless the angels are wild altums i have 8 biggest is close to 15 inches.. regular angels look like a weird arrowhead

I prefer the Pearl Gourami over either of these.

Discus are like Ferrari’s. You have to be a little crazy to keep them. But there is no substitute.

Everyone should subscribe

U could just keep both together, works out fine

Discus is a swimming circle Angelfish is a swimming triangle

Is it ok to have a Dead Sea sponge in my freshwater aquarium???????

I’ve been taking care of fish over. 10 years never did discus Because I respected they need hot temperature and don’t like other fish and really need to be alone so I just stayed away never had one Respect the discus and don’t force it in ur tank I Always had the angel Have 3 know In salt water I love wrasses. But found out real fast they I wanted every wrasse there was $40-80$100 a pop But they didt like other fish and were very shy and litterly hide in sand come out when they feel comfortable which could be 5 minutes and most of the time so sad Why I got out of salt water the fish I liked just kept literally disappearing or attacked each other And good luck geting bully fish out Salt water fish have brains lol And after u spend so much money on salt water it’s such a pleasure doing unlimited water changes on fresh water lol Owww FUN FACT In fresh water ur charged a premium for imported fish PERU OR OTHER PLACES In salt water ur charged a premium for captive bred loooool

Discus are Beautiful fish but my water is too hard. I will stick with angel fish

if you're thinking of Altum Angels, ignore whatever he said in this video. specially wild caught ones. they are as hard as Discus to keep happy.

Only saltwater fish surpass discus in beauty .

Angels are too aggressive for me. I prefer a peaceful community tank so discus are more my cup of tea.

Discus Being kept at such high temps no thanks

very picky disc jockey

Angels