Well, the key is to start with young ones. Know where they come from because Discus from Asia will show brilliant colors at a very young age but that is because they pump them full of hormones so they appear healthy and colorful but the long term effect on them is stunted growth and short life span. Discus require 85F, lots of food, feed 3-5X a day, clean water, I mean 50% WC's every other day. I know its a PITA but you see the end result :-D
Where do you get your discus?.. are you a breeder?
I do not want wild discus as I hear they are even harder to acclimate.. I will also remove all Carbon as I hear Discus are very sensitive to old carbon:dw: