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lgherb
08-25-2013, 03:13 PM
1) Please Introduce your self and tell us what your experience is with fishkeeping, give us as much information as possible as to how long in the hobby, what you have kept in the past and what you currently are working with.

I've had a couple of marine aquariums in the past: a 55 gallon and a 75 gallon. For the past 3 years I have been keeping a small 15 gallon freshwater tank that has an African dwarf frog, some tetras, and a couple of pepper cories. Also keeping a few potted live plants in that tank. If I had to put a cumulative amount of experience, I'd have to say it has been about 10 years total of fishkeeping, but (not counting the last few years with an impossibly small teaser tank) I've been out of the hobby in a serious way for about 10 years. Recently purchased a 72 gallon bow front from Craigslist and am planning on setting this up as a lightly planted discus tank.

2) If you have no previous experience with keeping discus, have you done any research to properly prepare yourself, e.g. have you read any Stickies in this section of SimplyDiscus, or other material?

Voraciously reading everything I can, including the stickies (was hoping to see more than 'coming soon' in the book sub forum :confused:). Not planning on adding any discus to this tank for several months AFTER establishing everything, so I think I have enough time to get educated enough to have a comfortable liklihood of success with discus.

3) Describe your tank, its size and dimensions, breeding or display. Include how long it has been setup or if it is still being cycled.

72 gallon bowfront (48" x 12"-18" x 21"). Initially will be using a wet dry filter in conjunction with a canister. Eventually the wet dry will be swapped out for a refugium (prior to acquiring any discus). I don't even have water in it yet (just painted the pine stand to make it more congruent with the decor).

4) Describe the décor for the tank; type of substrate or bare bottom (BB), whether the tank will be planted or a biotope.

The plan is to have roughly a 1" layer of pool filter sand, a nice piece of driftwood or two, and be lightly to moderately planted.

5) Describe your water changes planned or practiced, percentage and how often. Include if you age your water and use of tap/RO or mix.

I have a 5 stage RO filter that is currently trickling up an unused 40 gallon garbage can dedicated to be used only for the tank and water changes. I am intentionally going to do overkill on filtration (my current wet-dry is rated for a 150 gallon tank and the canister filter will be rated for a minimum of a 100 gallon tank). While the tank is cycling, inhabitants will be tetras, cories, and other hardy specimens. Water changes will be weekly 20% - 25% changes. That frequency will increase in weeks leading up to the initial discus purchases. Once discus are introduced, I plan on doing smaller daily changes.

6) Describe the type of filtration planned/used for the tank; sponge, HOB and/or sump. Also include the other equipment you are, or will be, using in your tank, e.g. heater, lighting, etc.

See above on filtration.

I have 2 Visitherm 250 watt heaters. One will be in the sump, one will be in the tank (horizontally). Lighting will initially be a 3 bulb T5 shop light from HD/Lowes that will have some combo of trichromatic/daylight/50-50/floral bulb...still researching what others have had success with. The long term plan is to replace that with a hot rodded led setup (the T5s allow for that budget to be shifted back a bit).



7) If the tank is already setup and running, include the water parameters;

- temp will be ~84 degrees

- tank ph target will be 6.2-6.5

- Ph of the water straight out of your tap: good question....should be getting a Ph meter this week, so I'll let you know what the output of my RO is.

- ammonia reading N/A

- nitrite reading N/A

- nitrate reading N/A

- well water: source is well water that is RO filtered, though.

- municipal water: nope


8) Describe your current or planned stocking levels; number/size of discus and number/type of dither fish. Where did you get your discus from or do you have a proposed source for getting your discus?

Proposed source for discus will be a couple of well respected discus breeders within a very driveable distance of my area (Discus Paul, Gwynnbrook Farm).

9) Describe your planned or existing feeding regimen. Include what and how often you are feeding on a daily basis.

Planning on 2-3 feedings per day (which means 2-3 vacuums per day to get any food sucked out that has not been eaten).

10) What are your goals in this hobby? For example are you looking to keep discus in a planted community tank, or do you hope to become a hobby breeder of Discus? Do you want to raise Discus with the hopes of competing in shows?

My goals are to simply enjoy my tank and keep my fish and plants not only alive but thriving. I take any pet ownership seriously - my last 2 dogs were 14 & 16 years old, my cat is currently 16 and her companion cat was put down at 19 years old.

To me, fish husbandry should be no different. I don't see why I shouldn't be able to keep individual specimens alive for 7+ years.

strawberryblonde
08-25-2013, 03:58 PM
Hi and welcome to the SD forums! =)

It sounds like you have a great grasp of what it means to properly keep fish in a tank, and just enough of a compulsive nature to carry through with it. (that's a good thing...trust me!)

There are just a couple of things that I noticed, in your post, that you might want to change up or ammend a bit.

First is RO water. Though it's certainly acceptable to use an RO/remineralization mix for discus, it's not necessary unless there is an issue with your tap water. Since yours is from a well you might want to run a full set of tests on it just to be sure it's not too high in iron content, etc. Beyond that though, well water is fine for discus and a whole lot easier than running RO.

pH: There's a very common misconception that you must keep discus in low pH water. Unless you are keeping wild discus, or in some cases, breeding discus, there's no worries about the pH of your water. Instead, the goal is to keep it consistent. My own water ranges from 7.8 - 8.4 depending on the time of year. My discus are fine with it.

And that brings me to number three! Consistent pH and consistent water quality is the big secret to successfully keeping discus. It means more water changes per week than you ever dreamt possible. LOL

For adults who are understocked in a planted tank and only fed twice a day you might be able to get away with 1 large WC per week, but most folks don't risk and stick with 2 WC's per week. When I say large WC for adults, I mean at least 50% each time.

For juvies and sub-adults who are still eating 5-6 times a day and growing, you will want to do a large WC every day. See why I don't recommend RO water unless you absolutely must use it? =)

And there ya go, the subject of juvies and sub-adults leads me right into my next item to think about.

You want a planted tank, but if you are planning to grow out youngsters, which is what most people like to do, then you're MUCH better off growing them out in a slightly smaller grow out tank. It can be a 55 gallon tank. For a grow out tank, paint the bottom and back of it white, don't add any substrate, and use 2 sponge filters for filtration. You shouldn't have any ammonia or nitrite issues since you'll be doing a large daily WC.

And here's the advantage of starting out with younger discus and a grow out tank, You could be up and running next weekend! LOL

Seriously, you can prep the tank and then purchase the discus, plus a seeded sponge filter, from your chosen breeder, then plop them in and be good to go immediately. No need to cycle the tank and most breeders will happily sell you a seeded sponge filter from their tanks. You only need to purchase a second sponge filter, heater and air pump/tubing/stone for the tank. The second sponge will seed itself over the course of a few weeks.

While you're growing out your discus, you can be plotting, planning and implementing the design of your display tank. No need to cycle that one either. Once you have it planted and are happy with the design, just maintain the water quality for the plants only.

When your discus are large enough to go into the display tank, move the sponge filters over to the tank and let them run for 2 months while your sump is seeding.

No matter which way you decide to go, please don't cycle your tank with live fish. If you're sure you need to cycle it ahead of time, use pure ammonia and a fishless cycle.

You can add dither fish and some cories, but those will need to be QT'd separately from the discus prior to going into the tank. You can read up on how to do a proper QT here on the forums.

Hmmm, I think that's everything for now. The minute I post this I'll think of 5 other things... and get to them later on. LOL

lgherb
08-25-2013, 04:51 PM
Thanks for the welcome.

Unfortunately, my well does have high iron content. We have a whole house softener to combat that, which adds its own set of water chemistry challenges. I feel pretty good about being able to deconstruct/reconstruct water chemistry parameters. My RO filter actually passes the product water through a crushed granite chamber to re-add trace elements.

Once I get a Ph meter (recommendations welcomed), I'll get serious on researching "ideal" Ph ranges, etc. Definitely appreciate the feedback, though.

I am amenable to more frequent water changes and am quickly understanding the 'more is better' mantra. Note that the "sparsely populated" tank will be the norm for the most part as I coast into introducing actual Discus into the tank. I have thought about and will consider having a second 'grow out' tank, but from a practical standpoint it might make sense to simply pay the premium up front for healthy mature adult specimens.

I'll definitely do more research on all the points you've covered. Since my tank is literally at the planning/acquiring knowledge and equipment stage, your reply is helpful and gives me quite a several nuggets to ponder and research.

My plan is to be as slow, deliberate, and careful as possible.

Thanks again.