New member intro with a couple of questions.

[Cichlidcraze]

Hi. My name is Cass and i am new to the forum. I am new to discus, but not new to fishkeeping. In the past i have kept and bred P.Nyerii, C.Moorii and C.Kadango as well as H.Multispinosa. I currently have a 4 foot 65 gallon tank. Sand substrate, silk plants and mopani wood arranged in vertical position to provide hiding places without allowing places for debris to collect. For filtration i use 2 AC70s with 2 air driven sponge filters. I have a 250W heater set at 83F. I age my water, as it comes out the tap at ph 7.8 but drops to 6.8 over night. Tank perameters are 0 Ammonia, 0 Nitrite, nitrate 5. My water has a Kh of 1dH out the tap so i use crushed coral in my filters which pushes it up to 6dH. Ph now stays steady at 6.8. I currently do 2 50 percent wc per week. The tank has been running for 2 years. My current stock list is: 12 Black Neons, 8 Glowlights, Bolivian Ram pair and 1 6 inch Discus (gift from my well intentioned wife. She knew i was planning on getting Discus but did not know they needed to be in a group. By amazing beginners luck she bought a healthy, bold discus with a fairly nice shape. She also named it Nunu. Lol) plus 6 Sterbai Cories in Qt. I am now planning to get more discus but need to know how many adults i can have in this tank? Should i get adults or juvies? And how many juvies can i grow out in a 30 gallon 3 foot bb tank with a 2/3 daily wc? I am open to getting rid of all tank mates if necessary. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Cass

[DiscusLoverJeff]

Hello Cass and welcome to SD.

The first thing I would say since you already have 1 adult would be to get at least 4 or 5 more adults providing your budget can handle it. You can get juvies but the adult might bully them.

Get rid of the silk plants in my opinion. Discus might scrape themselves on them and thats not good.

If you try and grow out juvies in a 30 gal. I would only get 2" juvies, the 30 gal will be to small for anything larger.

Keep doing your water changes on the 65 if you get adults. More frequent if you get juvies.

Read up on all the threads here as you will find some great information.

[Cichlidcraze]

Thanks. If I get 5 adults, should i get rid of the Tetras and Cories? The rams will definately get their own tank, as the male is a little too territorial, not that my Discus puts up with any cr@p from him. Seems to enjoy chasing him around!

[Cichlidcraze]

So how many 2 inch juvies could I put in the 3ft? And at what size should they be moved to a bigger tank? And if I get 4 or 5 adults, do I need to remove the Tetras, Cories and the pair of Bolivian rams?

[DiscusLoverJeff]

You won't have to get rid of any other fish and they are just too small to consider.

When getting 2" fish, I would not keep them in the 3ft tank past the 3" 3 1/2" size.

[Cichlidcraze]

Thank you for all the advice. I think i will just get 5 adults. Can i use the 30g L to Qt them in? This is my biggest tank aside from the 65g.
Sorry for all the questions, but it seems that one answer always leads to more questions. I just don't want to make any mistakes.