600 gallon low tech planted tank

[Siddhartha Saive]

hey guyz :D
my 8 foot tank was setup about 8 months ago

Today's mobile pics
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/05/09/6y7yqaru.jpg
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/05/09/a9ege8u5.jpg

Tank
8' L x 3' W x 3.5' H
19mm toughened glass
about 300 kgs of sand ( construction+ river sand)
95 kgs of rocks
18 kg driftwood
2 wavemakers- 5000 lit/hr each

Stand- 335 kg iron stand over which wood work was done

Lights- Aquazonic T5HO 4foot- 54W x 4 and 3foot- 40W x 4

No CO2.

DYI macro and micro fert dosing at 1/4th EI. Not regularly though

Filtration- modified overflow type with sump.its not the traditional overflow with only surface skimming. i added a baffle around the overflow( the height of the inner and outer one at the surface is the same) so that most of the water(80%) gets sucked in from the bottom of the tank and only about 20% overflows from the surface of the tank.i wasnt sure about this when i planned it at the start, but works wonderfully:) no more fish poo and left over food at the bottom. all of the waste gets pushed to the corner (wavemakers help too) and gets sucked into the filtration.i planned this coz my tank is 3.5 foot high and i wanted low maintenance

Sump
6' x 2' x 15"
4 chambers- 2 filled with filter media and one planted refugium(reworking it) and one for the return pump 7500 lit/hr

Tank filled and water changes-50% once a month only with RO water

had only anubias and ferns on the driftwood for first 2 months.
Planted all the other plants in the substrate 6 months ago

Flora:
Anubias nana
Java fern- narrow leaf, needle leaf, windelow
Cryptocoryne wendtii green, spiralis green, spiralis red, blassii
Echinodorus amazonicus, ozelot, rubin
Lagenandra meeboldi green

Some Java moss and Christmas moss
Vallisneria gigantea

Fauna:

[DiscusLoverJeff]

Very nice setup. Thank you for the detailed description.

[RodneyL001]

Great setup!!!

[Robbo89]

Soooooooooo sexy! Exactly what I am currently trying to do. How do you get away with only once water change per month!? Sounds like perfection to me

[sgchick]

Beautiful!!

[johnsus]

Your tank is absolutely gorgeous!

[Quintin]

Excelent setup

[quattrok04]

That's very nicely setup tank!!! Love all the little details!!! How long have the blue diamonds been in there?

[Kirbs]

Beautiful tank! I like the open look.

[Siddhartha Saive]

Had problems posting this topic and links of pics and videos since I'm new to the forum.

My current stock list

250 cardinal tetra
21 Blue diamond Discus
10 Elephant Nose
16 Clown Loach
6 Yoyo loach ( to be removed soon)
8 Pearl Gourami
4 Rainbows ( to be removed)
8 Rummy nose Tetra
8 Denisonii barb
10 Albino Corydora
15 Garra rufa
2 Red Whiptail Catfish
2 Panda Whiptail Catfish
2 Black Veiltail spotted pleco
2 Albino spotted Veiltail pleco
3 Hill stream loach
2 Red lizard loach
1 black Angel (a gift from my wife)
15 Parambassis lala ( wild caught native glass fish)

and a few more i guess

Will upload pics and video links soon

[Siddhartha Saive]

I love my elephant nose fish. I've added them 4 months ago.
They were around 4"-5" big. they were very shy for the first one month. i fed them with frozen brine shrimp, dried blood worms and tubifex worms at the start. had to feed them during midnight every single day for the first month. used to keep the food in a net and place the net at the bottom (during the night with lights off) so they had enough time to eat before the hungry loaches finish the food. the other fish in the tank arent active at night, so no competition in the dark.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLkTavtm94M

Now, all the 10 elephant noses are very active and arent shy anymore. they always come to me when im near the tank and i hand feed them too :D

got them to eat tetra bits since 6 weeks ago :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPq_Qepc0Zc

now they move and eat just like any other fish in the tank

The discus were added about 6 weeks ago. 21 of them. They were around 2.5"-3" then.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_nrt_g1_Vk

All of the discus are healthy and active right now and growing really fast. they eat like pigs :)
video of them from 2 weeks ago-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTPfuAsE9SI

Its amazing to see all of them school across the length of the tank.

i might reduce the number of discus in the future once they grow and keep the ones i like.

[dagray]

Very nice.

[pastry]

Looks amazing! Only concern is WC frequency. Of course I'm sure that's a LOT of water to change at 50% but do you limit yourself to once a month because of replacing with all RO? How's your water source out of the tap? Regardless, loooove the pics of your tank.

[Tres]

Amazing looking setup you have! Nicely balanced between open sand and plants, very clean, and good current. Not exactly the usual low-tech approach however, as you went without a soil substrate and as you are dosing to some degree. I thought that might have led to a bit of algae, but presumably not so long as your plants are doing well enough to inhibit it.

I'm quite interested in the baffle system you used to remove detritus by removing water mainly from the bottom. Do you have any photos of how you built that, or could you diagram it? I was pondering how best to achieve the same thing myself. How have you arranged the flow and wavemakers in order to get the waste moving towards the intake? I haven't heard of a wavemaker being used to achieve that, but if it happens to work successfully as such then very ingeniously done!

[discusplantedtanklover]

Very nice.

[Chicago Discus]

Very pretty tank.. The only thing that concerns me is the only RO water change once a month and the movement (current) in the tank for discus .......josie

[alvaro1983]

modified overflow type with sump.its not the traditional overflow with only surface skimming. i added a baffle around the overflow( the height of the inner and outer one at the surface is the same) so that most of the water(80%) gets sucked in from the bottom of the tank and only about 20% overflows from the surface of the tank.i wasnt sure about this when i planned it at the start, but works wonderfully:) no more fish poo and left over food at the bottom. all of the waste gets pushed to the corner (wavemakers help too) and gets sucked into the filtration.i planned this coz my tank is 3.5 foot high

Is your tank rimless? Most calculators on-line I've seen would've recommended thicker glass for that height. How did you determine glass thickness?

Your overflow sounds awesome. Could you please share some more pictures of your design? How do you prevent overflows with power outages? I have a standard surface skimmer and have been thinking about how to use modify a gravel skimmer.

[s14swap240sx]

Great looking tank.

The overflow concept seems similar to standard marine land overflows that have the intakes in the lower mid range and upper portion.

Would love more detailed info on it tho!

[Siddhartha Saive]

Looks amazing! Only concern is WC frequency. Of course I'm sure that's a LOT of water to change at 50% but do you limit yourself to once a month because of replacing with all RO? How's your water source out of the tap? Regardless, loooove the pics of your tank.

Yes. Only RO water used. 50 to 70% water change every month. Having a sump filter and having lots of plants in the tank helps keep the water manageable hopefully
I top up about 20 litres of RO water every day in this summer heat.


Amazing looking setup you have! Nicely balanced between open sand and plants, very clean, and good current. Not exactly the usual low-tech approach however, as you went without a soil substrate and as you are dosing to some degree. I thought that might have led to a bit of algae, but presumably not so long as your plants are doing well enough to inhibit it.

I'm quite interested in the baffle system you used to remove detritus by removing water mainly from the bottom. Do you have any photos of how you built that, or could you diagram it? I was pondering how best to achieve the same thing myself. How have you arranged the flow and wavemakers in order to get the waste moving towards the intake? I haven't heard of a wavemaker being used to achieve that, but if it happens to work successfully as such then very ingeniously done!
Thank you :D
I'll post pics of the overflow chamber with baffle soon. It's possible to direct the flow towards the intake but it's not necessary. Any circulation in the tank is helpful. It keeps the detritus from settling which will eventually get to the filter intakes

Very pretty tank.. The only thing that concerns me is the only RO water change once a month and the movement (current) in the tank for discus .......josie
Thank you :D
The flow in the tank is not much compared to the size of the tank. Without the wavemakers, the flow from the return pipe is very little and detritus would settle in most of the tank.
The flow is good around the wavemakers, but there are plenty of places in the tank where it's very less. The discus move to these areas when they aren't active

[Argentum]

How much nitrates will you have by the end of the month before you do a water change?

A beautiful setup BTW, hope you could keep up with it. you would need to dive in to clean the glass . lol

[Siddhartha Saive]

How much nitrates will you have by the end of the month before you do a water change?

A beautiful setup BTW, hope you could keep up with it. you would need to dive in to clean the glass . lol

Never measured parameters till date. Will be buying some meters and test kits soon. Out of curiosity. Never had so much bioload before adding the discus

I pay the lfs guys for maintenance once a month. After removing half the water out (during water change ), one guy climbs in to clean the glass and takes care of any work inside the tank if necessary.

[Siddhartha Saive]

Got a big surprise today
My Discus have laid eggs :D
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/05/16/ge8yju8e.jpg
The eggs were in the back corner. This blurry mobile pic was the best I could do. You can see the eggs on the glass just below the discus. Hundreds of them.

The bigger ones among my discus are around 4".
Dint know they'll lay eggs when they're so young
Sadly they'll all be eaten by the other fish in my tank even in the future.

[gpmcfm]

Got a big surprise today
My Discus have laid eggs :D
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/05/16/ge8yju8e.jpg
The eggs were in the back corner. This blurry mobile pic was the best I could do. You can see the eggs on the glass just below the discus. Hundreds of them.

The bigger ones among my discus are around 4".
Dint know they'll lay eggs when they're so young
Sadly they'll all be eaten by the other fish in my tank even in the future.

Man-O-Man what a beautiful tank setup.
Congratulations, can't wait to here about the water statics.
gpmcfm

[Clarkey]

Hope your tank cleaner doesn't stand on your discus while he is in your tank each month

[fugu_88]

Very interesting setup.. 👍😊

[Siddhartha Saive]

Bad days for my tank :(
This summer was harsh. I was out of country for nearly a month and the tank reached nearly 33°C at one point.
By then my cardinal tetra were stressed out. I setup a high speed small table fan over the tank and the temp is maintaining at 28°C now.
Lost nearly 50 cardinals over the last few months. Now the remaining ones are healthy. I wish I had taken care of the temperature earlier. And I can only count 8 of the 10 elephant noses.. The Discus are doing great though

Another bad news. The cardinals are being eaten by my Discus :eek: my Discus are growing very fast and I've seen a cardinal with no tail today. Some Discus slowly trail after the small Tetras.. Haven't actually seen them eat them though.
I ve hoped my Discus would leave the tetra alone :(
If the numbers drop I'll have to separate the cardinals.

[tj_718]

your fish are so cute

[Siddhartha Saive]

Hey guys

Thinking of upgrading my lights to LED. Currently have T5HO setup 54W x 4 and 39W x 4 totalling to around 34000 lumens.

Planning to get it custom made to around the same lumen output (with LED at 70%) with cool whites, and red+blue+green. With dimmers and programmed effects on timers. Colour led will bring out the different colours...?

The upgrade is mainly for a better display. The current lights are good enough for the low tech plants I have..

So do you think the LED are worth it? Will the display look significantly better? I mean all fish/plant colours brighter and the shimmer effect..

[rickztahone]

Switching to LED's, especially with as much lighting as you currently have, you will notice a huge difference in temp, in a good way. LED's are far more flexible as well. I honestly do not know what type of fixture are available where you reside, but I would say that LED's can definitely handle low tech tanks. Just do your research for your tank dimensions.

[zergling]

Wow! Nicely done!

[Tres]

If you get the right combination of colours of LED chips, then you'll see wonderful colours from your fish and plants. Check out this fixture, which has the most uniform spectrum for the most accurate/realistic colour rendering of any fixture I've seen - http://www.buildmyled.com/dutch-planted-6300k/
The ratios of LED chips they use is as follows8) 6500K Cool White, (2) 625nm Red, (1) 470nm Blue, (1) 505nm Cyan, (1) 525nm Green, (1) 615nm Orange/Red, (1) 660nm Deep Red. You could add a few more cool white or red to give those colours on the discus a little more pop.

[Siddhartha Saive]

If you get the right combination of colours of LED chips, then you'll see wonderful colours from your fish and plants. Check out this fixture, which has the most uniform spectrum for the most accurate/realistic colour rendering of any fixture I've seen - http://www.buildmyled.com/dutch-planted-6300k/
The ratios of LED chips they use is as follows8) 6500K Cool White, (2) 625nm Red, (1) 470nm Blue, (1) 505nm Cyan, (1) 525nm Green, (1) 615nm Orange/Red, (1) 660nm Deep Red. You could add a few more cool white or red to give those colours on the discus a little more pop.
Thank you. I wasn't sure of what colour led to use along with cool whites. I might try this combination:)

[Tres]

Thank you. I wasn't sure of what colour led to use along with cool whites. I might try this combination:)

You're certainly welcome. There is a current thread here on the forum entitled "LED lightings for Color Pops" http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showthread.php?116718-LED-lightings-for-Color-Pops where they are talking about this as well, and they are talking about this fixture a lot there -http://www.buildmyled.com/fish-focus-red-5000k/ which has the following ratios -(11) 6500K Cool White, (4) 660nm Deep Red. I haven't seen it myself but am worried it might look not very natural after seeing the spectral graph which is one of the images there at that link.

So it's personal choice at the end of the day if you want natural looking colour or hyper-colour pop which is potentially at the expense of looking natural, though without comparing the two side-by-side I can't confirm myself for sure.

[yogendra101]

Its Huge !!

[Jbell]

Fantastic tank! I would definitely go with LED. I'm looking at the Kessil A360WE Series Wide Angle Tuna Blue LED for my small 92 gallon corner.

[Larry Grenier]

Your tank is fabulous! I agree that led is the way to go.

[Dahlyvh]

Amazing looking tank! Good work!

[Driftwood Mike]

Wow, Amazing!

[Andy27012]

I would suggest seeing a led set up in person. There is no question you will be able to grow and more then likely burn anything you want with leds, but they don't nessacerily look better. They will for sure look different, some people prefer it and others don't. The kelvin and intensity is far easier to adjust making them much more customizable. I personally prefer t5/led combos. They are expensive but they provide shimmer and customization without the directional light output and potential shadowing involved in LED only fixtures.

[discus blue angle]

hi
very nice and also have beautiful discus.
Good luck.

[Dkings]

That makes my 135 look tiny!!!;)

[Siddhartha Saive]

Hey guys. its been a long time since i updated here.

the tank has gone through a lot of changes.

Starting with the bad news.. my tank had a bad columnaris outbreak in August last year after adding unquarantined fish.. gradually killing most of the fish in the tank. I gave away the discus that survived.
I treated the tank with Nitrofurantoin and many water changes over 3 months. the tank looked barren of fish during this period with only around 40 fish left (from 400:( )


This gave me the chance to make changes to the tank over the next few months..
Added more driftwood to the tank and changed the scape.
8748987490

Setup a pressurised CO2 system.

Earlier, i used only RO water in the tank. Shifted to using all tap water(TDS~300) Setup permanent plumbing to and from the tank. The outlet pipe has an inline pump and drains into the garden, the inlet coming from an overhead tank. Now water changes are a breeze. can change 25% of the water (~150 gallons) in just 15 mins.

Got dry fertilizers and started dosing at about 1/4th of recommended EI for my tank volume since i only have slow growing plants in low/medium light.

Have added 10 x Geophagus winemilleri and 6 x G.heckelii and 50 congo tetra, a few plecos in December.


Tank still looked empty with these fish. After much waiting i found a good deal on the kind of Discus i was looking for, from a local breeder. Got 30 "Royal blue" discus and set them up in a 60 gallon spare tank i had for quarantine. Disaster struck on the 2nd day.. the tank started leaking. So had to put the discus in the big tank.


2 month old pics of the discus when added
8749187492

Im not sure if these strain are Royal blue or something else ?

Its been 2 months since i got the 30 discus when they were around 2"
Now most of them are around 3.5", a few at 4" and about 5 of them turned out to be runts/stunted. Have been doing thrice a week 25% water changes. And have reduced fertilizer dosing and CO2 a lot since i added the discus.


LATEST VIDEO OF THE TANK-


https://youtu.be/e_ENjJGwXkw

[rickztahone]

Those Geophagus winemilleri are absolutely gorgeous! It will be difficult to raise your discus to a proper size in this massive tank. How often are you feeding?

[Siddhartha Saive]

Those Geophagus winemilleri are absolutely gorgeous! It will be difficult to raise your discus to a proper size in this massive tank. How often are you feeding?

Thank you:) Cant wait for the geos to get to their max size and colouration.

Last year when i had the previous batch of discus, i used to do about 75% water change only once a month. Now i do atleast 25% water changes thrice a week and feed 4 to 6 times a day with Hikari discus biogold, tetra bits, FDBW, frozen worms/brine shrimp. The growth is much better compared to the last time.
I know the discus might not grow to their max potential in my setup, but im hoping atleast 15 of the 30 will turn out good.

[Allwin]

Very nice setup Sid..

[Reesj]

great setups. Although I prefer the your older look to the new one :)

[jmf3460]

OP I was critical of your original set up on PlantedTank.net, you had way to many fish in that tank and an inevitable crash happened as you experienced a whole tank of columnaris that killed off 90% of your stock. This was after you argued with forum members that your genius flow set up and filtration made it so you hardly ever had to do water changes. You have a bad habit of extreme over stocking, and it looks you didn't learn your lesson last time. Yes this is a huge tank, and yes you can fit a lot of fish in there but to be honest you should never have introduced the discus, much less 30 of them as the tank was pushing its stocking limits before the discus. I do hold out hope for you, but I predict the same thing will happen as this beautiful but impractical tank is way over stocked again.

I realize this sounds harsh; which it is not my intent to hate on your beautiful tank. My advice is to get rid of some fish if you want to keep them healthy.

[Quintin]

Lovely tank.but not suitable for growing out discus due to large size and tank mates.i would only put adults in there 2 years plus.and did u quarintine all fish.learn from ur mistakes.u have an amazingly big tank.try get it rite it will be worth the work eventually.good luck and please heed the advice here its only ment well

[Siddhartha Saive]

OP I was critical of your original set up on PlantedTank.net, you had way to many fish in that tank and an inevitable crash happened as you experienced a whole tank of columnaris that killed off 90% of your stock. This was after you argued with forum members that your genius flow set up and filtration made it so you hardly ever had to do water changes. You have a bad habit of extreme over stocking, and it looks you didn't learn your lesson last time. Yes this is a huge tank, and yes you can fit a lot of fish in there but to be honest you should never have introduced the discus, much less 30 of them as the tank was pushing its stocking limits before the discus. I do hold out hope for you, but I predict the same thing will happen as this beautiful but impractical tank is way over stocked again.

I realize this sounds harsh; which it is not my intent to hate on your beautiful tank. My advice is to get rid of some fish if you want to keep them healthy.

Thanks for the advice:)
But I disagree on a few things. The tank wasn't overstocked with the discus a year ago. The problem started with me adding unquarantined native wild caught fish( glass fish and rice fish that I caught myself and many small catfish and algae eaters from a local supplier). I added nearly 80 small new fish. .which I didn't mention. A few catfish were infected and sickly which started dying in the first 2 days which eventually spread to most of the other fish until I diagnosed the disease and started treatment.

I'm sure I never argued that my filtration was better than water changes lol. Or else, I wouldn't have troubled myself with changing 80% of the water once a month with all RO. This was probably good enough for a large planted tank but not for the growing discus. The tank tds used to be around 40 to 60. I might have said that I'd never need to siphon or clean the sand because of the overflow. If you think that was genius I'm thankful :D

I feel the stocking now is good. You might change your mind if you see the tank in person. The tank still looks half empty. This will fill out as the fish grow out. I intend to remove a few discus...5 or more runts/stunted ones. Before adding the discus it was hard to find fish in there.

I won't be adding any new fish. I'm changing water thrice a week now and feeding heavily. This batch of discus seem to be doing so much better. Very even growth except a few runts. Maybe the large group helps as I've read so.

Thanks for scaring me though. I'll have to increase my water changes ;)

[Quintin]

No one is trying to put you down or dissing ur tank.but take it as you want there is a reason u have "runts" and "stunted" discus.there are a few contributing problems in ur tank.take or ignore the advice as you please.ive been there read my threads and ul see.your tank and current water changes are probably fine for ADULTS but not juvies.anyway love ur tank and hope u find a working balance.

Kind regards
Quintin

[Siddhartha Saive]

No one is trying to put you down or dissing ur tank.but take it as you want there is a reason u have "runts" and "stunted" discus.there are a few contributing problems in ur tank.take or ignore the advice as you please.ive been there read my threads and ul see.your tank and current water changes are probably fine for ADULTS but not juvies.anyway love ur tank and hope u find a working balance.

Kind regards
Quintin

Quintin I'm well aware of the problems in the tank for growing out the discus :)

There will definitely be a few runts(genetic weaklings) in any discus spawn.. which are eventually culled by the breeders.

Growing in good numbers is supposedly better. That's why I have 30 discus in there. I'm hoping to get decent growth on at least half of them and I'll keep the fish that I like.

[Dis82]

Maybe up the amount of water changed and you will find even better results. Goodluck

[Siddhartha Saive]

Thank you for your encouragement Dis82 :)

I have increased the water changes to 30 to 50% thrice a week. That's 600 to 900 gallons changed per week.

New mobile pics. Pics taken from the side of the tank
Most of the discus are around 4" now
It's been 11 weeks since I got the discus at 2". I'm guessing they are 5 to 6 months old now.


You can see the smallest runt with the big brother in the second pic

87889878888788787890


Are they growing out good enough?

[Allwin]

Looks great, i like it.

[Quintin]

Nice.

[rickztahone]

These discus look excellent to me. Minus the runt that is, but you always have one of those somewhere, lol.

[jmf3460]

i agree, your discus do look very good at this stage. even the runt doesn't look too bad.

[Siddhartha Saive]

These discus look excellent to me. Minus the runt that is, but you always have one of those somewhere, lol.


i agree, your discus do look very good at this stage. even the runt doesn't look too bad.

Thanks guys :D That's very encouraging
I hope they turn out good.

I like the little runt. I always look for it when ever go to the tank :)

[pastry]

Sid, please don't think I'm baiting you! Just asking what you mean by "decent growth"? I ask because I'm just guessing you'll get some over 6", a few may get to 6.5", most will be just shy of 6", and of course a few will be closer to 5" on the dot after 2 years. That's about what mine turned out to be (I have an old loooong thread somewhere you can check out). Anyhow, I ask what your goal is for the biggest & average so that we can track your progress through this thread (keep it going). If they get huge, great... if they hardly get over 5", that stinks but still great for documenting. I'm hoping you outperform my expectations but if not, so what! All's good


Quintin I'm well aware of the problems in the tank for growing out the discus :)

There will definitely be a few runts(genetic weaklings) in any discus spawn.. which are eventually culled by the breeders.

Growing in good numbers is supposedly better. That's why I have 30 discus in there. I'm hoping to get decent growth on at least half of them and I'll keep the fish that I like.

[Siddhartha Saive]

Sid, please don't think I'm baiting you! Just asking what you mean by "decent growth"? I ask because I'm just guessing you'll get some over 6", a few may get to 6.5", most will be just shy of 6", and of course a few will be closer to 5" on the dot after 2 years. That's about what mine turned out to be (I have an old loooong thread somewhere you can check out). Anyhow, I ask what your goal is for the biggest & average so that we can track your progress through this thread (keep it going). If they get huge, great... if they hardly get over 5", that stinks but still great for documenting. I'm hoping you outperform my expectations but if not, so what! All's good

Hi pastry. Ive been through your entire looong thread already ;) You did a great job with ur fish

The best I'm hoping for is to get (most of) my discus to 6" with good shape. Even if they don't, they already look great and I'll be happy if I can keep them alive

I'll try to do my best to take care of them and I'll post updates regularly.

[pastry]

I don't think you'll have a problem at all, Sid :) I'm sure you'll get most around that size and definitely some around 6.5 or bigger. I'm getting the itch to do it again but unfortunately only have one tank. If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't have messed around with filtration at times and probably would've added one more (even if only small) WC per week. I'd love to get "teenagers" but had so much fun seeing such small guys develop. Should I hit the lottery then I'll definitely have a separate grow out tank and try to get them as big as Toni's ("Strawberryblonde").

Keep at it Sid! Take pics at least every 3 weeks at this stage and it'll fascinate you doing color development comparisons!

[DISCUS STU]

Fantastic, incredible. Thumbs up!

[Siddhartha Saive]

88984889838898288981#Discus update

Its been 4 months since I added the discus. They are probably 7 months old now. Still growing good

Only 3 to 5 of them look unsatisfactory in size or shape (runts/stunted)
The rest (about 25) seem to be doing good
About 8 to 10 look great.. look like jumbos compared to the rest. Probably males.

A few started colouring up recently

got 5 of the 14 barred oddballs like in the first pic. I like them though

[Woodduck]

Never measured parameters till date. Will be buying some meters and test kits soon. Out of curiosity. Never had so much bioload before adding the discus

I pay the lfs guys for maintenance once a month. After removing half the water out (during water change ), one guy climbs in to clean the glass and takes care of any work inside the tank if necessary.

Happness is a payment book away! Just kidding. Your tank is wonderful. Maybe too wonderful. It's got to be awfully hard to keep that thing clean, but most of your Discus look like they're doing well. I definitely wouldn't advise a newcomer with a fat billfold that's new to Discus to try this, but keep up with the new wc schedule and DON'T ADD ANYTHING WITHOUT QT FIRST!! Beautiful tank.

[pastry]

I really like that first one too. I love the whole turquiose mottif (sp?) you've got going on. Any full tank pics? Love the Anubis on the wood.

[Siddhartha Saive]

Thanks Woodduck :)
I did put a lot of time and effort into the setup but its quite low maintenance.

Feeding the fish about 4 to 6 times a day.
Started fertilizer dosing again.. macro and micro on alternate days
Top up every 2 days. Just need to turn the tap on for 20 seconds
About 25% to 50% water change every 2 or 3 days. Takes 15 to 40 mins
Clearing any debris stuck near the overflow or the sump etc once a week

And.. maintenance day once a month or so.. 70% water change, cleaning the glass on the inside, washing the media in the overflow chamber, return pump etc
once in 2 or 3 months , washing half of the filter media in the sump and any planting etc if necessary

I've learned about quarantine the hard way :alien:
Won't be adding any new fish.

@ pastry
I love the look of a school of a single strain discus. I picked these as I wanted a natural/ wild looking strain. These might be blue turquoise crosses for all I know but I like how they are turning out :D

I'll update soon

[tonysdiscus]

Keep up the good work, tank is looking great!! I also have a tall tank mine is 48" tall and super hard to clean at times, my 90% w/c's are noot really a choice, lol since that is when i clean the inside glass, and move around the plants,
-Tony

[yabin]

Awesome and great detail

[Siddhartha Saive]

Keep up the good work, tank is looking great!! I also have a tall tank mine is 48" tall and super hard to clean at times, my 90% w/c's are noot really a choice, lol since that is when i clean the inside glass, and move around the plants
-Tony
Thanks Tony :) Climbing in is the easy part. Imagine plants getting uprooted and you need to replant or make any changes... without emptying the water and bending over the edge of the tank... you're gonna ruin your back lol ;)
Would love to see pics of your setup. Please do start a thread on the forum.

Awesome and great detail

Thank you :)

[tonysdiscus]

Are you dosing your plants?

[Siddhartha Saive]

Yes Tony. I'm dosing dry fertilisers with a teaspoon. At about 1/4 th EI.

A few updates

The return pump failed after 2 years of use and I switched to a bigger version. From 7500 to 9500 lit/hr.<br />There is a significant change in water clarity now. Almost crystal clear:)

A video taken this morning just after the lights were turned on.
https://youtu.be/f6ZfaBckCns

Removed the refugium section from the sump. Removed the baffles substrate and plants I had in there.. to make a big chamber(twice as big) for the return pump. Now i don't need to top off water between water changes. Less maintenance.

I had the tank temperature at above 30°C for nearly 8 months.. because of the hot summer and then continued intentionally for the young discus. So the plants took a big hit. No new growth during this period and the moss is almost gone. Plants are really thinned out.

Now the tank temperature is at 28 to 29°C since a week and finally new growth has started.

My fire eel is finally getting bolder after nearly 7 months in the tank. Roams out in the open when I feed blood worms. Earlier I only saw it once a month if I was lucky. It grew about 1 to 2" longer.

https://youtu.be/b02pNMCnPlM

9002090019

[jmf3460]

this....is....awesome!!! I love your eel, im so glad I was wrong and this tank is working out for you. Those geos are getting huge! looking great take more pictures!

[Siddhartha Saive]

The Discus are growing very well and i'm genuinely surprised by how well they are turning out:D all of the 30 discus seem to be doing good.
Got a chance to measure one of the discus recently when it jumped into a net that i use to feed.. measured 4.75" . Most of the discus are at about this size. 4 of them though... are huuge.. probably 6". Need to catch em and measure to be sure. and the runts are still runts :o about 4 are smaller than the rest.
Its been 6 months since i added the discus at about 1.5" to 2" size. they are probably 9 months old now. Hopefully they will grow to their full potential for another year :)

New underwater video. Watch in HD. Enjoy :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Duf25Ggpvog
This is my first video of the tank shot with my new Gopro. Will post better videos soon :p

I wanted to grow my discus good this time ( my previous attempt ended with a columnaris outbreak). Wanted to do things right. Feeding about 4 to 8 times a day with water changes thrice a week(25 to 50%) and i kinda ignored the plants.. no regular dosing, less CO2 and tank temp around 30C. So the plants are doing horribly. just started decreasing the temperature and new growth has appeared.
The geophagus grew huge. the biggest is around 8"
The fire eel has grown in length and girth. Hand feeding it now :D
Bonus video ;)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVlXgUvxNDY

[jmf3460]

my gosh, this is awesome! I want to swim with these fish, they are not even scared of you or the camera at all, mine would freak out at a camera the minute I walked in the room with it. the eel looks awesome!! I could watch the underwater video on repeat every day of my life. very good job and the fish look awesome. geos are huge.

[jmf3460]

awesome video hand feeding, that is a giant clump of bloodworms right there.

[aquafrogstuff]

Siddhartha - great tank mate. I like the size of the tank and the way it looks spacious. I had a few questions for you; where did you get your driftwood? Can you post some current photos or videos of the behind the scenes i.e. sump and plumbing; Was also wondering if you had the tank built in-situ or did you try and get it delivered as a completed unit (it would weigh a lot!!).

[pastry]

Dwayne, absolutely amazing. I hate you :p

[CrazyAngels]

I'm amazed at how well they all seem to be doing. your filtration has got to be huge..

[Siddhartha Saive]

Thank you @jmf3460, pastry, CrazyAngels :o
@Dwayne. Thx mate:) The stand and the tank were built in situ. The smaller malaysian driftwoods were bought from lfs. The bigger ones were collected locally.
I'll post pics of the setup soon

[Discus3anatic]

Looks great, but i would a few low tech red plants not alot but a few scattered around the tank, A easy one to grow that requires nothing special is telanthera renekie or however you spell it.

Also those discus arent blue diamonds. Blue diamond is solid blue no spots, no bars, or anything like that here is mine. the other pic hes on the top right. Youre discus look like blue turqouise or something which is the one next to my blue diamond on the 2nd pic

91522

[Siddhartha Saive]

@ Discus3anatic
I think you skipped a few pages of the thread mate:p
I had blue diamonds in this tank a year ago.. which are no more. These royal blue turquoises were added to the tank only 6 months ago.

I had many plants in the substrate earlier. I removed them intentionally as I wanted to decrease maintenance. Don't have time to pick up dead leaves/replant/trim etc. Any such work in this tall a tank takes time.

[Siddhartha Saive]

One thing I have noticed in the past few months is the runts and the smaller discus of my group have poor vision.
The big ones can see food and dash toward it from 8 feet away, aim at the food and gulp it in one attempt even when swimming at full speed.
Where as the small ones only go for food dropped in front of them or follow the big ones for food. They have very very bad aim. They take a few attempts before they can get the food(which is right in front of them) into their mouths :p
So one of the causes for poor growth in some discus is due to eating less.. simply due to poor vision

[pastry]

One thing I have noticed in the past few months is the runts and the smaller discus of my group have poor vision.
The big ones can see food and dash toward it from 8 feet away, aim at the food and gulp it in one attempt even when swimming at full speed.
Where as the small ones only go for food dropped in front of them or follow the big ones for food. They have very very bad aim. They take a few attempts before they can get the food(which is right in front of them) into their mouths :p
So one of the causes for poor growth in some discus is due to eating less.. simply due to poor vision

Sure the small ones aren't just part of the millinial generation? ;). Interesting observation though. I know it hasn't been too long but would love more photos if you get a chance soon!

[Filip]

I would also like to see photos from the whole tank.

[Siddhartha Saive]

91681

One of the bigger discus in my tank. Measures a lil over 5.5" around 9 months old now
other pics were a lil blurry.

The biggest one I have might be 5.75 to 6"

Had a tough time holding it in place for the pic. Was flopping all around the plate. I dunno how you guys click pics of yours. They look so calm in the pics :p

[rickztahone]

There's a specific way that you can grab discus, almost like you are trying to cover their eye with your thumb, and they always seem to calm down when I handle them. I tend to scoop a couple out every couple of weeks to see how they have grown and none flop out of my hand. Maybe they've become used to it?

[navarro1950]

Doc your tank is very attractive, I was wondering about the geophagus and how fast they swim. I've learned that discus don't like large fast moving fish, do these have any affect on making the discus nervous ?

[Siddhartha Saive]

The geophagus are very peaceful ( any sp except G.brasiliensis). They do not bother even small tetras.

The discus have plenty of room in my tank and being in a school of 30 makes them very comfortable I guess. They were never shy in my tank.. since day one. I hand feed them too. The discus are just as pushy as other fish during feeding

[Siddhartha Saive]

After going through many threads, on this forum, of people growing out huge discus.. especially Toni :o (strawberryblonde) I got inspired to try harder to grow my discus even better... I increased my water changes to 50% everyday (doin it at least 6 times a week now). That is 300 gallons of water going into the garden everyday

The discus seem to look better and better each day :D

Initially I wasn't that interested in keeping discus ( I like smaller fish more).. but after watching them grow I'm in love:o . My discus looked ok when they were small but they look amazing as they keep getting bigger. I'm hoping they have plenty of growth left and turn out great

[Siddhartha Saive]

Recent video
https://youtu.be/wRR52jL-qqw

[DiscusGino]

wow... awesome tank!

[rickztahone]

Recent video
https://youtu.be/wRR52jL-qqw

I really like the way you did this group compared to the previous one. It looks a lot better in there. Great video, and I especially love the part where you put the camera in the water! I am assuming you have a gopro or something. Very cool.

I will embed your video for easier viewing:


https://youtu.be/Duf25Ggpvog

[ericNH]

Your tank UNreal. Amazing videos and pictures, LOVED the underwater footage. Thank you for sharing! This is just...I can't wrap my head around 600 gallons...my hot tub is 350 gallons....and it's massive...so..600 gallons??? My word!

[Filip]

Very nice scape Sidharta, lookin very wild and natural and also maintenance friendly .
I like your discus and your Geophagus also . I havent seen this type of geophagus with red spots and hues in my LFS s . What kind are they ?
Anyways great tank and great selection of fish in it and everythings looking healthy in it .

[loadin]

Amazing Tank!!!

[Alok]

Amazing tank, Sid. As previously requested, would love to see your system that ensures that 80% of water is drawn through bottom, which overcomes the need to vacuum the gravel for waste and uneaten food. By the way, where are you located, if you don't mind me asking?

[Siddhartha Saive]

Thank you all 😀

@Filip
Those geos are Geophagus winemilleri. Best looking geos in my opinion along with G.altifrons. they are among the large ones in the family growing to around 12". Very peaceful.. won't bother even the tiniest tetras. The G.heckelii, that I have, on the other hand will hunt down smaller tetras.

@Alok. Sorry I couldn't answer you earlier. The overflow is very simple. Consider a regular overflow chamber that runs the (almost) full height of the tank with a hole at the bottom usually. Water overflows from the tank over the top edges of this overflow into the chamber. Now we need to add an extra baffle(outer wall) in front of walls(inner wall) of the overflow. At the top it should be at the same height or a little higher( 1cm to 2cm higher.. depending on the flow rate of your return pump. Powerful pumps will raise the tank water level so more water will flow over the top of the overflow) than the inner wall. At the bottom, the baffle should leave a gap of at least 2".. around 4 or 5" if you have a thick layer of substrate.. to make sure this gap doesn't get clogged easily by substrate or debris at the bottom. This gap at the bottom and the top should be covered by a grill/mesh/ toothed acrylic etc to prevent fish from going bye bye.

@rickztahone thanks for the edit ☺
Can you tell me how to embed a YouTube video? Would like to embed this one too
https://youtu.be/wRR52jL-qqw

[rickztahone]

Thank you all ��

@Filip
Those geos are Geophagus winemilleri. Best looking geos in my opinion along with G.altifrons. they are among the large ones in the family growing to around 12". Very peaceful.. won't bother even the tiniest tetras. The G.heckelii, that I have, on the other hand will hunt down smaller tetras.

@Alok. Sorry I couldn't answer you earlier. The overflow is very simple. Consider a regular overflow chamber that runs the (almost) full height of the tank with a hole at the bottom usually. Water overflows from the tank over the top edges of this overflow into the chamber. Now we need to add an extra baffle(outer wall) in front of walls(inner wall) of the overflow. At the top it should be at the same height or a little higher( 1cm to 2cm higher.. depending on the flow rate of your return pump. Powerful pumps will raise the tank water level so more water will flow over the top of the overflow) than the inner wall. At the bottom, the baffle should leave a gap of at least 2".. around 4 or 5" if you have a thick layer of substrate.. to make sure this gap doesn't get clogged easily by substrate or debris at the bottom. This gap at the bottom and the top should be covered by a grill/mesh/ toothed acrylic etc to prevent fish from going bye bye.

@rickztahone thanks for the edit ☺
Can you tell me how to embed a YouTube video? Would like to embed this one too
https://youtu.be/wRR52jL-qqw

If you hit the button "quote" on my reply you will actually see the code that I used to embed the video. Simply emmulate the code and you will be able to embed your videos.

[Kyla]

I really like the way you did this group compared to the previous one. It looks a lot better in there. Great video, and I especially love the part where you put the camera in the water! I am assuming you have a gopro or something. Very cool.

I will embed your video for easier viewing:


https://youtu.be/Duf25Ggpvog

wow, i love how up close and personal the underwater shots are! and thats a lovely fire eel,
so frendly and curious!!

[Siddhartha Saive]

New video

https://youtu.be/HWBQ0h40ynA

[Kyla]

New video

https://youtu.be/HWBQ0h40ynA

that tank is crazy beautiful. what species of fish (loaches?) are sitting in the sand at the front of the tank?

[a.person61]

Awesome tank, what other fish are in there?

[HappyFace]

Beautiful!

[Las Vegas]

I am so evuos? Envius? Invious? JEALOUS!!! What an awesome aquarium!

[rickztahone]

New video

https://youtu.be/HWBQ0h40ynA

Your tank does look really nice Sddhartha. I am glad you changed it this last time. Way to go. Any more under water videos :)

[Len]

Wow, that's pretty cool.

[Siddhartha Saive]

Thank you all 😊


that tank is crazy beautiful. what species of fish (loaches?) are sitting in the sand at the front of the tank?
Those are Garra gotyla. They are territorial but the best algae eaters I've seen. They clean every inch of the glass, rock and wood in the tank.


Awesome tank, what other fish are in there?
Apart from 30 Discus and 16 Geos there are
50 Congo tetra
1 Fire eel
4 neon gobies
6 Garra gotyla
5 clown loaches
2 elephant nose fish
4 spotted Raphael catfish
2 Panama/twig whiptail catfish
2 red whiptail catfish
4 bristlenose plecos
1 veiltail bristlenose
1 l 240 pleco

Relics from previous stocking - 2 yo-yo loaches, 3 rummy nose tetra, 2 denisonii barbs, 1 Rasbora daniconicus,1 zebra danio

I'm plawning to remove the 6 Geophagus heckelii to decrease the bioload and eventually add various plecos. I can keep small tetra again if I remove the heckelii


Your tank does look really nice Sddhartha. I am glad you changed it this last time. Way to go. Any more under water videos :)

Will share a video soon 😊

[HappyFace]

Gorgeous! I love your tank and setup.

I really love the idea of the overflow baffle. Do you have pictures of it? Is there a risk of flood or do you have something in place to prevent that?

[Darrell Ward]

I'm not a fan of placing growing discus in a planted tank, or for that matter, mixing smaller discus with other species. Asking for problems IMO. Good looking tank however, good job!

[Rapture]

What an awesome tankkk, It's so cool to see that huge group of Discus in a tank with plants, wood, substrate.

[ericNH]

I'd make your tank video my screensaver if I could do it right. It's really quite incredible. Even with all the sand and rocks and driftwood and anubias, your tank looks clean. And I see no signs of distress at all in any of your fish. What you're doing there is ... well it's just *beyond*. Keep sharing your vids please. They're stunning.

[Siddhartha Saive]

Thank you guys :D:D:D Really appreciate it

Some changes to the tank. Finally started planting the tank again as the discus are grown out to a decent size. Increasing CO2 now and will start dosing fertilisers regularly.

Added some needle ferns to the tank and some new fish too :)

2 X L177 gold nugget pleco
2 X red hi fin pleco
20 golden panchax

Removing the 6 X Geophagus heckelii this week. Will add more plecos gradually
Dunno if I should remove 5 to 10 discus to reduce the bioload... they look amazing in such a big group.
Latest FTS

96525

One of the l177 golden nugget
96526

Golden panchax
96527

[Debow]

Why are you getting rid of the geos? I was thinking about adding some because of your tank.

[jmf3460]

cute gold nugget he is really cute.

[Siddhartha Saive]

Why are you getting rid of the geos? I was thinking about adding some because of your tank.

I really love them but I want to decrease the bioload. Those heckelii are 8"+ each now. Me and a few friends got them about 15 months ago. The ones with my friends are hardly 6". They grew huge in my discus grow out monster tank :D
And... my winemilleri are currently nearly 12" each.
Most of my discus are 5 to 6"+ and growing. So need to clear some space. I thought I wud remove half of these discus but I like them in a big school of 30.
And.. the heckelii are total pigs. Eat a lot and poop a lot. High bioload fish. And they also predate on small tetra. The winemilleri which are much bigger don't even bother the tiniest of tetra.. similar to most of other geophagus sp.... but the heckelii will hunt them down. So.. removing the heckelii will give me the option of a big school of small tetra later


cute gold nugget he is really cute.

Thank you �� luckily they are rather bold and i get to see them often

[Las Vegas]

WoW! Love that tank!

[DomiDiscus]

What a lovely bunch of discus, such a stellar job!

[dandestroy]

nice tank!

Can you post some picture or drawing of your overflow setup (80/20 bottom top intake).

thanks

[Siddhartha Saive]

nice tank!

Can you post some picture or drawing of your overflow setup (80/20 bottom top intake).

thanks

It's actually very simple

96999


Consider a regular tall overflow box. Water will overflow over the top of its walls into the overflow chamber and through the drain pipes to the sump. So there is only surface skimming here. Now you just add baffles outside the overflow chamber to make another wall outside it. This outer wall should be open at the bottom... atleast 2" more than the substrate thickness. Water can enter through this gap at the bottom and then rise up between the outer and inner walls and then overflow over the inner wall. Most important here is the height of the outer wall. If the top of the outer wall is lower than the inner wall, water will just overflow over both the walls and won't be sucked from the bottom. If the outer wall is too high water will only be sucked through the bottom and will not overflow... so no surface skimming then and there will be collection of floating dust and waste at the surface. Even a little overflow at the top is good enough to clear the surface dust. So ideally the outer wall height should be just a little higher than the inner wall... about 1/4" to 1/2". To make the adjustment easy, you make the inner and outer walls at the same height and then raise the necessary outer wall height by sticking an acrylic or glass strip.. try attaching 1/2" strip and change if necessary

The gap between the inner and outer walls should be atleast half inch so debris doesn't get stuck often

[Siddhartha Saive]

Finally a pair has formed and started laying eggs :) I was away on a 2 week vacation with no water changes and no feeding and they decided to get busy then.. :D
I have no intention of raising any fry though. Most of the discus are around 6" now. Will remove 10 of them smaller ones soon.

Removed the 6 Geophagus heckelii.
Will remove the Congo tetra. They look great but are very shy.. even around discus and hang out around the back of the tank. So... I'm replacing them with 300 cardinal tetra this weekend :D

Hope my discus won't make a snack out of the cardinal tetra....

How many of you have cardinal tetra with adult discus?

Will post pics soon :)

[Dhavalsp]

This is just amazing.... loved those Geophagus winemilleri...just in awe!

Looking forward to some updated pics...

I have had cardinals with discus in the past...they have 50/50 probability of getting eaten...in tank that big, they might get accepted as tank mate easily. I generally keep the fish very well fed before introducing smaller fish. try getting them in Jumbo size and they should do fine...

[kira ken]

Removed the 6 Geophagus heckelii.


Hi man, i got 4 small geos that i want to put with my discus, they are great but... they are also very aggressive eaters, they eat like pigs and i'm afraid my discus will fall behind. Any tips for feeding the geos so my discus will not just get the leftovers ?


Best,

[Siddhartha Saive]

Hi man, i got 4 small geos that i want to put with my discus, they are great but... they are also very aggressive eaters, they eat like pigs and i'm afraid my discus will fall behind. Any tips for feeding the geos so my discus will not just get the leftovers ?


Best,

Hey kira ken
Geos eat like pigs and so do the discus :D
Make sure to feed heavily and multiple times a day so the discus won't lag behind.
And whenever you feed do it twice.. wait a few minutes till the geos eat up and then feed again so the discus can have enough

[axl10]

any pic updates please or even a video would be awesome. How many wc's are you doing now?

[Siddhartha Saive]

This is just amazing.... loved those Geophagus winemilleri...just in awe!

Looking forward to some updated pics...

I have had cardinals with discus in the past...they have 50/50 probability of getting eaten...in tank that big, they might get accepted as tank mate easily. I generally keep the fish very well fed before introducing smaller fish. try getting them in Jumbo size and they should do fine...
Thank you :) I did order 300 jumbo sized cardinals but my supplier has some problems and the order was postponed twice.. so I decided to heed the omens and replaced the order.. with 200 harlequin rasbora and 100 rummy nose tetra :D
These fish are broader than the cardinals and so better at not being eaten and also are small enough and school good.
Can't wait to have them in my tank and hopefully they'll look good..


any pic updates please or even a video would be awesome. How many wc's are you doing now?

Doing twice a week 50% water changes now. Will post updates soon :)

[Siddhartha Saive]

Hey guys
Finally added new fish to the tank yesterday :D
200 harlequin rasbora and 100 rummy nose tetra
https://youtu.be/WrL2DckikT8

Video taken a few hours later https://youtu.be/kIETgd5tJCI

Can't wait for them to colour up.

Removed the golden panchax as soon as i noticed them trying to eat the harlequins.

The discus and the big Geophagus winemilleri show no interest in the small fish so far.

Removed 7 of the smaller discus from the tank ( It was all that we could catch after an hour inside the tank :D Wanted to remove 10 of the 30 discus I have) And also removed 25 female Congo tetras I had.
So I finally got a chance to measure the discus. The two smallest runts I had were around 4" the other 5 that I removed were 5" to 5.5". Most of the other discus are around 6.5" the largest one in the tank is 7" :D

Will post pics soon

[Dhavalsp]

Sid, your geos are the best...i think i am going to get some winemilleri for myself...also, i think you have managed to pull of something unthinkable - overcrowd a 600 gallon. it is looking nice but do keep an eye on things...

[rickztahone]

Love how they school. It adds a great dynamic to the tank.

[Siddhartha Saive]

It's been 15 months since I got my 30 discus at around 1.5". They are probably 17 months old now. Removed 7 of the smaller ones from this group. Might remove 3 more of the smaller ones. The largest ones are around 7" :D
They are much bigger than I expected lol. They don't seem so big from the outside

A few pics of my discus before I removed the smaller ones.
99135

Love this one
99132

99136

99137

99138

The spawning pair
99133

Loved this tiny runt. This was around 4". Gave this away to a friend
99134

[Siddhartha Saive]

https://youtu.be/x95Ha0V10qo

Schooling harlequin rasbora and rummy nose tetra!
Video shot at night just before lights out. Most of the discus and eartheaters eaters have retired to their sleeping spots.
There are 24 discus now. I thought I'd keep 15 of the biggest and remove the others but I love them in a big school. Don't intend to remove more for now. 3 pairs have formed and they are quite territorial

[jmf3460]

my goodness, just beautiful. I was as skeptic at first and thought this would end in failure or a massive disease outbreak, but this is stunning and you have pulled it off. The fish all look amazing, and your scape is awesome. I like your lighting toward the front of the tank and dark toward the back, it provides great depth to the tank.

[Siddhartha Saive]

my goodness, just beautiful. I was as skeptic at first and thought this would end in failure or a massive disease outbreak, but this is stunning and you have pulled it off. The fish all look amazing, and your scape is awesome. I like your lighting toward the front of the tank and dark toward the back, it provides great depth to the tank.

Thank you so much Jacklyn :D :D:D

[Dhavalsp]

I can continue watching that video for hours...great work! those geos must be well beyond 10 inches!

[Siddhartha Saive]

I can continue watching that video for hours...great work! those geos must be well beyond 10 inches!

Thank you :D
Those Geophagus winemilleri are nearly 12" each. A few of my friends got these geos too along with me 18 months ago at about 2" each. Theirs are hardly 8" now.
2 pairs have formed as of now and each have their own pits in which they hang around and perform courtship dances nearly all day. Waiting for them to spawn any day now ��
This video of them is from a month ago. They are much better at it right now :D
https://youtu.be/zRB00rXbJxg

[Darcon]

Really good tank! My congratulations! I know, how much work it need. Good job.

[Siddhartha Saive]

Thank you Dariusz :o

Finally caught my discus laying eggs!
https://youtu.be/xLnOMnuK3dk
This is one of the three pairs which started spawning about 3 months ago

[Psy]

Awesome tank Sid ~ well done!!

[Siddhartha Saive]

Awesome tank Sid ~ well done!!

Thank you!

This video is a few months old
https://youtu.be/rXDu64LDT2U

Been a long time since I updated.
All the fish are doing good. I always thought I had 30 discus when I got them but turns out I had 31 lol. Gave away 7 and am left with 24 now. The discus pairs keep spawning regularly. Continuing to do twice a week water changes
Added 200 harlequin rasbora, 100 rummy nose tetra, L340 pleco and a black lancer catfish about 9 months ago. Removed all Congo tetra females and the lovely golden panchax(these predators feast on small tetra)

Sadly most of the rummy nose tetra and some harlequins keep getting washed away into my sump(my overflow box has a baffle around it which also sucks in water from the bottom of the tank) or into the drain pipe when I change water. Will add another 100 harlequins soon. These guys stay close to the surface and won't get sucked in like the rummies.

I've been busy with work and travel. Will post a video soon

[JohnniG]

This tank is AWESOME

[Siddhartha Saive]

109860

New video

https://youtu.be/6J93Roi1GCs

[tolga]

It's beautiful! Thank you.

[07rx8gt]

Please take photos of your sump

[Pardal]

Nice set up . I enjoy reading your whole thread.

[Swedgin]

Just stumbled across this. Wow. Love the geos. Discus looking really good, too.

[AquaWoman]

I just finished reading this entire thread and really enjoyed it. All of the changes and additions and subtractions and the tank was always gorgeous but I think now it's truly at it's best. Big Gorgeous Discus and all the rest living in harmony. I was glad that the Discus were always the first in consideration.
Thank you for sharing this Wonderful and Exceptional Aquarium.
Well Done!

[goldfish]

Awesome fish tank. Can't get any better!

[NP57]

Impressive ! Any recent updates?

[NP57]

It's actually very simple

96999


Consider a regular tall overflow box. Water will overflow over the top of its walls into the overflow chamber and through the drain pipes to the sump. So there is only surface skimming here. Now you just add baffles outside the overflow chamber to make another wall outside it. This outer wall should be open at the bottom... atleast 2" more than the substrate thickness. Water can enter through this gap at the bottom and then rise up between the outer and inner walls and then overflow over the inner wall. Most important here is the height of the outer wall. If the top of the outer wall is lower than the inner wall, water will just overflow over both the walls and won't be sucked from the bottom. If the outer wall is too high water will only be sucked through the bottom and will not overflow... so no surface skimming then and there will be collection of floating dust and waste at the surface. Even a little overflow at the top is good enough to clear the surface dust. So ideally the outer wall height should be just a little higher than the inner wall... about 1/4" to 1/2". To make the adjustment easy, you make the inner and outer walls at the same height and then raise the necessary outer wall height by sticking an acrylic or glass strip.. try attaching 1/2" strip and change if necessary

The gap between the inner and outer walls should be atleast half inch so debris doesn't get stuck often

Sid,
Very interesting overflow design.
Is this overflow along the entire length of the tank?
How effective is the bottom suction to pick up fish waste and uneaten food off the substrate?
What flow rate do you have the overflow set at?
Sorry for all the questions.

[peewee1]

Holy kee-rap that tank rivals any that I have seen a Marineland to be sure. What a beauty!

[pastry]

Sid did tons of videos but I'd love to see what it looks like now or when they were fully grown.

[Siddhartha Saive]

It's been 4 years since I last posted. I'm on orthopedic surgeon and I've been busy with work and family. Added 2 sons to the house :D

2019 video
https://youtu.be/qMb6W-k4PIM

Sad to say that I neglected my tank and water changes and lost many fish to disease.


2019 was the start of the downfall. I gave some discus away to reduce the bioload and had about 16 discus and 8 Geophagus winemilleri. Removed all the plants to reduce maintenance.
But.....soon I added a few scalare angels which increased the bioload again. After a few months coupled with bad water changes the health of the fish started to decline and I started losing fish. Medication and water changes didn't help here.

It was disheartening to see my jumbo fish die. All discus were 7" + with a few jumbo reaching 8". The Geos were 10 to 12". On tape

I was left with 2 discus and 4 geos by 2020. Barren.
In 2020 July added 4 silver arowanas. Coz I always wanted them and i originally planned and built my tank to keep arowanas.
Added 25 of my favorite native Indian barbs Dawkinsia apsara since I don't have plants in the tank anymore. They are goats and eat every plant

[Siddhartha Saive]

2021 video. The silver arowanas and Dawkinsia apsara barbs
https://youtu.be/1SYmiCX9Mw4

[Siddhartha Saive]

April 21 2021
Removed 3 silver arowanas. They grew to about 18" each

So I've finally added discus in the tank again:D


30 blue diamonds. All about 2" size

And also.. Asian arowanas:D One Blood Red arowana and one 24K Golden Crossback

I've been planning to add the discus and arowanas for a while but couldn't find a good source locally
I was planning to add the discus first and growing them for a month or two and then add the arowana. But there is a bad covid situation in India right now and possibly imminent travel and transport restrictions. So got the arowanas too

High bioload now. Planning to remove the Geos
Started daily 50% water changes

Will upload a video soon

[Shan_Evolved]

Those aros are beautiful

[Siddhartha Saive]

Thank you. Can't wait to see how they grow out together with the discus. Daily water changes and heavy feeding ftw!

[Siddhartha Saive]

A recent video

https://youtu.be/AalrAMKAtKA

Removed some blue diamonds and added wild blue crosses. About 25 in total
2 super red arowanas(Indonesian) 1 golden crossback 1 platinum albino arowana

[FischAutoTechGarten]

thanks for sharing the video!

[pastry]

That's definitely the type of tank that'll put someone in a trance... they'll blink and 45 mins will go by because of how cool it is to just sit and watch.