Oldtimer needs some help.

[Larry L]

I have been gone from the hobby for sometime now back when I was raising Discus I just set up my tanks with 6 Discus fish and a sponge filter and did 25% water changes everyday. Now I just set up 90gallon tank with a canister filter and Biohome media in the canister also use his bacteria ball. My question is I add 16 tetras two weeks ago my ammonia is 0 my nitrite is 0 my nitrate is 3.0 keep check everyday same reading. My goal is to add 8 discus either Hans or Kenny cant make up my mind on which to choose but when should I add and is this tank cycled. Please help.

[DonMD]

My guess is that your tank "maybe" is cycled, at least for such tiny fish. If you add 6 adult discus, you'll immediately get a spike of ammonia, regardless of whether your tank is cycled, because even if there are bacterial colonies in your canister, they will be very small and will take time to reproduce enough to handle the added bio-load.

However, I have had very good success adding adult fish to an uncycled tank. I use Safe, but I'm sure Prime, or another water conditioner, would also work. Safe has instructions for increasing the dosage in order to handle excessive ammonia / nitrite levels. I used that dosage for about one month, with daily or every other day water changes, and the fish experienced no stress at all. The sponge filters eventually cycled, and all is good.

You could also try using one of the products out there for introducing bacterial colonies, such as Safe Start, etc. There are many opinions on this forum about them. Good luck.

And, I know how you feel trying to choose between Kenny and Hans! They are both outstanding suppliers of extraordinary discus.

[Loosir]

Please don't forget the QT procedure!
With a fishless cycle you could plop the new Discus in but your Tetras will most likely carry something that could make your new guys sick.
Good luck
Geoff