A few questions before I dive in...

[Ejacob]

I'm in the process of researching and planning a 120 gallon discus tank. I've kept reef tanks for 16 years along with freshwater community tanks but have always wanted to try discus... so here I am! I think I'm leaning toward growing out some juvies (2.5 or 3" from Hans) because I want the satisfaction and attachment I'd likely get from caring for them as they (hopefully) reach adult size. I realize that over the long haul it would be cheaper and less labor intensive to buy larger, 4"+ fish, but I think I'll find raising them more exciting.

So, here are my questions:

1) I intend on keeping eight - ten adults in a barebottom 120 gallon. Could I grow ten 2.5 - 3" fish out to 4" in a 55 gallon tank with near 100% daily water changes and then move them over to the 120?

2) My tapwater pH settles to around 8.0 - 8.2 and my GH = 6; will discus from Hans do well in this provided it's stable?

3) Can a beef heart flake like Super Beef heart from Inland Empire Discus replace fresh beef heart? Is fresh beef heart even necessary for optimal growth. If it's not, I'd like to avoid overly messy foods for the sake of water quality.

4) What are the best foods for growth that I should include on the menu?

5) Assuming I've provided juvies with the best diet and cleanest water, can I expect that most of the ten juvies will grow to around 5 - 6 inches? I'm not looking for show quality, just nice looking adults that aren't stunted.

Thanks!

Erik

[discuspaul]

Welcome to the forum, Erik.
Sounds like you've done your homework and are on the right path.
Your questions:

1) That should be fine with large daily wcs in a bb 55 gal tank. Might look a little crowded with 10 as they approach the 4" mark. I might be tempted to go with just 8 - but that's my personal preference.

2) Should be no problem at all.

3) It can, more or less. Beefheart per se is likely best, but not essential imo.

4) I feed juvies freeze-dried blackworms, some frozen bloodworms on occasion, frozen Mysis shrimp & brine shrimp, Discus Bio-Gold pellets, frozen krill, Omega One flakes, and Tetramin Crisps & Granules. Look for foods with a relatively high protein content. Others may have other suggestions to this menu list.

5) Yes, well-cared for with suitably large & frequent wcs they should readily reach 5"-6" without difficulty.

All the best of luck to you.

[Eddie]

Welcome to the forum, Erik.
Sounds like you've done your homework and are on the right path.
Your questions:

1) That should be fine with large daily wcs in a bb 55 gal tank. Might look a little crowded with 10 as they approach the 4" mark. I might be tempted to go with just 8 - but that's my personal preference.

2) Should be no problem at all.

3) It can, more or less. Beefheart per se is likely best, but not essential imo.

4) I feed juvies freeze-dried blackworms, some frozen bloodworms on occasion, frozen Mysis shrimp & brine shrimp, Discus Bio-Gold pellets, frozen krill, Omega One flakes, and Tetramin Crisps & Granules. Look for foods with a relatively high protein content. Others may have other suggestions to this menu list.

5) Yes, well-cared for with suitably large & frequent wcs they should readily reach 5"-6" without difficulty.

All the best of luck to you.

+1

10 in a 55 will be fine until they are grown out for the 120. Just maintain water quality and cleanliness.

All the best,

Eddie

[discuspaul]

For your further information Erik, regarding my brief answer to your # 3 question, here are some recent comments from a long-time, well experienced member of the forum, with which I fully agree.
His comments may also add complementary value to your #1 and # 4 questions.

Hope this gives you some detailed insight into feeding beefheart, Erik, and I sincerely hope too that you, Rick, don't mind my copying your post here for new member Erik's edification.



Quote Originally Posted by nc0gnet0 View Post

First and foremost, I am making the assumption that the reason your asking this question is you want to grow out big, healthy, robust discus with healthy immune systems? To that end, the ONE most important FACT, regardless of what you feed, is clean water, lots of it. When in doubt do another large water change. I am not talking about your once a day 50% routine here, but two times a day at levels of at least 80%. Of course, if you use large, lightly stocked tanks, you can cheat this a bit, but if you look at the larger hatcheries, they all have the fish crammed in like sardines. Here, 3x a day water changes are routine. There is a reason they do it this way, economics is one, but higher stocking densities encourage aggressive eating habits, and eliminates pecking order problems. The result is a more uniform size between all the siblings.

Doing things this way does introduce a large element of risk, Your biggest obstacle is going to be human nature. There will be days that you just don't have the motivation, or feel you don't have the time to do these water changes. Skip a few Water changes and things go catastrophic in a hurry. If you don't have the wherewithal to adhere to this schedule, then your better off following the lower stocking density 50 % water change schedule.

What you feed, while important, is a distant second in importance to water quality. Tell yourself this over and over. Then do it again. And again. I cannot stress this enough. It's easy to dump massive amounts of food into your tanks, thinking doing so will insure good results. And it's easy to do. It won't work, and could actually kill your fish, without first understanding how water quality and discus health coincide.

Myself, I don't feed beef heart. Personally I think beefheart, by itself, is only a so-so food. Even more important, I think the commercially made beefheart cubes that you can buy are absolute crap. Overpriced and of only a marginal quality IMHO.

What John and many others feed is actually a beefheart MIX. Beefheart plus salmon, plus perhaps some flakes, liquid vitamins, maybe some garlic and veggies, maybe some prawn. Now, this, when prepared correctly, is an excellent food. It will foul the water quickly though, so remember what we first talked about. If your willing to go the extra mile and make your own food, this is indeed a viable option. And a complete food.

That's not to be said it is necessary. Quite the contrary. I feed my discus a combination of Al's FDBW's, some high protein flake, and a squid based pellet. With the flake and pellet I on occasion switch things up a bit. I sell a lot of my fish, and I like them to be used to taking a combination of foods, not knowing what the end user might be feeding. My fish grow to 6+" just fine.

So, to sum it up, there is know one way to go about What you feed, however, there is one constant........clean water and lots of it.

-Rick

[dprais1]

#5. I think with even a decent waterchange routine and decent food (flake, pellet or mix) it would be hard to NOT get fish from hans to at least 5". I have 13 from hans and the biggest is a bit over 6", the smallest is probably 4-4.5", and the other 11 are all 5" to just under 6".

I got them at 2.5" in March, 2015.

[strawberryblonde]

#5. I think with even a decent waterchange routine and decent food (flake, pellet or mix) it would be hard to NOT get fish from hans to at least 5". I have 13 from hans and the biggest is a bit over 6", the smallest is probably 4-4.5", and the other 11 are all 5" to just under 6".

I got them at 2.5" in March, 2015.

+1

I put 9 4" - 5" Hans discus into my 120g tank on my first try at growing out discus and every one of them ended up being well over 7". The 2 smallest ones (just over 7") were females. The rest of the group were males and every one of them was over 8" with the largest three at 9".

The one caveat though is that even when they went into my big tank I still did 90% WC's every single day till they were over 18 months old. It was hard some days to convince myself to do the water change, but in the end it was worth the effort. They were some big gorgeous discus!

For foods, I've fed the frozen beefheart cubes and gotten great results with them, but I only fed them just prior to my water change each day. The rest of the feedings (5-6 feedings per day) were a mix of high protein flake foods and Al's FDBW's.

I've never used any type of bloodworm or shrimp in my tanks.

And I'm currently growing out a batch of Kenny's discus and I'm getting the same amazing growth from them as I did with Hans discus, but this time I'm not feeding any beefheart at all. Just using the flakes and the FDBW's.

But trust the advice to do HUGE daily water changes. It's the key to growing them out successfully. =)

[Eddie]

+1

I put 9 4" - 5" Hans discus into my 120g tank on my first try at growing out discus and every one of them ended up being well over 7". The 2 smallest ones (just over 7") were females. The rest of the group were males and every one of them was over 8" with the largest three at 9".

The one caveat though is that even when they went into my big tank I still did 90% WC's every single day till they were over 18 months old. It was hard some days to convince myself to do the water change, but in the end it was worth the effort. They were some big gorgeous discus!

For foods, I've fed the frozen beefheart cubes and gotten great results with them, but I only fed them just prior to my water change each day. The rest of the feedings (5-6 feedings per day) were a mix of high protein flake foods and Al's FDBW's.

I've never used any type of bloodworm or shrimp in my tanks.

And I'm currently growing out a batch of Kenny's discus and I'm getting the same amazing growth from them as I did with Hans discus, but this time I'm not feeding any beefheart at all. Just using the flakes and the FDBW's.

But trust the advice to do HUGE daily water changes. It's the key to growing them out successfully. =)

Those FDBWs are the business! They are the main food for my little pups right now and I'm also getting phenomenal results. I haven't even started my mix yet. Lol

[Ejacob]

For your further information Erik, regarding my brief answer to your # 3 question, here are some recent comments from a long-time, well experienced member of the forum, with which I fully agree.
His comments may also add complementary value to your #1 and # 4 questions.

Hope this gives you some detailed insight into feeding beefheart, Erik, and I sincerely hope too that you, Rick, don't mind my copying your post here for new member Erik's edification.



Quote Originally Posted by nc0gnet0 View Post

First and foremost, I am making the assumption that the reason your asking this question is you want to grow out big, healthy, robust discus with healthy immune systems? To that end, the ONE most important FACT, regardless of what you feed, is clean water, lots of it. When in doubt do another large water change. I am not talking about your once a day 50% routine here, but two times a day at levels of at least 80%. Of course, if you use large, lightly stocked tanks, you can cheat this a bit, but if you look at the larger hatcheries, they all have the fish crammed in like sardines. Here, 3x a day water changes are routine. There is a reason they do it this way, economics is one, but higher stocking densities encourage aggressive eating habits, and eliminates pecking order problems. The result is a more uniform size between all the siblings.

Doing things this way does introduce a large element of risk, Your biggest obstacle is going to be human nature. There will be days that you just don't have the motivation, or feel you don't have the time to do these water changes. Skip a few Water changes and things go catastrophic in a hurry. If you don't have the wherewithal to adhere to this schedule, then your better off following the lower stocking density 50 % water change schedule.

What you feed, while important, is a distant second in importance to water quality. Tell yourself this over and over. Then do it again. And again. I cannot stress this enough. It's easy to dump massive amounts of food into your tanks, thinking doing so will insure good results. And it's easy to do. It won't work, and could actually kill your fish, without first understanding how water quality and discus health coincide.

Myself, I don't feed beef heart. Personally I think beefheart, by itself, is only a so-so food. Even more important, I think the commercially made beefheart cubes that you can buy are absolute crap. Overpriced and of only a marginal quality IMHO.

What John and many others feed is actually a beefheart MIX. Beefheart plus salmon, plus perhaps some flakes, liquid vitamins, maybe some garlic and veggies, maybe some prawn. Now, this, when prepared correctly, is an excellent food. It will foul the water quickly though, so remember what we first talked about. If your willing to go the extra mile and make your own food, this is indeed a viable option. And a complete food.

That's not to be said it is necessary. Quite the contrary. I feed my discus a combination of Al's FDBW's, some high protein flake, and a squid based pellet. With the flake and pellet I on occasion switch things up a bit. I sell a lot of my fish, and I like them to be used to taking a combination of foods, not knowing what the end user might be feeding. My fish grow to 6+" just fine.

So, to sum it up, there is know one way to go about What you feed, however, there is one constant........clean water and lots of it.

-Rick

Thanks for the detailed and helpful advice. I'll definitely heed it. I'm setting up my water change routine so that I can avoid the bucket brigade - just hoses and pumps.

[Eddie]

Thanks for the detailed and helpful advice. I'll definitely heed it. I'm setting up my water change routine so that I can avoid the bucket brigade - just hoses and pumps.

Making it easy and fast is the ticket. Automated is next level. Lol

[Ejacob]

+1

I put 9 4" - 5" Hans discus into my 120g tank on my first try at growing out discus and every one of them ended up being well over 7". The 2 smallest ones (just over 7") were females. The rest of the group were males and every one of them was over 8" with the largest three at 9".

The one caveat though is that even when they went into my big tank I still did 90% WC's every single day till they were over 18 months old. It was hard some days to convince myself to do the water change, but in the end it was worth the effort. They were some big gorgeous discus!

For foods, I've fed the frozen beefheart cubes and gotten great results with them, but I only fed them just prior to my water change each day. The rest of the feedings (5-6 feedings per day) were a mix of high protein flake foods and Al's FDBW's.

I've never used any type of bloodworm or shrimp in my tanks.

And I'm currently growing out a batch of Kenny's discus and I'm getting the same amazing growth from them as I did with Hans discus, but this time I'm not feeding any beefheart at all. Just using the flakes and the FDBW's.

But trust the advice to do HUGE daily water changes. It's the key to growing them out successfully. =)

90% WC's on a 120 gallon. That must have been quite a water bill! Those growth trends are reassuring... thanks.

[Ejacob]

Thank you everyone for the very helpful advice!

[afriend]

3) Can a beef heart flake like Super Beef heart from Inland Empire Discus replace fresh beef heart? Is fresh beef heart even necessary for optimal growth. If it's not, I'd like to avoid overly messy foods for the sake of water quality.

Here's a helpful hint if you decide to go with beefheart. I've used this and it really helps to reduce the mess of feeding beefheart.

http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showthread.php?34961-Carol-s-beefheart-will-not-disolve-in-tank!&highlight=salid+shooter

Paul

[Ejacob]

Here's a helpful hint if you decide to go with beefheart. I've used this and it really helps to reduce the mess of feeding beefheart.

http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showthread.php?34961-Carol-s-beefheart-will-not-disolve-in-tank!&highlight=salid+shooter

Paul

Thanks for the link, Paul.

[Ejacob]

Another question: could I grow out the 3" juvies in a 120 gallon? Since I won't be using buckets for WC's, performing them on the 120 vs 55 wouldn't be more labor intensive, just more costly. Then again, perhaps the increased water bill would negate the savings I'd have by skipping the 55 gallon grow out setup?

[Eddie]

Another question: could I grow out the 3" juvies in a 120 gallon? Since I won't be using buckets for WC's, performing them on the 120 vs 55 wouldn't be more labor intensive, just more costly. Then again, perhaps the increased water bill would negate the savings I'd have by skipping the 55 gallon grow out setup?

If you decide to use the 120, I'd partition the tank with poret foam to keep the fish more enclosed until they grow out more. Just my opinion.

[John_Nicholson]

Lots of good advice above but I do think a good beef heart mix is still the best way to go. I would suggest feeding it at least once a day. I would suggest doing so about an hour before your daily water change.

-john