ggillies
10-30-2018, 03:43 PM
Hi,
I'm a long time hobbyist and have had numerous saltwater and freshwater tanks over the last 30 years or so, but I moved to a new home and decided to finally get a decent sized tank, now that I have room for one.
I got a 200 gallon (72" x 24" x 30") tank with bracing and decided to try Discus.
I got the tank up and running about three months ago by using a ton of (12 lbs) media from my previous tank/filter; it cycled very quickly and I added all my fish and verts from the previous tank. That comprised 7 German Rams (2 males 5 females), 10 Buenos Aires Tetras, two bushy-nosed Plecos, one Catfish of indeterminate type, 8 Viper Shrimp, around 20 Malaysian Bamboo shrimp (all the shrimp are huge, 3" plus and around 3 years old), one lonely Ember Tetra (the survivor of a 36 hour power outage a couple of years back - all the rest of his clan died, so he's a tough SOB), one Serpae Tetra who survived said previous power outage.
I used the majority of my plants from the previous tank as well. That tank was up and running for around 6 years total and had ongoing perfect water parameters, probably due to being very mature, completely cycled and well over filtered! My water parameters never varied from 7.4 ph, 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites and around 5-10 ppm nitrates (heavily planted). I ran Bio-home ultimate in that tanks and two Aquaclear 110s for a 55 gallon tank. The nitrates would occasionally be at 0 when the plants went into growth cycles.
The new tank is a sand bottom, planted tank with some of my HUGE plants with root ferts for the planted, and dosed for the Anubias on my ancient driftwood. The tank is lit by 3 X Prime HD Freshwater lights and filtered by 2 X Fluval FX6 filters stuffed with around 6 lbs each of the Bio-home ultimate, I run 2 x 300W heaters for redundancy and 2 X 1250 gph powerheads for flow and to oxygenate the water.
At the moment, it looks deserted due to the low stocking level of fish for the volume of the aquarium, but the fish LOVE their new home, especially the Rams and the Buenos Aires Tetras - all that room to swim and a ton of current to play with. The water parameters at the moment are 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites and 0 nitrates. I am adding fish in batches to avoid ammonia spikes and this week I have my cleanup crew additions coming - 100 nerite snails, 20 Otocinclus, 11 Julii Coreys, 20 more Malaysian and 15 more Viper Shrimp.
Once the cleanup crew is settled, I will be adding 25 Cochu's Blue Tetras, 50 Ember Tetras to keep my lonely one company, 15 Glass Catfish, 20 Cardinal Tetras and 25 Lemon Tetras.
Once those are settled and all water params are good, I will add 12 Discus.
Cheers.
119246119246119247
I'm a long time hobbyist and have had numerous saltwater and freshwater tanks over the last 30 years or so, but I moved to a new home and decided to finally get a decent sized tank, now that I have room for one.
I got a 200 gallon (72" x 24" x 30") tank with bracing and decided to try Discus.
I got the tank up and running about three months ago by using a ton of (12 lbs) media from my previous tank/filter; it cycled very quickly and I added all my fish and verts from the previous tank. That comprised 7 German Rams (2 males 5 females), 10 Buenos Aires Tetras, two bushy-nosed Plecos, one Catfish of indeterminate type, 8 Viper Shrimp, around 20 Malaysian Bamboo shrimp (all the shrimp are huge, 3" plus and around 3 years old), one lonely Ember Tetra (the survivor of a 36 hour power outage a couple of years back - all the rest of his clan died, so he's a tough SOB), one Serpae Tetra who survived said previous power outage.
I used the majority of my plants from the previous tank as well. That tank was up and running for around 6 years total and had ongoing perfect water parameters, probably due to being very mature, completely cycled and well over filtered! My water parameters never varied from 7.4 ph, 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites and around 5-10 ppm nitrates (heavily planted). I ran Bio-home ultimate in that tanks and two Aquaclear 110s for a 55 gallon tank. The nitrates would occasionally be at 0 when the plants went into growth cycles.
The new tank is a sand bottom, planted tank with some of my HUGE plants with root ferts for the planted, and dosed for the Anubias on my ancient driftwood. The tank is lit by 3 X Prime HD Freshwater lights and filtered by 2 X Fluval FX6 filters stuffed with around 6 lbs each of the Bio-home ultimate, I run 2 x 300W heaters for redundancy and 2 X 1250 gph powerheads for flow and to oxygenate the water.
At the moment, it looks deserted due to the low stocking level of fish for the volume of the aquarium, but the fish LOVE their new home, especially the Rams and the Buenos Aires Tetras - all that room to swim and a ton of current to play with. The water parameters at the moment are 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites and 0 nitrates. I am adding fish in batches to avoid ammonia spikes and this week I have my cleanup crew additions coming - 100 nerite snails, 20 Otocinclus, 11 Julii Coreys, 20 more Malaysian and 15 more Viper Shrimp.
Once the cleanup crew is settled, I will be adding 25 Cochu's Blue Tetras, 50 Ember Tetras to keep my lonely one company, 15 Glass Catfish, 20 Cardinal Tetras and 25 Lemon Tetras.
Once those are settled and all water params are good, I will add 12 Discus.
Cheers.
119246119246119247