How does a 40 breeder compare to a 55 gallon?

[tedd47]

I was just wondering if a 40 breeder would hold about the same number of discus as a 55? I'll be housing some 3-5 inch fish until I can get another 55 cycled.
Also, what kind of fish do you usually use to cycle a tank? The only other fish I keep are african cichlids and I used about 40 hap fry to cycle the 40 gallon, all of them healthy and 2nd generation raised by me but I was kind of worried about disease transfer. Thanks for the input, Ted

[O]

Hi Ted,

You can't cycle a discus tank with African cichlids. Their requirements are totally different in terms of ph, hardness of the water and conductivity. Discus requires much lower PH and less alkalinity. The temp requirements are also different. Discus like higher temperature than Africans. I personally prefer a fishless cycle with pure ammonia(you can get it in your local market) Just add enough to the tank to be picked up by the ammonia tests and keep adding it until you see the nitrite levels raising, the rest is basically the same as cycling with fish. You can also use BioSpira or BacterVital to speed up the process.


HTH.
O.

[Smokey]

yOU HAVE TWO CHOICES; AS i SEE IT.
1 - seed the new tank with the bio-logical from the exsisting foams, or

2 - go ammonia cycle. or actually

3 - use a combination of both.

When using ammonia - add enough to get a reading ; NH3 ; of ... 3 - 5PPM. With exsisting biological ; from the seeded foams; you should get a ''live tank'' soon.

The discus will have to have the correct water numbers to survive. African's are at the opposite end of the scale.

HTH.

Smokey

[tedd47]

Sorry, I should have specified, I used haps which are pretty easy on PH, it reads 7.2, water buffered with driftwood (in the tank) and a little peat from 7.5-7.8 I don't use chemical buffer. I will use 50% RO water when the discus start to mature. Thanks, Ted

[dred]

Ted,

Anything preventing you from just moving the filter with the fish - you can do that immediately.

milton

[Carol_Roberts]

A 40 can't hold as many 3-5 inch discus as a 55 because it hold less water. . . . . you could put in 6 three inch fish or 4 five inch discus. Do you have the discus yet?

I run a new filter in a healthy established discus tank for a few weeks to cycle it. The fishless cycle is very safe, but takes as long as cycling with dither fish.

[95jeepxj]

If your friendly with your LFS you could ask them for some bio balls from one of their systems, if they use them, to spped things up.

jake

[Carol_Roberts]

Sorry, I would never use media from a local fish store - no matter how good they are! There are too many fish from too many sources going through their tanks. :o

Better to wait a few more weeks with a SAFE fishless cycle than bring home who know what from the fish store.

[Smokey]

Excellant advice Carol. I would never use bio mass from some one eles tank. TO RISKY. AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!

The fishless cycle ... if done corrctly ... will diminish the time it takes, from 6 to 8 weeks; to as little as 10 days. IF DONE CORRECTLY.

You can set one up in a ten gallon tank. Lots of aireation and lots of foams. ammonia - 3 to 5 ppm. Test daily until the NH3, NO2 are gone . and NO3 readings are established
Then just transfer the foams into the discus tank.

The foams from an A/C 500 are excellant, inexpensive and were designed for biological bacteria. [NOT MECHANICAL FILTERATION].

Smokey