New to the forum - My Discus tank

[BSW]

Hi,
I love to grow plants and keep Discus. But I'm still learning the ballance between the two in the same tank !!!
This is my Discus tank, I would really love to tear it all down and start over, but nowhere to put the fish now. Didn't have much imagination when scaping it :( I would like to do some driftwood stuff, change the substrate, loose the UGF, and thin the plants down. But to late now. I will probably set up another tank in the near future, swap the fish over, and then change this one.
I've seen some very beautiful tanks on this forum !
Anyway, I thought I'd post it.
60 gal.
pressurized Co2
UV sterilizer
not fertilized to much
Flourish & Excel is all
8 Discus
Neons
Corrys
Ottos
Bamboo Shrimp
Amano Shrimp
I have three other tanks with Angelfish. 1-30 & 2-20's

So HI ! All you plant people ! You'll be seeing more of me !
B

[billeagan]

gorgeous tank!

[Automate]

very clean tank and looks like no algae :) How often do you do water changes and what %

cheers

rob

[BSW]

Thanks guy's -

I do 30% water change every other day. It has dropped my nitrates lower, to which I have got a speckling of BBA now. But it is comming under control. Trying not to add to much of anything because of the Discus. I'm thinkng there is enough of a fish load in there to supply the plants, and so far so good. The tank is holding it's own now except for a normal dose of Flourish at water change and a normal dose of Excel at water change. It's been planted now about 9 months.
216 W of light over head.
B

[Discus-Hans]

Nice tank, do I know these Discus???? Were did you buy them???

Hans

[BSW]

Thanks for saying the tanks nice, but I've seen much nicer !!!!
I purchased the Discus locally, I live in Utah, they came from UtahDiscus.
B

[Paula B]

May I make a suggestion? Your nymphea rubra look great, the discus are beautiful and and I think this tank would be so much prettier if you got rid of that background. I would go with a plain black, but if you feel you must have color, try blue. I bet it would make all the difference in the world. I think the one you have up there is too busy and it takes away from the healthy plants and beautiful discus, it also highlights the equipment that would fade into the background if it were black.

[luenny]

You have a nice and clean tank. No algae and nice healty discus. A lot of people would want to have a tank like yours.

[Elite Aquaria]

Very nice looking tank.

Dan

[BSW]

Well, thank you everyone. I myself am feeling a little board with it, and wishing I would of gone with more of a "BioType" tank, and have plans to slowly change it over in some way.
Paula - I'm with you - I HATE that background. It's fakey looking, does nothing to show off the plants or fish. I am going to change it to a solid color, probably black.
I want to get some driftwood in there, and cut back or rearrange the plants in a way that they look better and not so uniform. The plants are growing well enough to move them easily.
What I'm starting to struggle with at the moment is with water changes of 30% every other day, it's blowing all the nutrients in the tank, plants are yellowing, the tank before all the water changes (for the Discus) never showed any signs of Ammonia, Nitrite, and even to low of a level of Nitrogen, really. I think the plants were living on it and doing fine, and now I'm taking away what little there was to begin with. I do have Co2, I do use Excel, adding to much Flourish made Algae, so I cut that back.
Does anyone think I could do less Water changes ?
What's going to happen to these Discus if I do cut back on water changes ?
Thanks for your help plant people -
B