First Time Discus Owner - This Saturday

[nickmcmechan]

Hi All, looking for some good hints and advice on my new arrivals coming this Saturday - bought them last Tuesday and the LFS has agreed to put them through QT for me to ensure I get good fish.

So, the setup will be:


Established Adult pair blue snakeskins
Juwel 300l tank
Filters - Eheim 2217, Fluval 304 and Juwel internal - gives about 8 times/hr turnover
Sand substrate, heavily planted, CO2 injection, dose micro nutrients and NPK, 2wpg lighting
Tap water pH 7.2, kH < 20ppm, gH <20ppm, Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate 0, tank the same, will be purified through HMA, will change 25 or 50l per day
Planning to feed Tetra Pro Veg, Tetra Pro Colour, Tetra Prima, Hikari Discus Gold, Bloodworm and Cichlid Mix (mostly Beefheart and Bloodworm)
Worming routine - undecided

So, looking for advice and opinions on setup?

[nesser]

Do you have a ph monitor for the co2 injection?Any other fish in with them thats a big enough tank.

[White Worm]

Should have some established nitrates with a cycled tank since you are not changing a drastic amount of water.

[kenhappen2u]

QT the fish yourself ..i wouldnt let any LPS to QT fish for me , you have no idea whay thier water is harboring .( especially if on a centrol system) ..... so now when you bring them home to your tank , youll soon have whatever his tank/fish had . even if there is no other fish in the tank with them , they are still at risk

do you know if the QT tank he will be holding your fish in is on a centrol filtration /wet dry system ? or does each tank have its own filter and seperate water supply

the only way a LPS would have a chance at QTing a fish for me is if each tank was on its own water , and seperate filtration . other wise just QT them yourself , your better off this way and you can watch them for signs of stress and or parasites .worms etc.

just my .02 cents

Ken

[TankWatcher]

Hi nickmcmechanm :wave: welcome to the wonderfull world of discus


Hi All, looking for some good hints and advice on my new arrivals coming this Saturday - bought them last Tuesday and the LFS has agreed to put them through QT for me to ensure I get good fish.Always exciting to get your first discus :thumbsup: That's good that LFS is going to hold them a few days. I guess this means they are new arrivals in his store & he is just doing the best he can that they settle down after transport. But you can't really count that as their QT. I'm cautious now (after previous disaster caused by no proper QT) so my discus are QT'd for 8 weeks in a closed system tank (eg no shared filtration or equipment). If you search here for QT, you'll find lots of advice. At least, try to QT for a month.

Are there other fish in your 300L tank already & is it fully cycled? If they are the first fish in a cycled tank, then they can do their QT right there in the tank. It is usual that you would have some nitrate in a cycled tank.

As you are getting adults, they should be fine in your heavily planted tank (though usually QT is best in a BB tank). It's good they are not juveniles, as juvies are harder to raise in a planted tank (not impossible - but harder).

Any tankmates you add in the future (discus or non discus) should be held in a separate QT tank for 6-8 weeks, before you add them to your blue snakeskins.

When it comes to plants, be sure to check their tolerance for the higher temps that discus require. Some plants start to melt at 28-29 deg C, but there are lots that will work for you. Tropica website usually mentions the temp the plants require, so that is a starting point.

I hope you have fun. You've come to the right place, as you'll find lots of good info here.

[nickmcmechan]

Thanks for the brilliant replies.

I'll try and answer a few questions below

they will be in the 300 litre on their own, no plans for other fish. current residents are my breeding pair of festivums who will be moving to the 180l

tank is well established, running for 18 months, changed the substrate about 2 months ago

thanks for the tips on the plants, they're just root feeders - swords and crypts, java fern added to a resin mangrove root decoration and a true lily which should provide some cover

don't have pH monitor, never considered it necessary if you keep the pH injection under control (i.e. i'm not going for 30ppm, i aim for 10-15ppm), tom barr would argue that the influence of co2 injection on pH does not affect fish, mainly due to it being balanced by an increase in kH? opinions welcome!!!

the lfs are keeping them out their tanks on the central filtration system (fudized sand beds) and they are in a 6x2x2' tank run off their own externals, 50% weekly water change with RO water. they are running a short course of antibacterial and parasitic treatment but i fully intend to do a full qt when i get them

feeding - i've had advice to completely avoid bloodworm - any opinions on this??

thanks again!

[cc_woman]

Good for you for doing your research before getting them. Sounds to me like everything you will be doing is fine. As for bw I don't think it's bad to feed to your discus, I feed it to mine 1-2x a week and never have any problems from it. Other fish cannot handle bw on a regular basis but discus pretty much can. Some people won't use bw mainly because it can cause allergic reactions, and I know some people are highly allergic to them.

[scolley]

tom barr would argue that the influence of co2 injection on pH does not affect fish, mainly due to it being balanced by an increase in kH? opinions welcome!!!
Huh? Tom's a clever guy, that generally states things that are well worth remembering. But I suspect something is being misquoted here. Or maybe I'm misunderstanding...

KH is immutable. It does not float up and down like pH will as CO2 is injected. So I'm missing something here. But that's OK, because I think the long and short of this question is whether CO2 at 15-30 ppm matters to fish. And IMO it does not. But that changes quickly. At 45+ ppm your more sensitive inverts will begin dying. And at some point above that your fish will begin to expire also. I'm not going to posit where that point is, as IMO there are a number of factors that contribute to where the "tipping point" actually occurs.

Bottom line is this... if you can keep it to 30 ppm, then no worries. But if you are not sure you can do that, a little more research/equipment might be required.

Good luck.

[cc_woman]

Scolley is right. The KH values do not change with CO2, the only way to lower it is usually by using peat, driftwood, R/O, or by other softening products. The only reason why the pH only changes and not KH, is because you are not actually softening the water. The Carbon dioxide increases which means less oxygen dissolved, which causes the water to become more acidic. But KH doesn't go up with CO2. Remember that KH entirely affects how far up or down the pH can go. The lower the KH, the higher chance you can have of pH crashes especially in tanks using CO2. If you have a higher KH, and you try to lower the pH without lowering the KH, the pH will eventually swing back because the KH buffers how far down the pH can go. So if you think about it, if the KH rises, the pH should also, but instead it decreases. During the night the CO2 concentrations are at their highest, and this is when levels can become the most dangerous. Plants also let out CO2 at night, which lowers oxygen levels even more. So your fish can even suffocate. I know I have awoke to my fish all panting at the top because of high CO2 levels, then putting an airstone on for emergency so your fish don't all die.

Water that is more acidic will eventually become dangerous for fish at some point. So using CO2 injection will eventually do harm to them, more CO2 means less oxygen as well. Hopefully you all can understand what I'm trying to say :)

[nickmcmechan]

i think this explains it quite well:

http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/art_plant_co2chart.htm

[nickmcmechan]

Well, bad news I'm afraid.

Just phoned down to arrange pick up to be told that one of the pair had went black and started shedding.

Couple of questions going through my mind right now

1. should i wait and let the lfs do treatment and then pick up or should i cancel

2. if i wait until they recover how long should i wait until pick up

This is a dissapointment. I've spent the week doing big water changes on the tank, extra maintenance, buying hma filter etc etc. This has totally consumed all my free time this week.

Any and all advice greatly aprreciated!

[Eddie]

Cancel, don't take them. Thats my opinion.


Eddie

[mmorris]

I'd avoid the lfs like the plague! It sounds like a parasite infestation. I suggest you log onto the BIDKA forum and see what they recommend for discus sources in Scotland. Buying nice, healthy discus from a reputable source is imperative!

[scottthomas]

Cancel your order.

[Scribbles]

Cancel. You'll be sorry if you bring parasites/disease into your tank. Find some healthy discus from a reliable source.