My planted discus tank. [Archive]

rdlee

10-25-2009, 01:22 PM

breathtaking! do you have any tank specifics? i'm surprised there isn't more peppering on those PB's. great work

Thanks,

The tank specifcs: CO2 injection, excel dosage once a week, 90g, temp 80F, PH 6.3, 11 discus, 30 other fishes, 25%-30% water changes once a week. I raise them from eggs. The fries were raised in a planted tank. They are used to this kind of water condition. It is a wonderful experience indeed.

rickztahone

10-25-2009, 01:24 PM

Thanks,

The tank specifcs: CO2 injection, 90g, temp 80F, PH 6.3, 11 discus, 30 other fishes, 25%-30% water changes once a week. I raise them from eggs. The fries were raised in an planted tank. They are used to this kind of water condition. It is a wonderful experience indeed.

very nice. i was just explaining to another member that there are some that have great success growing in a planted tank. do you have any more pics?

rdlee

10-25-2009, 01:38 PM

very nice. i was just explaining to another member that there are some that have great success growing in a planted tank. do you have any more pics?

They were showing some peppers at beginning. Then I change to a white background and see a lot less peppers.

Here are the pics:

http://i647.photobucket.com/albums/uu199/rdlee100/My_baby_discus.jpg

http://i647.photobucket.com/albums/uu199/rdlee100/IMG_0059.jpg

http://i647.photobucket.com/albums/uu199/rdlee100/IMG_0030.jpg

http://i647.photobucket.com/albums/uu199/rdlee100/IMG_0005-1.jpg

http://i647.photobucket.com/albums/uu199/rdlee100/IMG_0165.jpg

http://i647.photobucket.com/albums/uu199/rdlee100/IMG_0010.jpg

http://i647.photobucket.com/albums/uu199/rdlee100/IMG_0346.jpg

http://i647.photobucket.com/albums/uu199/rdlee100/IMG_0153.jpg

http://i647.photobucket.com/albums/uu199/rdlee100/IMG_0121.jpg

http://i647.photobucket.com/albums/uu199/rdlee100/IMG_0101.jpg

The very first batch of babies are 11 months old now.

Cooldadddyfunk286

10-25-2009, 02:05 PM

very very cool, I love checkerboard pigeons, and that planted tank is breathtaking! awesome job! :D

smiley

10-25-2009, 02:14 PM

Some hard work there mate...great tank

seanyuki

10-25-2009, 02:31 PM

Great job Richard and welcome to Simply Discus forum:)

matakara

10-25-2009, 02:57 PM

Good tank. good plants. good friendship discus and plants. congrls.

Murat ATAKARA

rickztahone

10-25-2009, 03:04 PM

i love the time line pictures, thanks for sharing that with us. they have come a long way

TFH

10-25-2009, 05:27 PM

Rod

10-25-2009, 06:29 PM

Great looking tank, very nice. :)

rdlee

10-25-2009, 06:51 PM

rdlee,

That is a great tank! I am about to embark on a 90 gallon in-wall planted discus tank. Any gems of wisdom you can give to me? I have been reading up on planted discus tanks for about a year now. My tank is going into the wall in my den and is part of a renovation that I am doing. There is a room right behind the tank for the filter, sink, etc.. Thanks for anything you may share. Once again, great tank.

Tom
from CT.

I have use only one fluval 405 filter, and two power heads. I change 25% - 30% water once a week. I think the key to have a planted discus tank is the discus itself. My discuss are raised in a planted tank. So they are used to these water parameters.

rdlee

10-25-2009, 07:03 PM

breathtaking! do you have any tank specifics? i'm surprised there isn't more peppering on those PB's. great work

You are right. In a planted tank, PB baesd discus will have peppers, the others will have the bars. A blue diamond discus will get dark. Even in our LFS, I saw the new PB based arrivals are flawless at beginning. After two weeks, I start to see they all have peppers. Some people don't mind about the bars and peppers cause they are natural. But I am still very interested in knowing anyone who has tried some strains of discus without seeing bars or peppers in a high tech planted tank. :)

DiscusKeeper403

10-25-2009, 07:33 PM

Nice Discus. Interesting you raised them so big in a planted tank from so small. Have you always done a 25% w/c weekly even from the beginning?

Scribbles

10-25-2009, 08:25 PM

Beautiful tank!

Chris

rdlee

10-25-2009, 09:42 PM

Thank you all for the compliments. :)

Nice Discus. Interesting you raised them so big in a planted tank from so small. Have you always done a 25% w/c weekly even from the beginning?

At different stage, they were in different sized tanks. At two months young, I start to put them in a planted tank. Frequent water change is always good for discus if you have time.

rickztahone

10-25-2009, 09:50 PM

You are right. In a planted tank, PB baesd discus will have peppers, the others will have the bars. A blue diamond discus will get dark. Even in our LFS, I saw the new PB based arrivals are flawless at beginning. After two weeks, I start to see they all have peppers. Some people don't mind about the bars and peppers cause they are natural. But I am still very interested in knowing anyone who has tried some strains of discus without seeing bars or peppers in a high tech planted tank. :)

all Albino strains will not show any peppering and will not turn dark even in an all black tank.

fish4fun

10-25-2009, 10:09 PM

rdlee
Where in Canada are you located?

Great tank by the way.

Eddie

10-25-2009, 11:09 PM

Beautiful planted tank and you did a fantastic job growing those discus out. AMAZING!

Take care,

Eddie

Chad Hughes

10-26-2009, 12:33 AM

Beautiful tank!

Great job growing them out in a planted tank! It's always nice to hear a success story that's not the same as everyone else.

Best wishes!

bigslick

10-26-2009, 10:22 PM

VERY NICE TANK

Spardas

11-06-2009, 05:42 PM

First of all, awesome tank!

If you don't mind, can you post the tank's specs. Thanks.

GrillMaster

11-06-2009, 06:35 PM

Having the time to grow out discus and maintain an excellent looking planted tank is a feat in itself!! Outstanding job! :thumbsup:

I am gonna move it over to the planted tank section so everyone can check it out! ;) :D

rdlee

11-06-2009, 06:40 PM

First of all, awesome tank!

If you don't mind, can you post the tank's specs. Thanks.

Thank you for your complement.

Be honest with you, the only test kit I have is ph test strip, and I don't use it quite often either. I think the key is my discus which are very hardy in a planted tank.

To have a planted discus tank without doing tremendous maintance work is always my dream. These discus (they are not that high grade strain, marlboro red pigeon x blue snakeskin) I bred were purposely raised in a planted tank. They have grown up >5" and about 11 month young. Some of them are paring up too. So, I would say that it is possible to raise a discus in a planted tank.
http://i647.photobucket.com/albums/uu199/rdlee100/IMG_0082-1.jpg

The tank specifcs: One fluval 405 canister, two power heads, CO2 injection, excel dosage once a week, 90g, temp 80F, PH around 6.3, 11 discus, 30 other fishes, 25%-30% water changes once a week.

Please let me know what else you would like to know.

Thank you again for your comment.

MikeF

11-06-2009, 10:33 PM

Very nice tank. Makes me want to try my hand at a planted tank.

rich815

11-06-2009, 11:37 PM

But I am still very interested in knowing anyone who has tried some strains of discus without seeing bars or peppers in a high tech planted tank. :)

I've had some pretty good success with a couple of pigeons with little to no peppering in my planted tank. You can see one of them in the first photo of this thread. I'll post more pics later. Their tails are lined in some black peppering and a few specks here and there but as you can see quite clean looking:

http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showthread.php?t=74968

One very good aspect about an established and well-balanced planted tank is that the plants just love all the discus poop for nutrients. I used to dose with generic dry ferts with Potassium Nitrate and Monopotassium Phosphate in particular before I had discus in this tank. Since adding my discus I stopped dosing those altogether yet my plants still grow well and my parameters are about 10-15ppm Nitrates and 2-3ppm Phosphates. The plants use up a lot of the uneaten food (as do my army of 15+ cories, and 25+ tetras) and the poop as nutirents and keep the water oxygen enriched too. A large clan or Malaysian Trumpet Snails stir up the substrate and eat a lot of any food just gets dropped onto the substrate as well. I change the water about 50% twice a week but rarely if ever vacuum the gravel.

rdlee, you tank and discus are gorgeous, as is your entire plant biomass as well. Great job.

zoolado

11-07-2009, 02:58 AM

Nice tank/Discus Richard.One out of four that i got from you shows no pepering or very little and striations are very few?What can I expect in the end.

rdlee

11-07-2009, 04:42 PM

I've had some pretty good success with a couple of pigeons with little to no peppering in my planted tank. You can see one of them in the first photo of this thread. I'll post more pics later. Their tails are lined in some black peppering and a few specks here and there but as you can see quite clean looking:

http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showthread.php?t=74968

One very good aspect about an established and well-balanced planted tank is that the plants just love all the discus poop for nutrients. I used to dose with generic dry ferts with Potassium Nitrate and Monopotassium Phosphate in particular before I had discus in this tank. Since adding my discus I stopped dosing those altogether yet my plants still grow well and my parameters are about 10-15ppm Nitrates and 2-3ppm Phosphates. The plants use up a lot of the uneaten food (as do my army of 15+ cories, and 25+ tetras) and the poop as nutirents and keep the water oxygen enriched too. A large clan or Malaysian Trumpet Snails stir up the substrate and eat a lot of any food just gets dropped onto the substrate as well. I change the water about 50% twice a week but rarely if ever vacuum the gravel.

rdlee, you tank and discus are gorgeous, as is your entire plant biomass as well. Great job.

rich, thank you for your comment. You got a very nice pigeon. Is it a ACB pigeon? Also you have a very beautiful planted tank too. You are right. I don't use any plant food too. Fishs' poop is enough. The excel I dose is mainly for preventing the BBAs. I hate that stuff. I have a good cleaning clew too, SAEs and four BN plecos.

rdlee

11-07-2009, 04:49 PM

Nice tank/Discus Richard.One out of four that i got from you shows no pepering or very little and striations are very few?What can I expect in the end.

Thanks,

WOW, keep that one and selectively breed it. Maybe an albino eventually. Some people say that you have to have an Albino gene to get it. But the study prove that it is possible some alterations of the genes will also lead to an alteration of the melanin (pigment / colouring) production in the body. I really need some experts' opinion on that.

Anyway, lucky you, I should've kept that one. :p

smiley

11-07-2009, 05:00 PM

Proving all odds wrong is success at its peak..

efforts are just amazing... Discus grow out in a planted tank..just thumbs up

Chef

11-08-2009, 01:25 AM

very nice tank

noved

11-08-2009, 02:49 AM

I'm just curious what city you live in rdlee and if you would be willing to sell one of your pair that are starting to form. Your tank is exactly what I am looking to achieve. Great job.

rdlee

11-08-2009, 09:52 PM

Proving all odds wrong is success at its peak..

efforts are just amazing... Discus grow out in a planted tank..just thumbs up

very nice tank

Thank you for the nice comments.

I'm just curious what city you live in rdlee and if you would be willing to sell one of your pair that are starting to form. Your tank is exactly what I am looking to achieve. Great job.

I am in great vancouver, BC. I would like to keep them for now. Maybe later I will consider selling them. Thanks!:)

swingdaddy

11-11-2009, 03:51 AM

Your tank is inspiring!...
I'm attempting to do the same, but currently growing out 13 disucus in 100 gallon with plants, no substrate.

What lights are you using and for how long is it on?

I tried CO2, but the discus became skittish and bolted so much, that i was worried that they would injure themselves. I'll attempt to slowly introduce it again.

I'm planning to add a substrate in a few months. What type of substrate are you using? Did you add ferts in your substrate?

Thanks for sharing.

tcmemphisbbq

11-11-2009, 11:41 AM

What kind of lighting do you have?

Tom

rdlee

11-11-2009, 12:50 PM

I am using 4x23W(equi = 4x100W) CFL bulbs, 6500K for 10 hours a day. I use flora base layer covered by 2-3mm regular gravel in roughly 1:3 ratio. I think ADA is better if you have the money. :) I don't use other ferts, only flourish excel from seachem once a week with half recommend dosage after WC. I use full dosage initially. I really love that stuff. The CO2 is runing at 1 bps.

theblondskeleton

11-18-2009, 01:21 PM

ChristosB

11-18-2009, 01:49 PM

Great tank!!! Congratulations!

rdlee

11-18-2009, 05:11 PM

Amazing tank, and beautiful fish! I aspire to the same goal, and this tank is pure inspiration. Did you vacuum the gravel after feedings? How big were your discus when you moved them in to the planted tank?

Thank you for sharing!

Great tank!!! Congratulations!

Thank you all for the complements.

Sean, your tank is exceptional. :thumbsup: I am sure you can do much better than me. I don't vacuum the gravel. The plants take care of fish waste. The discus I put in were about 1.5"- 2". They were big enough to eat BW I remember. You can see from the fourth pics in the thread. I grew some babies in a high tech planted tank, and some in a low tech one. I found no difference in growth.

This is my first experience of breeding discus in a planted tank. I have learned that farm raised discus require frequent water change, and very sensitive. They prefer to be kept in a BB tank. I am not a BB tank fan and quite lazy on tank maintenance, WC etc. So, the goal is trying to have some discus, which are tough in a planted tank, require less maintance, and are not sensitive. A year ago, I got the two (pigeon x snakeskin)were spawning in a low-tech planted tank, which gave me this opportunity to carry out the experiment. Luckily, they have been growing up to a reasonable size right now. (5.5" in 11 months) Next time, I will try different strain, which will show better color and pattern in a planted tank.

Againn thank you for looking.:)

rwong2k

11-22-2009, 02:58 AM

Hey Richard,

Great looking planted discus tank.

post some more photos!

Raymond

ChloroPhil

11-22-2009, 10:06 AM

I've been telling people that Pidgeonblood would look great in a planted tank for years. Now I've got a photo to show them just how beautiful they are in a lush green environment. Your fish are stunning!!

Mark Webb

12-17-2009, 08:29 AM

This tank is beautiful. I am just setting up a 220 gallon tank. Would be very interested to see a plant list?

darbex

12-18-2009, 12:29 AM

Awesome tank

asifgy

11-02-2010, 09:48 PM

Hey Rdlee, what are those foreground plants in the middle?? how come they r not eating your plants, mine is have a blast with them. Your tank is beautiful.

Herbicidal

11-04-2010, 12:33 AM

A living work of art! Simply beautiful! By the way, I see it's been almost a year since rdlee's last post in this thread, are you still here? Any current pictures you can share?

colinlp

11-04-2010, 02:52 PM

beautiful tank and fish

intect

11-04-2010, 04:16 PM

A question about the water change: Is there a big PH difference between your tank water and the tap water?

wannafish

11-05-2010, 12:57 AM

Hi,

I have a question about the water also! How do you keep
the ph at 6.3. If you use tap water, what is your ph of the
tap. Interested to know!

Thanks

Herbicidal

11-05-2010, 11:07 AM

I just checked rdlee's profile and looks like they haven't logged on since June 6th, 2010. They may not be active any longer here. Too bad. :(

whitetiprs

11-24-2010, 01:50 PM

Great looking tank.

rdlee

12-04-2010, 04:54 AM

Hi All,

Thank you for asking. The discus are two years old now, and some of them are larger than 7". The tank is getting too crowded. I have removed most of the plants to make room for them. I thought my tank now is not qualified for posting here because it is not a planted one anymore. :) But anyway, just to show you how and where they are now.

http://i647.photobucket.com/albums/uu199/rdlee100/IMG_0009-2-1.jpg

The ph of tap water in my area is about 6.8. I change 35% water once a week now. The ph will drop between water changes. I add some crush coral to buffer a bit. My tank is quite stable.

intect

12-04-2010, 12:27 PM

wow, they can grow so big. Very good job! How many times did you feed them per day when they were juveniles and how did you clean the waste they produced? Did you over feed them or just feed them properly in your way? What kind of food did your feed, flakes, home-made beef heart or others? Sorry for so many questions but I really want to have a discus tank like yours. Yours is so beautiful!

intect

12-04-2010, 12:32 PM

One more question: do you use the tap water directly or have any treatment? thanks

rdlee

12-04-2010, 06:10 PM

To intect,

Thank you for your compliment. I have never fed them with beef heart and live food (except BBS I hatched when they were babies) etc. I have been feeding them with mixed dry foods (grind them ,then mix them up, make a right sized soft pellet, put them in the refrigerator for a couple of days, take time to feed them, no over feeding, hardly mess up the water), steamed BW(lol, :) but true). I found frequent feeding is essential for growth.
Besides I always use gravel too, and 'vacuum' them when I do water change. I know I have done many ways which are against myths, but they work for me so far. I use tap water conditioner.

Oh, the most left one in the pic is my favorite, 'he' is the biggest one. Their dad in blue is in the most right in the pic. They are almost the same size now.

saltydog

12-04-2010, 07:12 PM

rdlee

12-04-2010, 11:30 PM

VERY nice. let me ask about your background. was it initially painted black? If so did you scrape it and repaint white? Just curious what the background is. you had mentioned you changed it back earlier in the thread.

Thanks

I didn't paint my tank. I used black or white fabric. If you look closely at the previous pic with the white background in the thread, you will see it. Since it is not a planted tank now, my wife made the current background using craft paper, which you can buy from a dollar store. We glued the background inside the cardboard, which was the shipping package of the tank. lol :) Then we place the new background at the back of the tank.