From Salt Water Grief to Discus Relief?

let me say hello to everyone from newbie (like me) to the veteran breeders here. great info on the site and hoping it and you will guide me to success. I'm an old fart and have had tanks most of my life, the one i am working on now is a 100 or 125 gallon that used to have 5 LARGE volitan lionfish in it that i had for years. as time passed so did the jobs and the company i ended up working with required long road trips and time away from home for 2-3 weeks. the tank was so established that my son 12 at the time could easily keep an eye on it for me while i was away. My feeder fish connection closed while i was away and my son and his friend went to the local "Big Box" pet-(add name here) and bought 50 feeders for them that were diseased ad killed the entire tank before i could get home.

I loved the lion fish since they just were so graceful in the water they just floated and swam like softball angels with their wings just floating with them. I sold most of the saltwater equipment years ago and the tank has set empty for at least 5 years. I was going to start it as a Cichlid tank but knew i would get bored with the fish and just let the tank go. So with the info on the web and the inspiration of this excellent community I have decided to, with the chagrin of my wife, to go with a Discus tank.

So hare we go!! I decided to do a bare bottom tank ( i added tile to the bottom to simulate sand) and dug out the many boxes of "stuff" i have collected for years. I am planning on using my 3 cylinder canister system fore main filtration with the discharge at the bottom to help keep waste from gathering under the rocks for decoration. It is filtration, charcoal, and heater. I have an old Fluval canister i think i am going to convert to a bio-filter and i have a few Phos-Ban reactors i can use for ammonia,nitrate, or whatever buffering or elimination i may need. I bought 2 LED light strips and mounted them in a section of rain gutter for lighting since with the saltwater i always used cheap shop lights since they would corrode in 6 months the same as the high dollar aquarium lights.

So the project begins and i hope it is as rewarding as the tank used to be. was gonna attach a photo but it just gives me errors so when i figure that out i'll post one

I would use other media than charcoal, but then I am not a big fan of charcoal filtration in an aquarium unless there is an odor you are trying to remove.

bio balls, Seachem Matrix, and other media work better than charcoal in my opinion.

Welcome to Simply Discus! You are in for a treat. There’s no other fish with the personality, beauty and spunk as these fish.
Patty

Hi Matthew and welcome to simply and from the salty side of things :D There are many great threads in the beginner section if you care to take a look. This thread is a must watch and well worth at hour of your time, First post in this thread Are-you-new-to-discus-WATCH-THIS-VIDEO!. Also there is a size limit of 2MB to the size of the pictures you wish to upload to a thread.
Pat

Welcome to the Discus World!
How many water changes are you planning? What size fish?
I don't think charcoal is needed or necessary unless you need to remove something out of the water. If so, I would go with Purigen. Fill the canister with Matrix (or something similar like Bio-balls).
Others may have more encouragement and suggestions. I started off complicated in setup and am going simpler. :)

Fl i am working on an auto water change system that will allow me to adjust it to the bio-load as needed and find a happy spot when well established. as for the Charcoal filtration i have just never run a fresh water tank without one and have the entire double canister filter for a bio filter filled with lavarock and ceramic.

Pat thanks for the info on the pics mine were much larger so i will try to cut them down. I watched the video previous to your post and am hoping to use his water change system if i can get it all balanced, I found another video on a small level siphon i think will work with the drip system. I have run large overflows with a dry sump filter but they ran alot of flow and always had a lift pump on the crossover tube so experimentation will be the key for this set up.

Hi and welcome, sorry the loss of your lionfish put a long pause in your fishkeeping but discus will be at least as gracefull. At least to start I would not only keep the 5ank bare bottom but also keep the decor in the tank to a minimum - keep it simple is the name of the game!