Linda's Contest Thread 2 - 125g Discus Tank

My friends all know I have fish - usually about 20 tanks worth, mainly angel breeding and grow-out tanks. Last Sept, a friend asked me if I would be interested in her old 125g. It had been sitting unused (and uncleaned…) for about 2 years and she wanted to reclaim the space. Since she was asking only $100 it was a total no-brainer! It was especially timely since I had several discus that I had obtained from members in my local fish club that were needing a larger tank. I had obtained them at 1-1.5" and they were at the time 4-4.5", and in a 55g.

This is the tank when I picked it up:

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After actually getting it home in one piece, I filled it up in my unfinished basement next to the sump pump and let it sit for a couple days to make sure it held water. Then it needed a *thorough* scrubbing. After that, I just had to get it set up and start buying equipment for it.

Still to come: pictures showing the tank's evolution over the last few months.

Looking forward to your progress in setting up this tank for eventually housing some beautiful discus!

It’ll be fun to watch this from empty to full of discus!

Nice tank but lots of fish

That will make a great discus tank Linda, looking forward to seeing what you do with it.
Pat

Here is a picture of the first incarnation the 125. Filtration is 2 extra large sponge filters (one taken from my grow-out tank) and an Eheim pro 4+ canister. In one of the Eheim media trays, I used the ceramic beads from the filter on my grow-out tank. I was hopeful that by just moving my sponge and filter media over there would be little to no new cycling on the 125, and that seemed to be the case. I tested the water every couple days and never saw evidence of a cycle. The tank has two 300w heaters with an Ink Bird controller set to 84 degrees. I used about 1/4 inch of pool filter sand and a small piece of wood with some anubias and java fern as decoration.

At this point, the only livestock were 3 misc mixed discus (my first test run at growing out babies) and 2 mandarin discus, all obtained from members of my local aquarium club at 1-1.5". The 3 misc discus now range in size from 4-4.5" and don't have the best shapes. The mandarins are 5.5-6" and turned out much better!

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Nice upgrade and very nice tank!

Nice tank Linda. I like the wood piece with Anubis. Looks like the discus like it too. Your fish look happy and I hear grow outs are difficult even with a good stock, so kudos to you!
Patty

The next phase in tank development was to add a few brochis cats that I got at the local fish club auction and 4 heckle cross discus that I bought from Larry Bugg (they all had a 6 week QT first).
My husband also bought me a huge piece of driftwood for the tank. It wasn't the branching look I had wanted, but it's a cool piece, and he was very excited about it. :)
I scrubbed it, sanded anything sharp, and added some anubias to it. I didn't have anything large enough to soak it in, so I went ahead and put it in the tank, weighting it down with some large rocks. Well, that lasted for about 2 days before I came in to find this. For about a month, I had a nice "floating island" effect as it very slowly sank.
It's hard to see in this picture, but I also put some pothos clippings on top of the tank to root in the water.
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Here's the tank after the wood finally sank. At this point, I also added 6 cardinals tetras. I would really like maybe a dozen more, but I am having a very difficult time finding any that aren't tiny. :/

The plant floating across the top of the tank is just a large artificial bamboo plant. My light seems to be too strong for the anubias and barring a way to easily dim it, I chose to just put something in the way. This seems to have worked really well (at least for the time being).
In this picture, you can see the pothos starting to grow across the lid of the tank.
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Wow your tank looks really good. I love the way you have that wood piece seated. I love the colors and varieties of your discus too. Gorgeous set up!
Patty

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Originally Posted by Pices

Wow your tank looks really good. I love the way you have that wood piece seated. I love the colors and varieties of your discus too. Gorgeous set up!
Patty

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Thanks Patty! I have a little snow white that I'm growing out that I'll add when he gets big enough (my daughter's special request :)). I'd like to add a couple more of a different variety at some point, but we'll see what happens!

Beautiful tank and fish Linda :D Love that piece of wood.
Pat

I'm not sure if the picture in post #10 is showing up - it was, and now it's not (at least for me). So I'm reposting that one just in case. :)
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Love the addition of the wood! Looks great!

Just catching up on this thread. Very nice Linda! I think the 125 is what you really need for a good discus show tank, or more :).

There have been a couple changes made to the 125 recently. One of these was the addition of 2 small gold nugget plecos. These little guys have already visibly grown some, so I guess they like the conditions in the tank! The second change was to move around some plants. I took the artificial plant that was floating and planted it along the left side of the wood to soften the look of that edge. I then added some water sprite to float and soften the light in the tank. The sprite really likes this tank - I have to remove handfuls of it frequently because it multiplies so quickly. I've never had water sprite grow such large, thick stems as it does in this tank - they are massive plants!
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Very nice progression on this tank!!!

I like the way you softened the edge of your wood piece. I liked it before but it looks even better. You’ve got a good eye.
Patty

I knew I had one pair of heckles that had spawned on the filter intake, but now there's a second heckle pair that has spawned on the heater cover. And, to my surprise, they both have wigglers! I may pull one pair to swap out with the 3rd heckle pair I have in a breeding tank. That pair hasn't been horribly successful, so I may try out one of the others. :)

And now I actually have swimmers in the 125 display tank. :shocked2:
I hadn't paid much attention to keeping up with the wigglers and they all appeared to be gone, as I expected. This morning, one of the mamas was in the corner looking a bit dark. When I checked on her, afraid there was a problem, there were actually babies swimming around her! I'm getting ready to go out of town, so the tank will be dark and quiet for a while. It will be interesting to see if there are any left when I get back.

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Originally Posted by Lindad

And now I actually have swimmers in the 125 display tank. :shocked2:
I hadn't paid much attention to keeping up with the wigglers and they all appeared to be gone, as I expected. This morning, one of the mamas was in the corner looking a bit dark. When I checked on her, afraid there was a problem, there were actually babies swimming around her! I'm getting ready to go out of town, so the tank will be dark and quiet for a while. It will be interesting to see if there are any left when I get back.

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That is awesome ! those heckels must be doing great job as its not easy to get it to this stage in a community tank :)
With so many pairs you will get very busy if you planning on saving those batches haha good luck !

Post-vacation update: No swimmers survived my vacation, which is not surprising. (I was surprised to get swimmers at all in this tank!) I'm still considering either pulling one of these pairs to put in a breeding tank, or just pulling a set of eggs to try artificial rearing. Discus babies are so much more work though, I'm honestly not sure if either option makes sense with my crazy schedule! I may decide to go with option 3 - just leave everything as is.

Very nice tank and fish.

Regarding the water sprite, have you noticed any improvement in water quality since adding the floaters?

Tobi

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Originally Posted by Swedgin

Very nice tank and fish.

Regarding the water sprite, have you noticed any improvement in water quality since adding the floaters?

Tobi

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Everything *seems* more stable now, and I haven't seen any of the periodic algae I was getting before adding the water sprite. That said, I don't frequently test my water, so I can't give a quantitative answer. I am assuming that the water sprite is making good use of the nitrates because I've never had such robust plants before! It has certainly met my main objective of dimming the light in the tank, and the fish and anubias seem happier with the shade that the water sprite provides.

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Originally Posted by Lindad

Everything *seems* more stable now, and I haven't seen any of the periodic algae I was getting before adding the water sprite. That said, I don't frequently test my water, so I can't give a quantitative answer. I am assuming that the water sprite is making good use of the nitrates because I've never had such robust plants before! It has certainly met my main objective of dimming the light in the tank, and the fish and anubias seem happier with the shade that the water sprite provides.

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Cool, thank you

Linda, your tank just keeps getting prettier every time I see it! It’s picture perfect.
Patty

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Originally Posted by Pices

Linda, your tank just keeps getting prettier every time I see it! It’s picture perfect.
Patty

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Thanks, Patty! I have to say that I'm fairly pleased with my first attempt at a larger tank (at least for the moment;))!

And now I have a 3rd pair spawning in the tank. I'm glad they're happy, but really?!?
Three pairs spawning at the same time doesn't leave much swimming space for the 3 loners that are left...

What’s in that water in GA? Lol Just kidding. You must be keeping them really happy. Any idea what is causing so much mating behavior? Are you feeding them oysters? RO water? Congrats Linda:guitarist:
Patty

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Originally Posted by Pices

What’s in that water in GA? Lol Just kidding. You must be keeping them really happy. Any idea what is causing so much mating behavior? Are you feeding them oysters? RO water? Congrats Linda:guitarist:
Patty

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I'm honestly not sure why they're SO happy. I'm not playing them any romantic music, I know that much. They get 2 big water changes each week with tap water and Prime. I'm feeding twice daily with a variety of foods - Al's FDBW and discus chow, Forrest's AquaBites, and Hikari Discus Bio-Gold. I do know that these guys seem to really like tannins, and I've got that huge chunk of driftwood in there that's still leaching, so maybe that's part of it.

The first 2 pairs to match up in this tank both have wigglers now. I actually think that one of the sets might have a slim chance of making it (at least for a little while). The last time that pair spawned, they got swimmers but the babies seemed to attach to the heater guard instead of the parents. They died off slowly over a couple days. This time, the wigglers are on the front glass, away from most other dark objects in the tank. I'm interested to see if the parents can hang close enough to attract the babies. I did steal a few wigglers from each set this afternoon to try an artificial raise. We'll see how that goes. :p

Wow Linda I guess you are all in. Good luck on your raising fry adventure. Very cool stuff happening on this thread.
Patty

This morning, both pairs have swimmers. One set seems to be attracted to the pre-filter sponge on the intake tube. The other set seems to be attempting to hang around their parents, but mom is trying her best to stick them all back on the corner of the tank. :)

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You can see one baby just under dad's chin.

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One baby visible at the dorsal fin.

I love how mom developed a nice black halo when she darkened up for the babies!
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Originally Posted by Lindad

I love how mom developed a nice black halo when she darkened up for the babies!
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That’s a nice looking fish. Best of luck with raising the fry. What a way to end the contest. Congratulations.

The babies are gone today, as expected. I don't know if they just died or were eaten. I think I may try to pull one of the pairs out and put them in a breeding tank, because they seem very determined! I don't look forward to try to catch them though, especially with several that look alike in the tank.

Overall, this tank has been a great experience! I had never had a large tank prior to this, and had never attempted a discus display tank. I think it has gone well, and I'm looking forward to continuing to work on it and seeing it evolve!