I'll do my best to give you all my secrets to success.
Water - Idaho tap, pulled from aquifers in basalt
pH from tap - 7.8+
pH aged 24h - 7.8+
Nitrates - 0.5 - 5.4ppm depending on the time of year (heavy agricultural community out here)
Chlorine (Cl2) - 0.29 - 0.46 Higher during summer months
Total THM's - 4.3 year round
I don't age my tap water since there is virtually no change in pH over a 24 hour period. I use a double dose of Safe during the summer months. Nitrates aren't generally a problem, but are always present in the tap water at low levels.
D
iscus Foods given daily
Discus Flake food from various makers (OSI, etc)
Spirulina Flakes
Prime Reef Flakes
Al's FDBW
San Fransisco Bay Brand Frozen Beefheart
Foods given sporadically
Frozen Spirulina cubes (good laxative)
Hikari Frozen Bloodworm cubes (with "sticks" of icky stuff they won't eat included in them)
Prime Nutrition Discus cubes (too messy!)
So here's how a typical day looked for the first 8 months of growing out my Hans discus last year:
Morning feeding - Breakfast of champions (about 2 tsps of flake mix)
Mid-morning feeding - Frozen Beefheart, 2 cubes to start (went up to 4 per feeding as they grew)
Mid-morning Water Change - 60% minimum change, often more than that
Noon feeding - 3 or more Al's FDBW (they each ate a whole one by themselves by the time they were 5")
Mid-afternoon feeding - Frozen Beefheart, 2 cubes
Dinner - Al's FDBW, 3 or more cubes depending on how fast they ate it
Pre-water change snack - Frozen Beefheart, 2 cubes
9PM Water Change - 90%
9:30 Bedtime Snack - 2 Al's FDBW cubes and lights out at 10pm
My tank was a 54g Pentagonal tank with a dark blue background, beige sand, light plants for the first month (then NO plants!) one large driftwood stump.
Filtration:
Marineland canister filter
1 Sponge filter - largest I could find
Tankmates:
2 Albino Cories
When I upgraded to my 115g tank the specs were as follows
Filtration:
Simple 40gal sump using poret foam and pump to circulate water @6x per hour
1/2" Sand
Same driftwood stump, 2 sword plants in pots
Tankmates:
2 Albino Cories
3 Sterbai Cories
25+ Cardinal Tetras
Water Changes went to one 90% change per day in the big tank, but feedings remained the same.
Ok, that's pretty much all I did for them. No magic pills at all. I still do my daily huge water changes during the summer when nitrates are higher in my tap water, and every other day 90% during the other 9 months of the year.
I don't have pleco's, I don't obsess about cleaning my filters (every few weeks) but I DO go nuts about cleaning the glass, heaters driftwood! That stuff gets covered in high protein discus slime and it just feels like a breeding ground for bad bacteria to me. Driftwood gets pulled out and hosed off every Sunday. All surfaces get the mag-float treatment at every water change and the sides, heaters, etc get a super duper cleaning on Sundays.
Ohhhhh, I have MTS in my tank. They drive me nuts these days but are a very handy barometer of how much you overfeed your fish. If you're feeding too much they multiply like rabbits and cover every surface in search of food. LOL
Re: The Forum's Position on Discus in Planted Tanks....
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Originally Posted by OC Discus
