Starting a Discus 3 foot tank

[musicmarn1]

Best of luck Mike your taking the advice and criticism quite well lol! Par for the course here, but only truly, because people care and want you to have healthy fish that grow and please you, people fall out of the hobby all the time because they really didn't believe it takes what it takes and it can be a shock. but Larry is right if you love discus once you get them healthy and growing its easy! sick discus are hard lol

the guys here helping you know that success wont happen without a lot of clean water for young ones, it just won't.gravel and young discus just don mix, hence nitrate, from debris.

But I'm excited to hear your progress, your doing it and that's awesome!! we all love it when someone gets their discus healthy again and there is some great advice here, as a beginner I've made lots of mistakes and its true that bare tank bottom with 50% daily will help a lot,

but bullying and stress though will be hard for the little ones, can you get egg crate to divide the tank? Cheap plastic with lots of holes so water moves through but the smaller ones can eat. If they don't get enough now they will be waaaay behind in growth.

Or else yes moving smaller ones to the smaller tank, though they really benefit from being in a larger group for confidence lol.

[Mikemeets]

Ohk i made up my mind, im braking down the 2 foot at work and taking it home to make it a spare tank for my 2 small discus getting beat up by the other 3 strong and healthy 8cm discus, the 2 foot only gonna have a corner filter heater and a T8 20w light in it with a upside down pot in it, cos its only a 29gallon i can do 100% waterchanges in it per day, the 3foot ill do 30gallon changes per day i think its a 45gallon tank so doin 30gallons at a time is more than 50% water changes per day and keep it as my show tank (hate bare bottom tanks) im sure the 2 little ones will bounce back fast in a clean bb tank in a month with no meds

[Mikemeets]

Lol sorry the main msg i sent when i had a couple beers in so i was writting what i was thinkin lol thought everybody gonna complain instead of helping in a nice way... dont text while drunk ahould be this post title hahaha

[OC Discus]

Mike, you might find the aggression just as bad or worse in the tank with three discus. Five is considered minimum unless you have a breeding pair. If so, try to do the other things suggested and use the small tank for hospital/quarantine.

Best of luck

BTW- Aggression is normal and will diminish over time. IME the key to reducing aggression is to feed enough so the bullys get all they want with plenty left for the other fish. Allow about an hour before removing uneaten food. "Overfeeding" is often necessary to help young fish grow, so vigilance with water changes is also necessary to keep the water pure with overfeeding. These two things are the most important things you can do to have healthy fish: 1) Plenty of food, 2) Pristine water. Removing substrate will help with both of these. No where for uneaten food to rot, easy to see and clean the bottom. As others have said, when the fish are grown and require less food substrate might be an option. I have six discus of different colors that are now about 5". The only decoration is two artificial tree stumps that can be taken out and scrubbed. Keeping the tank clean is so much easier.

[Mikemeets]

Ahhh was thinking taking the 2 out could cause other problems with the 3rd in line... i got 2 8cm ones that dont take each others ****, but they like each other aswell, like a love hate relationship haha they always swimming together but they can lock mouths and slap each other silly in a face off but 2min later they school and eat together... paired up by any chance? Or are the equal matched off?

[Mikemeets]

I found overfeeding works and getting the big boys to eat on the one side and sneaking in food at the othersiide so the other 2 snatch up a bit of food b4 the others realize haha sneaky sneaky :P

[Mikemeets]

But 2foot tank is getting broken down on saterday and moving it home, so ill set that up bb... ill keep an eye on the 3rd in line once the 2 have been moved over and c but seen him stand his ground well aswell but not when both the alphas chase him then he backs down but on a one on one he takes it well... when he is in his own corner he shows his colour well and nice and round till the 2 big boys swim by then he makes like a dog scared of the other one ai shame but then as soon as the 2 swim by he opens up again... the 2 small ones just hide and clamped fins + dark in colour... poop still fine tho, checked this morn one of them its brown but thin where the big ones got chunky floaters lol really no jokes yuk... but ill take advice after setting up 2 foot im thinking adding all small ones on sat then braking down the big one by taking out driftwood sand and plants on sunday leaving my 3foot tank ugly and adding them back into the 3foot such is life hey

[OC Discus]

Bare bottom doesnt have to be ugly. Especially if you have colorful fish.


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[Mikemeets]

Very nice!

[Mikemeets]

Thats now how u do a BB tank

[Mikemeets]

I had my 3foot BB for 3days but the bottom glass scared the crap out of the discus the reflection but could stick a black paper under the tank so that i dont get reflection from the white foam under the tank...

[Madaboutdiscus]

Get some white or light blue colored spray paint and spray paint the bottom. I like the textured stuff I think it looks like sand. Don't spray the inside of the tank spray the outside bottom and sides too if it pleases you.

~Victoria

[Mikemeets]

Haha who is really gonna spray the inside... lol but thanx its a better idea than sticking paper to the outside bottom of the tank

[Mikemeets]

Shame, my lfs got a new discus juvi in yesterday and this mornin its dead cos water temp and conditions were not right :'(

[Mikemeets]

I told them to stop waisting their money and wait for a customer to order them cos their tank setups is for hardy fish and not ment for discus...