New in Discus.

[Hungvanvo]

Hi every one, I am from Beaumont, TX and I have been keep Tropheus for almost 2 years and got successful raise and breed them. In Past couple month my friend give me a 175gal L shape tank and I want to have a group Discus. I do a lot a research on them and I see Tropheus and Discus are opposite way to keep. I try get many thing to get ready for discus on my 175 gal ( right now I got 2 XP4 , 25watt UV , 2 Eheim 300w heater and 2 of eheim skim 350 surface skimmer, RO/Di system. ) and I am waiting for the Alder Cone that I order to put in my XP4. In next step I will looking for order some common med for the Discus med box. Here is my tank it look so far ( not running yet) I would love to share with you and I would love to have your input that will teach me to take care my discus get healthy and better. Thank you
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php...e=3&uploaded=5

[kris2341]

welcome to SD Hung, as far as your equipment, it looks like you have things well under way, but there are a few things to note:

RO water usually is not needed unless trying to breed discus in order for the eggs to develop, adult discus do just fine in regular tap water and juvenile discus actually grow BETTER in harder tap water! The only exception is if your tap water has a build up of ammonia/nitrite/nitrate in it

Good quality discus will easily adapt and be perfectly healthy in even the water you use for your tropheus, provided you do the needed water changes

As far as growing and taking care of discus, 90% of the success comes from the effort made to give them the cleanest environment possible and doing the water changes (minimum 50% daily for juvenile discus, sizes under 5 inches, with recommended being as much as possible as frequently as possible) Adult discus can get by on 50% water changes every other day, but going much less than that can lead to them getting sick if the tank is dirty. The easiest tank to work with is a bare bottom tank but as long as you keep it clean, a sand bottom tank with few decorations works good as well.

[Hungvanvo]

Kris2341, Thank You so much for the input. I have few friend have keep Discus and they use tap water and their look healthy and think I will try use tap water run through my carbon filter that I do water change for my Tropheus. Do I need 55 gal barrel to stock the water a day before to do water change? How many Discus should do fine in 175 gal at 3 to 4 inch until full grown? Please have some input thank you.

[kris2341]

I personally hold my conditioned water in barrels for about 30 minutes aerating at 82-84F before pumping it into my discus tanks, but people have been doing fine by just adding Seachem Safe or Seachem Prime to the tank and sticking a hose into the tank. I however, am paranoid so i dont do it and stick to my barrels

As long as the water temperature going in is about the same as their normal temperature, it should be fine.

Since you use a carbon filter, you dont need any water conditioner and can just pump the water into the tank, you may want a barrel to heat the water before pumping it into the tank though.

as far as the number of discus, 18 discus, fully grown, can be placed in that tank. Just make sure you do not slouch on the maintenance and water changes!

I recommend you stick to bare bottom until you know you can keep them healthy when using a sand bottom.

[duscusnovice]

welcome fellow newbie

[Hungvanvo]

Kris2341, Again thank you for the input it is very helpful to me . I have tile bottom tank no sand and it like bare bottom .

[sd86tlam]

Hi,

If you want to grow out juvies from 3-4" size, I believe it would be better to do that in a smaller tank. A 55 gal tank would do, and you can keep about ~10 juvies in there. The problem with a 175 gal tank is that it requires great time and commitment to maintain large, daily water change regimen. But if you could keep up with water change, then I don't see why you can't keep them in that big tank.