150 planted/driftwood

[pastry]

Well I've posted some pics earlier elsewhere (http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showth...ank&highlight=) but wanted to start a thread here. I plan to keep plants but none that are in the substrate in order to cut down on trapped poo and crud. Still have a few tiger lilies and bronze crypts but the tiger lilies really don't collect crud so I'll keep a few. The crypts remaining are ones I didn't see when taking them out to give to my wife so I kept a few little tiny ones.

The intent of this thread is just to share the slow transition of my group of fish into a brown-based red-strain. I've have a few VR's but just added two BEAUTIFUL RR's from Eric (Carolina Discus). I've been harassing him for several years to get some sort of brown-based red-strain and I guess he had enough of me :P These are two shots taken very early on when putting them into the tank. I'll try to get some new ones today since they are more settled in. Honestly, these pictures SUCK... the fish don't. The male in this picture here doesn't show his normal shape and colors at all and the female looks small in the pic but she's anything but small. I'll work on it!






Looks to be a male and female and they are THICK. Love the soft cinnamon coat with a tinge of red hue that the male has. The female is absolutely beautiful with her blue halo and rich red body. Both have blue faces to add a perfect contrast. I plan to add more this year. Little by little. Most likely adult or near-adults. Might try raising a brood later this year from any pairs (in a separate tank).

I have more things I want to do with the tank itself that I'll use this thread to provide updates in-conjunction with the transition to brown-based red strains-only tank (might have one or two striated fish to act as "royals"... I know it sounds corny ) I'll keep tweaking the wood and rocks to avoid as much trapped crud. May dabble with improving or adding more filtration. I really want to build a new cabinet or at least refurbish current one (the mirrors on the bottom make my wife and I laugh... kind of 70's-ish. And I'm sure there's more I'll do. Always open to any ideas people have as well.

Old Plant/Wood Set-Up:






New Tank Set-up:

[walt]

Love the new setup also love the brown base red discus hard to find good luck will be following along.

[Akili]

Looking Good, love the way you arranged the driftwood and Thanks for sharing.

[pastry]

Thanks Walt. Thanks Akili and love the Colin Powell quote. I'll update this thread slowly over the year. Will add better pics soon though. Really love the new male but keep missing good photo op.

[nofearengineer]

Subscribing. Hopefully this will give me ideas for my 240 planted!

[pastry]

Subscribing. Hopefully this will give me ideas for my 240 planted!

Shoot, let ME know when you do that and I'll be subscribing!

[Jack L]

both version are nice, you planted version looked great.

[pastry]

Still couldn't get pics as good as I'd like of the male but here are some "better" pics:











Pics of female (second pic she's with the "gang" towards the right):

[pastry]

both version are nice, you planted version looked great.

Thanks Jack! old version just collected to much "poo" where plant roots/driftwood connected with substrate. I looooved that version and the fish did too for a long time but it slowly brought down water quality since I'm not as aggressive on WC's (twice per week @ approx. 65% each time... and if I missed one time then it was totally noticeable).