Thought I would introduce myself

[Leland F.]

Hello, my name is Leland Foley, and I've been lurking around the forum for a bit, so I thought I should formally introduce myself. I'm 38, and a residential plumber by trade. I've been keeping fish since I was 11 years old, and have bred many freshwater fish, and many species of marine fish, mostly clownfish. I'm in southern Indiana, and I used to get my discus from Al at Rocky Mountain Discus here in town, but his health declined rapidly and he no longer offers discus.
Lately I decided to convert a 350gal reef tank into a lower tech planted tank with some discus. I currently have 18 fish in grow out, feeding the heck out of them and changing water daily to get them to adult size before I add them to the tank.
Getting the discus spurred an interest to bred them again, so I'm building a fish room in my basement to play around with. I currently have 6-75 gal, 2-55 gal, and 8-20H to set up in racks. I've got some innovative ways I'll change my water. I'll post a thread soon sharing the pictures.

Anyway, happy to be a part of the forum with the other addicts like myself. Lol

-Leland

[two utes]

Welcome to Simply Discus Leland.
I look forward to seeing pictures of your fish, and also your Fish Room build......In this hobby, being a plumber would come in very handy. Good luck with it all.

[Jack L]

Welcome to forum
Would like to see some pics of the tank

[Ryan925]

Welcome. Definitely would love to see what you've got going on over there.

[Pompadour Discus]

Welcome to the forum! As I reading your posting I was hoping and wishing you were located in MI so I could bend your ear and/or possibly use your plumbing expertise but Alas...... The search continues lol. Can't wait for the debut

[Leland F.]

I'll give all the advice I can here, just let me know if I can help. I'll share a quick pic of my unfinished water fill lines. I have a whole house carbon filter, full of 60lbs of catalytic carbon, that removes all chlorine and chloramines from the incoming water, it lasts roughly 3 years before I have to change the carbon. I check my water often with a Hanna ultra low range total chlorine chlorimeter, to see when the carbon is exhausted and begins letting Chloramines through. I have a tankless water heater which provides endless hot water, so I installed a mixing valve that allows me to feed my discus tanks with whatever temperature tap water I want. I installed a temperature probe on the outlet to see what the out going water temperature is. It will require some adjustments periodically as the cold water temps go up and down through the seasons, but it can be adjusted by turning a dial in seconds. My tap water has a TDS of 120-200 depending on the time of year, and a pH of 7.5-7.8, no problem for growing out discus. I've been adding it directly to the tanks for a long time, with no problems. Anyway, here's the preliminary pic of the mixing valve before it's connected to the tank fill lines.
IMG_3811.jpg

-Leland

[two utes]

I told you being a plumber would come in handy in this hobby. Nice work!