Dave's Grow Out Journal and Amazon Biotope 92g Corner Build

[DYDave82]

First a brief recap of me and what I'm doing:

Hello friends, I’m DYDave82. I’ve been an aquatic enthusiast for nearly three years now. I started the hobby very humbly keeping loaches. My first 15g Top Fin quickly became the five aquariums I keep today. I have heavily planted: 20g long, 46g bow front, and a 90g all well stocked with common to very rare rainbow fish, loaches, and pleco’s. I also have a DIY nano reef tank = 12g Fluval Edge that everyone told me would be impossible to keep stable without a seriously expensive setup that’s going clean and strong for over a year now. (Proud of that one )
I have no previous experience-keeping discus. I have watched many youtube videos about Discus keeping (I luv King of DIY) and have read many posts here since recently joining the forum.

Today marks the five-week mark of the start of my newest project: the conversion of an old drilled reef tank, specifically a 92g corner bow front that I’ve sealed and cycled thoroughly. I refinished and reinforced the old oak stand; it looks new now. The glass is in great shape except for the bottom that is all scratched up from many years of live rock scraping about. It’s filled with fresh Florida well water and has been cycled with a bio wheel from a Marineland 350. It has 10 Rummy Nose Tetras and 10 Cardinals. 6 Paleatus Cory's and a little bit of white sand.
I have some nice manzanita branches that have just today sank. There not letting off much tannins but I'll watch carefully as I'm in no hurry to stock it with my Discus.
I’m running a Hydor Professional 600 Canister and a Coralife UV sterilizer connected to the return line. Why the sterilizer? It was sitting in the garage so I thought, why not.

Current parameters of 92 Corner and 40g BB Grow Out:

- Temperature is currently 84.2 - Pair of Ehiem Heaters (one each currently)

- Tank pH: 7.9

- pH of the water straight out my well: 7.9

- Ammonia reading 0ppm
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[rickztahone]

82F would be fine for the heat. I personally would have recommended not starting with other filter media, but you've already done it so no point in crying over spilled milk. How often do you plan on doing water changes?

Where do you plan on getting your discus from?

Finally, welcome to the forum

[DYDave82]

Friday the 27th marked the night of the arrival of my 4 x 2.5" TT Galaxy Turks! I was so excited and admittedly somewhat nervous. I'd done my homework here on the forum and I knew 4 wasn't ideal but I thought "more are coming soon." Shipping was cheap as it was south Florida to central so One Day Shipping. I thought about the Turks all day at work. I had my girlfriend patiently (she's a keeper=) wait at home all afternoon to sign for the fish. I got off at 6pm and they still hadn't arrived... So I paced around and remeasured my Grow Out parameters and checked the water temp. Finally, at 7:30pm the door bell rings and the Pug starts barking -- there here!! It was a cold night and I quickly brought the box inside to our dark room. I carefully unpacked the four bags wrapped in black plastic. We removed the black sleeves and floated the 4 bags. Over the next 45 minutes we carefully acclimated the small Discus by pouring a small amount of the tank water in each baggy. 2 of the Turks looked good, they weren't breathing heavy, just chilling and swimming a bit. One was slightly larger and he seemed pretty grumpy - he splashed around a bit in his bag. The last was dark and weakly swimming.. Upside down. My heart sank. We carefully placed the first 3 in the dark tank and they swam about timidly but upright and seemed normal. The last drifted straight to the bottom. I reached down and put her upright and she swam a bit in my palm but shortly there after drifted away. So great -- Hour 1 with my new Discus and I'm already down to 3. My night was about to get longer though: I took the deceased disco out of the tank -- trying to move slow. As I closed the versa-top lid -- BANG! "What now?" The larger Turk did not take kindly to his new environs and darted straight up and smashed his head against the glass top. I watched as he now drifted to the bottom... "This is a bad sign" I said. My girlfriend watched as I marched somberly back out to the kitchen to get the net. When I returned, Kamikaze, slowly came back to life... He was just knocked out and thus we had our first named Discus. Here he is the morning after he arrived chilling with his mate, the other is back there hiding.

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[DYDave82]

Yesterday -- my 4 x 3" Marlboro Red Pandas from Jack Wattley arrived. These were also from south Florida but were overnight delivery and promptly arrived before 10 am. The box was really big... As it turned out, that's because the Discus were really big. Really big. Mind you I had paid for and expected to get small juvies for this small grow out but Gabe had upgraded me for free so here's what I got in there now. FULL HOUSE

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3 x feedings of BH mix a day, 2 x 60% WC's, added a HoB filter and use and ehiem vac to pick up leftovers between meals. Tanzanita in the 92g still isn't leeching much tannins and I'm going to need it to be ready soon. Replacement TT Galaxy Turk arrives tomorrow.

[rickztahone]

Your turks look very stressed out. I would keep a very close eye on them.

[DYDave82]

The tank is in a very dark room and there is white paper on three sides. When I removed one white side and and turned on the light to snap those pics, I did notice they were very dark. Just went in to check on them and they seem brighter now. The Turks are the only ones eating out of my hand -- the Reds are still not sure and pick at the food on the bottom. I am monitoring all of them closely.

[DYDave82]

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[rickztahone]

Again, congrats on the new additions, just simply keep a close eye on them.

You said you did your research but one thing you may have missed is that we recommend that any incoming discus be quarantined. I understand that both batches of discus were relatively new to you but they should have had separate tanks.

IMHO, you should have just gotten all of them from one source only and not have to deal with separating the group.

What you may be seeing here is stress of shipping, lowering their defenses and quickly there-after being introduced to another group of discus that carry different pathogens than themselves in their weakened state.

I don't mean to sound pessimistic, but you may be in for a long ride here. I hope I am wrong, and nothing would make me happier, but the turks look very stressed. Do you see any clouding in their eyes? You say they are eating normally?

[Leland F.]

On top of what has already been said, you need to upgrade that sponge filter to a Hydro Sponge V or comparable sized sponge filter. With discus, it's really the only sponge filter to buy, unless they're juveniles in very small tanks, like nickel sized in a 10 or 20 gallon tank. How big is the tank they're all currently in? It looks like a 20H or 29 gal, which would be too small for those fish together as a group.

-Leland

[DYDave82]

Yeah the Turks are definitely looking too dark... Doing a big WC and adding a little salt. They ate well an hour ago. Just ordered a Hydro Sponge V from amazon. Also readying a quarantine tank.

[DYDave82]

Thankfully after a quiet night everyone looked better this morning. Turks look very bright this evening. I'm thinking I left some beefheart linger too long yesterday and may have caused a spike that stressed the Turks. They are eating voraciously again, even accepted flake for the first time. It has been a battle royal though as they seem to be trying to figure out who's in charge. My latest pics are apparently too large to upload so I am investigating how to make them take up less memory. The manzanita branches in the 92 are developing this white fuzz where there are deep ruts in the wood. So I'm thinking that tank still needs some time and water changes before it's ready...

[DYDave82]

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Only pic that was lower than 2.0 mbs so I could upload it. Their eating lots and 92g is now brown with tannin. This is good as we're getting closer to big tank move-in.

[DYDave82]

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Few more at dinner.

[Lido]

They look better. Just remember you're never really out of the woods until you don't have discus anymore

[DYDave82]

They look better. Just remember you're never really out of the woods until you don't have discus anymore

Luv it! - "Fly you fools!"