Shooting for 10 years on 100g tank!

[goldfish]

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July 10, 2017

[goldfish]

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After listening to Al advices, I changed 40 percent tapped water. Move all the substrate to the center. July 13,2017

[goldfish]

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[White Worm]

You should get rid of all that rock and keep the wood with a thin layer of sand. You will be surprised how much they perk up and start doing 50% water changes every few days. You keep going this way and you will start to lose discus well before 10 years. They are dark and stressed which is the path to illness. That substrate is trapping all kinds of crud on top of the water being packed with nitrates.

[Kyla]

I used to have lots of rocks like that in my big 210gal tank, but I removed them because I noticed that tiny particles of food were falling between the cracks where they would rot and lower the water quality. The rocks look nice but it's impossible to keep substrate like that clean. And organic matter decaying in the substrate will likely affect the fish on some level, even if u don't notice it now.

In my 180gal I removed all the sand and saw a huge improvement in the growth of my fish. I also rehomed a bunch of my smaller discus to reduce the total number of discus to about 12. A dozen large discus in my 180gal seems like a lot, so I imagine that 20 discus in your 100gal is a bit too many to have all of them thrive.

I'd recommend to remove the rocks (at least for now, while your fish are growing - u can add them back later if u like) and then choose your favourite large discus and sell off a bunch of the smaller ones... aim for 10 awesome discus instead of 20 so-so discus... this way the ones you keep will grow even bigger with more room and better water quality.

[btrader]

Thank you for wonderful concerns. Most of my discus are from 2to 3 inches when I brought them. After 3to 4 months, they are about 4to 5 inches. Keeping discus happy and growing are very important. I do wc every 3 to 4 days about 25 percent from tapped water without chemical.

When you say tap water without chemicals are you saying you don't use a dechlorinator?

[goldfish]

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Yes I change tap water without dechorination. Fish are swimming fine after 40 percent water changed.

[goldfish]

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[btrader]

And you have city water not well water?

[goldfish]

Straight tap water from city of Milpitas for n California

[Ryan925]

Straight tap water from city of Milpitas for n California

I'm also in the bay area and use straight tap.

I would have to agree with the others. I would prefer to have a smaller amount of great looking fish than a large amount of ok looking fish. With those photos you have some nice looking fish but there also looks to be some that are potentially stunted, judging by eye to body ratio. Just a suggestion but at some point might want to reduce the total number to your best fish. That definitely will help you to reach your goal

[goldfish]

Shooting for 10 years does not mean the discus will servive for 10 years. You must look at the human side if the comment.

[goldfish]

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[gators111]

My last group of 6 I bought back in 2003 and had them until 2014 when they one by one started dying off. And I made a lot of mistakes along the way, including 3 moves. So it isn't hard for keeping them 10 years. However, I agree with everybody else. Cut your stock down to 10-12 max and get rid of the stones ASAP. Some driftwood and pool filter sand is all you need. That and good food.

[goldfish]

Yesterday was a bad day. I did a 40 percent tap water changed for my tank. Fish were not summing happy after I took out all the rock substrates from the tank. Fish shows sign of stress and fin rotting. I might loss some fishes but hoping everything should be okay. This morning I did another 20 percent tap water and there are visable stuffs still in the tank. IMG_4767.jpg