Does this plan seem reasonable?

[aja31]

I'm working on setting up my first discus tank and was hoping to run my plan by people here to see if there is anything i'm missing or should change before getting my discus. This is not my first tank, I've previously run a low tech 36 gallon planted bow front tank with good success. My new tank is a 130 gallon custom built tank with a 20 gallon sump. It uses a Durso overflow and a completely automated Apex controller.

The controller does an automatic 15% water change every day. It pulls water from 2 55 gallon storage drums which are heated and have an air stone and provide a 50/50 mix of tap and RO water. My water is well water, but is very hard, kH and gH of 16, outgassed pH of 8.4. After mixing, it is kH 9, pH 8.2. The tank is dosed with pressurized CO2 which lowers the pH to 7.2 each morning and holds it there throughout the day. The plants are in a 1" deep graded white sand substrate. The sump provides a lot of oxidzation and one of my returns is pointed towards the surface to cause surface ripples for additional gas exchange. In addition to the 15% daily water changes I also plan on vacumming any left over detritus that gets stuck in the tank once a week. I also have a top of the line, high contact time 30W UV filter. My current stocking plans are:

~30 silver hatchetfish
~30 harloquin rasboras
~12 zebra loaches
~40 amano shrimp
-6 adult discus

I am planning on adding the amanos first to allow them time to grow before adding the discus so they don't become snacks. I then plan on adding the other smaller fish, allowing them time to acclimate and grow, as well as making sure they are disease free. They will start at 78 degrees and slowly raise up to 82 for the discus. Once I am sure I have only healthy stock I plan on adding 6 discus of at least 4", preferably 5", from a currently undetermined source. I was also hoping to get source recommendations for my discus here as well. I have a local store that breeds and sells their own discus, and they are beautiful and look very healthy, they are called wet pets and friends right outside of Pittsburgh. I'm open to other recommendations as well for my source though.

Does that sound like a reasonable plan? Is there anything major I should change? I'm open to advice, and i've done a lot of research to prepare, but I want to make sure I have everything established and ready before I commit to buying any discus.

[Filip]

Hi Aja and welcome .
Your plan seems reasonable and succesfull to me . The only thing I'm a bit sceptical about is your use of pressurised Co2 and daily PH shifts it can cause . Even if you add PH controller for a more stable PH value you still have to think about the need of occasional big % WCs and how will they affect the PH shifts and discus.

About a good and trusted source for discus you can check our sponsors section here :

http://forum.simplydiscus.com/forumd...iscus-Sponsors

And buying from a local breeder is also a good idea as opposed to buying from LFS .