Hi Erin,
Your set up, your equipment, number of discus, sound perfect. Your tank is beautiful. I thought, wow this person really did their homework. Then I read your “realistic” maintenance schedule. I don’t think you will be able to get away with 1/wk water change for Discus. There’s no sugar coating it. You will need to seriously increase your wc schedule to stay out of the sickness and disease section of this forum.
I didn’t know this basic fact when I started and found this site while trying to save my discus. I increased my wc drastically and most survived my inexperience, but they were stunted, little football shaped discus and their high growth period was over.
You are starting with good stock from Kenny. My hope is when you get your beauties from Kenny, you will fall in love with these exquisite fish and want them to reach their full potential. I was glad I didn’t know in advance or I probably wouldn’t have started with discus to begin with and I would’ve missed out on these beautiful, personable, entertaining fish. They never get tiring. They are nosy about what you are doing. They are quirky.
In my case, I started with brand new stock from Kenny, asked a million questions here and read as much as my brain could hold. It’s been almost 2 yrs and I love these fish like no other. I have a 125 gal and with my python, wc’s are quick and easy. I learned the hard way and hope this helps you. I hope you find that wc are not as time consuming as you might think. With my python, I can do a 75-80% wc in my 125 gal PDQ and watch my fish get giddy with it.
Also, you might want to make sure there are no sharp pointy little branches in your beautiful driftwood pieces. Where did you get that piece? Its so nice! Welcome to SD btw. You came to the right place.
Patty