Back to the hobby after a decade!

[IBTROLLIN]

Goooooood morning distinguished aquarists!

My name is Blake, I'm a high school teacher and Dad from Sydney, Australia. I've kept fish my entire life, on and off. I started like most people with Goldfish, then went to tropical before spending quite a lot of time on the marine/reef side of things.

I worked in the industry for a while, managing several LFS before becoming qualified to teach English here in Australia. After that, life got in the way and I haven't kept fish in literally about a decade, if not longer.

I've decided to jump back in to the hobby with something I've never kept before - Discus.

My plan is to build a rimless 100x60x60 in low iron glass. I will go in my study right next to the desk where I work. I was originally planning to have a heavily planted community tank with some Discus, but after watching the lecture on Discus recommended over in the beginner's section, I've realised that having a carpet of plants may be problematic as it traps food and waste etc.

Instead, I'm aiming for a thin layer of sand on the bottom with some 'outcrops' for lack of a better word, out of which will poke some driftwood with Java fern etc.

My plan is to run two Sun Sun HW3000, that way I can house more media and potentially better cope with bioload. I want to have the tank well established before adding and Discus. When I do eventually add them, again after watching that lecture, I will be adding fish that are already around the 12cm (5") mark rather than 2" fish I was originally planning to use for cost reasons.
Lighting will be three LED pendants, I will also be using an in-line filter and a chiller (Aussie summers get hot, even too hot for Discus!). I'm shooting for a temperature range between 27 and 30 degrees celsius.

I've tested my tap water and come up with the following -
pH = 6.5
kH = 3
gH = 5
Ammonia = 1mg/l
Phosphate = 0
Iron = 0
Copper = 0.3mg/l

The water is nice and soft (perhaps too soft? I was planning to use a magnesium based buffer to raise gH slightly) and pH looks fine. A water conditioner (similar to Prime but a bit more niche) will take care of the Copper and the Ammonia (I'm assuming the Ammonia is present due to the use of Chloramine?).

I think that's everything. Sorry for the long post, I wanted to lay it all out on the table so if there's any issues anyone may see, they could give me the heads up. I'm here to learn, after all.

Thanks for reading!

[pastry]

Welcome back to discus! I went a over decade without even having a betta... so I can sympathize. Then when I got out of the military, planted roots for once, and bought first house, it dawned on me, "OH SH**, I CAN FINALLY HAVE DISCUS AGAIN!". Even better, the internet then existed and I finally was able to find this forum and stop screwing up as much

Your lucky with that tap. No fluctuation after a few days aging?

[IBTROLLIN]

Ooohhh that's a good question. I'll do an aged test. Thanks for the heads up!
I've never kept Discus before so this is exciting!

[LizStreithorst]

This looks like it will be a fun thread. Thanks for the reminder about the pH swing. That slipped my mind when he first posted.

Blake it is the kH not the gH that buffers the water. With a kH of 3 you will be fine as long as you keep up with large daily WC. Be sure you set up to make your WC's easy. Hauling buckets gets old fast.

[eugenefish]

Large percentage of daily water change will keep your discus healthy and happy. Happy discus, happy life.

[LizStreithorst]

IBTROLLIN, Why you be a Trollin?