Adam Discus Tank

[Adamski77]

Welcome everybody! This thread will be documenting progress on my discus tank.

First a little bit of a catch up... as I've been having this for 3 months by now. My set-up is quite primitive comparing to what I can see around but I think it's doing fairly well considering conditions, time constraints and other circumstances.
Tank is tailor made as it's in my office so I had the space that I had. 180cmx60cmx40cm (width of 40cm was all I had). So roughly 400+ liters. Running two filters... canister (2400L/hour) + one much smaller hang on filter with activated carbon inside. Idea was to make the water circulate the way I wanted so outflows from the filters working towards two opposite sides of the tank. Light 2 LED lamps (100W each) running currently at 55%. I'm still in the process of fully balancing the tank so this is not necessarily final value. Two heaters (300+200W).
I'm not giving you details about the brands as I'm Polish guy living in China so brands would mean nothing to you ... but all in all the stuff functions well and it's reliable. Here are some photos from the time I was setting it up.

tbc...

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[Adamski77]

Obviously at the beginning things were looking spectacular ... all in, filters activated, water crystal clear but obviously drift wood started to work... after couple of weeks here is where I got to

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[Adamski77]

The approach I took was step by step... first "dead" elements... substrate, wood and stones... wanted to make sure wood doesn't float around.
Second step was to add the plants... after reading a lot decided on vallisneria, anubias (some type... and please don't ask me what exactly it is as I bought it in Chinese market), java fern (on the wood) and some type of amazon swords. Please chime in with advise if you can recognize the plants better... so I will learn for the future. The small problem was that I decided to plant them in hand-made "pond baskets" made out of plastic net. I wanted to give them aquarium soil so they can grow better. Was a couple day fight but finally managed to get them to where I wanted.

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[Adamski77]

Set up was done... time for fish. Also step by step approach... first "cleaning crew" as wood started to have brown algae on it... generally algae was a little bit of an initial hick-up as I was running my lamps at 75%-100%. Got 8 corys (either trilineatus or leopardus) and 11 otocinclus... though till today can only count between 7-9... depending on the day. On the top bought 25 cardinal neons... so discus have some background

After another couple of weeks discus have arrived. 8 of them from mass breeder that I got to know here in Shanghai. Not sure exactly what type but wanted them to look close to the wild discus... got what I got... though will never regret the choice.

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[Adamski77]

Finally, here it is today after morning water change... forgot to mention... I'm changing twice a week around 25-30%.
Also have one pair already wanting to have babies... just laid eggs second time within last month (good they picked far right side of the tank). Not hoping for anything as I need to learn much more but probably a sign the fish feel good and water has decent parameters.

So far so good... will be coming with more...

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[brewmaster15]

Awesome write up on your tank Adam! Like I said elsewhere it looks great. What I really like is your choice of discus. You mentioned wanting to go with ones as close to wild looking as you could find and I do believe you succeeded. The tank and fish choice do have a "wild " feel to them.

Al

[Iminit]

Great looking tank and discus! Good luck with it!! One thing I noticed is it looks like you planted the anubias into the gravel. The rhizomes need to be above the gravel or they will rot. Noticed some of the leaves are rotting on the ends. This may be the reason.

[Adamski77]

Thank you... so much learning here. First needed to check what is "rhizomes" ... but now I know.
Regarding my anubias is one of the mistakes I made (out of many). The problem is that I planted it in the area that I designed for feeding the fish... so every time I feed them the food would drop over the leaves and obviously create little bit of a stuff to clean, which I cannot do every day. Brine shrimps, krill and blood worms are ok but when it comes down to beef heart it's not great really. I wish I would plant it in different place but what's done is done.
Regarding planting itself I actually did not put my plants into gravel... I tailor made baskets for them from the net (picture below)... for every anubias I made 5cm deep, 7cm diameter round "pond baskets" and filled them in with aquarium soil (picture attached). Later I put them in the tank and covered with gravel so it kind of looks good. I attached some further pictures so you can see how it is done plus you can also see the edge of the basket. You can also gauge if rhizomes are in/out of soil... and please let me know. I was trying to keep only the roots in the "ground" but obviously tough with aquarium plants. Planting was actually the toughest part of my set up so far

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[Iminit]

Well I’ve got no clue what the benefits are of those cages? This is the rhizome on anubiasEEC708AF-E00B-4EF9-9935-3820D12E34FA.jpg the long 1/2” thick thing looks like a branch. Yes those are roots coming off of it. On the bottom it’s attached to a rock.17FA4E5D-1131-4590-9B1A-5C9437B310DE.jpg on this one it’s attached to driftwood with a tyrap. This is the way anubias grow. Your way that rhizome will rot.
Now here’s my big question. Have you ever done a planted tank? We know you’re new to discus but if also new to planted tanks you will have problems. Both types of tanks (planted and discus) are tough to keep tanks. Both together require lots of time (think about 6 hrs a week) to keep clean and healthy. Aquarium soil does tend to leach ammonia into the tank for a good while. Most plant keeper won’t add fish for a few months after using aquasoil. Now discus need very clean tanks. So at every water change (every 3 days) you need to also vacuum the substrate. All your waste will be in the substrate and it needs to be removed. That’s why most discus keepers go bare bottom. Much easier to remove waste. Discus =big fish = big waste. Yes these pictures of discus in planted tanks all over the net look great. Many are just set up for the picture and discus returned to their tanks. Those that keep discus in planted tanks do a lot of work or keep very few discus in large tanks. Like 2 in a 125.

[Adamski77]

Thank you... purpose of the cages is to have plants in the aquarium soil (as opposed to just gravel with no nutrients) and I couldn't find out design for my tank that would have planted area with soil and just gravel area... so decided to do it this way. Probably wrong but having soil in these cages also enables me to vacuum quite deeply all around the plants without disturbing them too much.
I used to have aquariums for number of years when I was much younger... than went on the road and couldn't have one due to the number of moves I've made. But all my aquariums were planted and were doing very well... though we are talking long time ago with much different availability of stuff and much different budget. I feel it's so much easier now.
I know planted tank + discus = a lot of work (or problems) ... and you're right that weekly time commitment has to be bigger. Plus as fish keeps growing... things are probably going to get harder.

Edit: my rhizomes are well above the ground... thank you for pictures with examples...

[brewmaster15]

I see . So basically your cages are plant pots.. I can understant the rationale there. I used to use a peat cups for planting vegetables. I would plant Amazon swords in the a peat and sand mix..and wrap that with a nylon stocking and bury it in laterite or sand. It worked well. Add an iron tab and calcium tab under the root ball and you were good to go for months. The swords grew massive

Al

[Adamski77]

... yes... simply put these are pots...

your idea with nylon stocking got me thinking though... I really struggled with that part of the tank set up...

[Iminit]

. Ok putting plants in pots or cages is a great start if you’d like to add plants to a bare bottom tank. But being you’ve got gravel it doesn’t make sense. Plus anubias get most of their nutrients through their leaves. So surrounding the roots in soil will just produce rot.
Amazon swords I’m also thinking grow great just in gravel with a couple of root tab. Their roots travel 20+” under the gravel and do great if kept with mts. The snails eat any dead roots. Would think the nylon would have caused a root ball. Amazon swords are a lot harder to grow now than 10yrs ago. Them like many other plants are now grown emersed not submerged. So when you introduce it to your tank the leaves die off. Over time new long thinner leaves will grow but it take months and most believe the plant died and pull out the roots and throw them away.

[Adamski77]

Weekly update... will treat is as my journal here... have my notes on paper... but you never know with paper

Journey continues in positive spirit. Fish seems to be happy and growing nicely. Have this one that is actually focused solely on eating... looking actually quite funny when all other fish are fighting and chasing each other, and he/she just doesn't budge... this one grows much faster than others.
Plants are doing fine as well. I think I'm getting into right light conditions finally... though based on all indications that I read this seems so little. I have only around 110W for 80G tank so kind of 1.5W/gallon where indications are 2-5W/gallon.

Couple of "issues" as we moved through this week:
- snails... not too many but showed up. First of all smashing them manually against the walls, secondly cut on food little bit (feel like fish barely eating anything), thirdly implemented third substrate vacuuming. Also purchased assassin snails... they are on the way and will put them for now in my quarantine tank... but planning to use if necessary
- nitrates... on Wednesday morning got some smudge of pink on my test... indicates value <5 so nothing major but they did show up. Read a lot and seems to be "natural" for planted tank so will just keep my routine going and see how this develops. Obviously immediately tested for ammonia... this is zero.

Current schedule:
- Tuesday night... water change (25-30%) + vacuuming + cleaning up the front glass (~1.5h)
- Thursday night... vacuuming (15-20 mins)
- Saturday morning... water change (25-30%) + vacuuming + cleaning up all glasses (~1.5h)
- Feeding twice a day (morning/evening) with selection of brine shrimps, krill, blood worms, white worms and beef heart (this one they are getting only Friday night before Saturday morning water changes as beef heart quite messy).

Within this week changed filtering floss in my activated carbon filter... doing this once a month and changing activated carbon every couple of months.

And few photos with my pupils

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[brewmaster15]

Adam,
The fish look great!


Tom,

Amazon swords I’m also thinking grow great just in gravel with a couple of root tab. Their roots travel 20+” under the gravel and do great if kept with mts. The snails eat any dead roots. Would think the nylon would have caused a root ball. Amazon swords are a lot harder to grow now than 10yrs ago.

they didnt make root balls. Roots travel in search of nutrients.. if you provide adequate nutrients they tend not to travel. Cant tell you how many huge amazon swords I have grown in claypots. I will did up some older pics.