Son of Kahuna (56K warining!!!)

[scolley]

Thanks Paul. Yes, going more formal in style by design. Unfortunately it's just slow. It's only 1.6 watts per gallon in there - very low light by planted tank standards - so the growing is slooow. It's an exercise in patience.

I've tried to boost growth without adding light, and every attempt succeeds in growing additional algae. Tom Barr always maintains that light is your throttle and I'm certainly finding that to be the case.

Even though the style is more formal, I'm not set on this scape. I've still got some ideas that I've yet to use. But they are highly dependent on the plants. So I'm hoping for good things from these tropica plants, but GOSH! they really are slow growers.

And the plants themselves - ones that will work well in my tank, are also constrained. I've got wicked soft water - very, very, low GH, KH, Ca, Mg, etc. You name it, my water doesn't have it. And I could add stuff back, as I have in the past, but I'm trying very, very hard to not add anything back to the water OTHER than the micros and macros that are automatically dosed each day. It keeps maintenance soooo much simpler when you are not always farting around with water parameters. Ignoring them is much easier.

Thanks for the comment though. It's a work in (slow) progress.

[pcsb23]

... It's an exercise in patience...

Sums up discus keeping quite nicely

Steve most people would kill for "wickedly soft water" trust me I would!! And I agree with you about light being the throttle too. I would say that by doing less you are in fact achieving more. It looks nicely balanced.

[GrillMaster]

Still looking amazing my friend!!

Is it still a brothel in there?

[scolley]

Is it still a brothel in there?

Not any more Mark.

I put an Eheim feeder up to make sure the little 3R2s got enough food through out the day. As a result, the fish all live under the feeder now, spreading back out only to sleep at night. As a result, none of them have territories now, and spawning has become a lot less frequent. I'm hoping that if I take the feeder away (one of these months) things will go back to their normal orgy-like way.

Last week though I came in and one fish was dark, and hanging over the plants, off by itself. And it was beat up. Bad. I've never seen anything like it in my years (all of three ) of discus keeping. At first I almost posted pics, afraid that he had something. He looked so bad that I immediately considered euthanizing the fish, as my quarantine gear is all in use.

But that afternoon I had a nice spawn from a pair that the "sick" fish has tried to get involved with in the past. So I quickly concluded that the fish wasn't sick, he'd had the crap beat out of him - he is one of the bully's of the tank. so it comes as no surprise.

Maybe this temporary lack of territories caused the fight to be particularly nasty. I don't know.

The fish is better now. But I'm afraid his gill fins are going to be a ragged mess for a long time.

[GrillMaster]

Looks like yer gettin discus fever my friend! Quarantine tank? Next yer gonna be movin Maureens new couch aside for a lil more room and tryin yer hand at a couple a spawns...

[ChloroPhil]

Steve,

Any updates on the tank?

Have you considered doing a timed addition of a GH booster to coincide with the automated water changes? Peristaltic pumps are getting pretty reasonable these days.

Cheers,
Phil

[Disgirl]

Phil, thanks for bringing this thread back so those of us who have never seen it can admire it! Steve, this is exactly what I have in mind for my tank sometime. Hope I can "copy" yours! Absolutely gorgeous! How is it doing now?
Barb

[Cooldadddyfunk286]

I had the pleasure of hanging out with this tank when I went to the meeting at Steves. this tank is really amazing in person, and the fish in it are now ALOT bigger. they look really great. and his automation system is awesome. everything tucked away neatly in the stand. its great...did I mention how beautiful the big big cobalts are now?!

[scolley]

Hey Phil. Barb! I'm afraid my camera has bit the dust, so taking update pics is a bit tough. Could do it with my phone I expect, but those look pretty bad IMO.

The tanks in decent shape - better looking than any of my recent pics. I've taken it back to an anubias covered driftwood look, similar in many ways to my "Kahuna's Revenge" tank, before it sprung the leak.

Phil, I'm one of the original peristaltic pump users over on planted tank. I've got four in operation at the moment. But the only dosing I'm doing on this tank is a little bit of micros every day.

I've completely backed off on ANY fertilization except micros. That's right, no NPK dosing, not even any CO2. I turned the tank off, if you can believe it. And while the tank is not lush, I don't think it looks half bad. Anubias are such slow growers, they don't need much. And any other plants are still in the same AS fillled pots that I documented earlier in this thread. So they've got most of what they need, except Potassium.

I can get away with this because my water is pretty high in NPK, and with my relatively low light - 1.66 WPG - the ferts the plants get through water changes is enough to keep them going.

It's pretty cool really... with the plants growing slowly, in low light, with low fert levels, I get very little algae. And the best part - get this (1) - if you don't count feeding fish, in the last 9 months I've put in a total of 5 hours maintenance on this tank. That includes filter cleaning, planting, plant trimming, glass cleaning, you name it. And since my water changes are all automatic, there's really little to do.

I need to get you a pic somehow, 'cuz it doesn't look half bad. Ask any of the people that just came to my house for the NEDA meeting. So feel kinda like I've hit Nirvana. I've got a pretty decent looking 180g, full of plants and discus, and I average a little more than 1/2 hour a month on maintenance. Not too bad.

I'll see if I can figure out a way to get you a pic.

[ChloroPhil]

That sounds awesome Steve! I'm glad you've finally found your personal planted discus tank enlightenment. I'm glad to hear you're going back to Anubias. The tank never looked better than when you had all that wood, moss, and anubias growing gangbusters.

Me on the other hand...I'm getting ready to set up the 225 of my dreams. It's moderate-high light for a 24" tall with 6x55 AHSupply PC retros. I think I'm going to be leaning heavily on your big tank experience for a while. This will be the largest setup I've had in my home by far.

Would you consider selling your pumps? Shoot me a PM, your box is full.

Regards,
Phil

[scolley]

Hey folks! Long time no post...

Swinging in now to provide a "heads-up" to the fact that I'm going to sell the Sun of Kahuna. Nothing's wrong with it - never been better in fact. But the wife and I are empty nesters now, and have decided to move. And - as much as I love 'em - the tanks have to go. Please expect to see a listing in the "Buy Sell Trade" forum soon.

Anyone that has followed this thread pretty much has good insight into the tank. The minor leaks on the Ocean Clear filters were resolved when I replaced the o-rings AND one of the screw-down lids. That was years ago. Adn I had some small leaks on the Pentair heater modules - also years ago. So no leaks from anything in the system for many years now. But the electronic dual ballast powering Aqua Medic MH Oceanlights burned out a while back. So I simply pulled the original (unused) magnetic ballasts out of the attic, and they're fine.

As for the plants? Algae pretty much went away when I shut down the CO2 and stopped fert dosing. Did that more than 5 years ago, and cleaning tank walls and trimming plants magically transformed into a merely twice a year experience. FINALLY I achieved the darned-near-no-maintenance tank that was originally dreamed of. And what about the fish?

The Tefe Green discus have matured nicely. Now they are full RSG's (red spotted greens), and look fabulous. But they fight. Or at least used to. I had an alpha that was an unrelenting bully. He beat a couple to death before he succumbed himself. Now they are a mere five. But it's five that get a long well. Amazing the clean-up crew is still there, except for the school or Rummy-Nose Tetras. Not a long lived fish to begin with. But there's still around 20 or so that must have some of Methusula's genes in them somewhere.

And to my amazement, I've even got some Amano shrimp in there. I have now idea how many years it's been since I bought shrimp. But it's been quite a few. Same thing with those Methusula genes I guess.

Will try to get some pics out. Please look for the posting in the "For Sale/Trade" forum soon.

[rickztahone]

Hey folks! Long time no post...

Swinging in now to provide a "heads-up" to the fact that I'm going to sell the Sun of Kahuna. Nothing's wrong with it - never been better in fact. But the wife and I are empty nesters now, and have decided to move. And - as much as I love 'em - the tanks have to go. Please expect to see a listing in the "Buy Sell Trade" forum soon.

Anyone that has followed this thread pretty much has good insight into the tank. The minor leaks on the Ocean Clear filters were resolved when I replaced the o-rings AND one of the screw-down lids. That was years ago. Adn I had some small leaks on the Pentair heater modules - also years ago. So no leaks from anything in the system for many years now. But the electronic dual ballast powering Aqua Medic MH Oceanlights burned out a while back. So I simply pulled the original (unused) magnetic ballasts out of the attic, and they're fine.

As for the plants? Algae pretty much went away when I shut down the CO2 and stopped fert dosing. Did that more than 5 years ago, and cleaning tank walls and trimming plants magically transformed into a merely twice a year experience. FINALLY I achieved the darned-near-no-maintenance tank that was originally dreamed of. And what about the fish?

The Tefe Green discus have matured nicely. Now they are full RSG's (red spotted greens), and look fabulous. But they fight. Or at least used to. I had an alpha that was an unrelenting bully. He beat a couple to death before he succumbed himself. Now they are a mere five. But it's five that get a long well. Amazing the clean-up crew is still there, except for the school or Rummy-Nose Tetras. Not a long lived fish to begin with. But there's still around 20 or so that must have some of Methusula's genes in them somewhere.

And to my amazement, I've even got some Amano shrimp in there. I have now idea how many years it's been since I bought shrimp. But it's been quite a few. Same thing with those Methusula genes I guess.

Will try to get some pics out. Please look for the posting in the "For Sale/Trade" forum soon.

Hey Steve! Nice to see you around. Too bad about the Kahuna, but someone will get a sweet deal! Hope you've been good bud.

[scolley]

Hey Ricardo!

Thanks for the kind thoughts. But there's no "Too bad... " here. This has been 8+ years of a GREAT planted discus tank!

With it's auto-water change function, it could have been just a flat out - low maintenance - discus tank. But that just was not my "thing".

It's been a delight. Actually having hit stride in the 2nd half of its 8 or so years. First years required ironing out a few plumbing kinks, and me figuring out that the discus TOTALLY eliminated the need for me to do ANY fertilization or CO2 attition. And though it still supports that in a highly automated way, I've had that turned off for the last 4 years or so. The result has been a large planted discus tank that took d*mn near no maintenance. So I feel like this was a raging success, long term. I'm just not going to have room for a big tank moving forward.

I'll be posting it for sale as a single thing: fish, plants, tank, and ALL the supporting equipment. I'd make more money parting it out. But I'm so happy with the result, it'd break my heart to have it disassembled. But... life is all about change. And this was one delightful journey.

I'll get a post out soon.

[Filip]

The original father kahuna, was one of my favorite discus planted tanks. His son was also a great discus scape.
I'm lookin forward for your next projects,whether is discus or not.