210g Watermelon discus display tank pics...

[lpiasente]

It actually looks like a sunset. Just bewdiful....... and the wood looks amazing

[Matt in Houston]

Just tonight I was playing with the lighting and I found that by sliding my light back a little further on the middle brace I can create a different effect of shadows and background color. In addition, I have a new morning bulb setting that is more orangish tone than purple, using a combo of midday and an aqua blue. Now all three events look different, instead of just sharing the morning and evening events using the same bulbs. I have no idea why I didnt think of this before.

So my mornings will be a little more orange-ish now... I'll take a pic tomorrow...and my sunsets will remain purple/pink-ish as you have seen in the previous pics.

I also have two orange spot plecos in qt...LDA31...small peaceful wood eaters, and temp range is from 78-91 F.

[Scribbles]

Your tank looks amazing! Can't wait to see it stocked.

Chris

[joanr]

So how is the safestart working out for you? Is it cycling the tank? Always curious on how well these bacteria products work. Are you feeding it some ammo to keep it cycling until the fish are stocked?

[Matt in Houston]

So how is the safestart working out for you? Is it cycling the tank? Always curious on how well these bacteria products work. Are you feeding it some ammo to keep it cycling until the fish are stocked?

I was going to post in the miracle grow thread but since I have added safe start and squeezed in an established sponge filter from my other tank I figured my results would be atypical.

I currently have around 4 ppm ammonia, 2 nitrite, and 5 nitrate as of last night which was about at the one week mark. I am happy I have some nitrates, and these didnt appear until a couple days after I dumped in the safe start. I think ammonia at 4ppm is a little higher than I would like at this point, but Im going to leave it alone for now. Ill try to keep the thread updated as I progress.

[Cooldadddyfunk286]

man, thats just amazing. I cant wait to see it with some discus...any idea what strains, size?? thanks!

take care Matt.

[Matt in Houston]

man, thats just amazing. I cant wait to see it with some discus...any idea what strains, size?? thanks!

take care Matt.

I would really like a variety of many different colors and big healthy adults only. Im probably shooting for 12 to 14 discus...I will also have a couple schools of tetra and cories.

Maybe later down the road I will try my hand at wild discus, but as for now Im going to keep domestics only in this tank.

Thanks everyone for all the comments and support. This seems to be a good forum with some very knowledgable people.

[Cooldadddyfunk286]

forums dont get better than this one my friend. defiantly stick around here! any discus question you could ever have will be answered!

good call on all domestic adults. should get them all from the same source too. some turks, blue diamonds, LSS...the possibilities are endless! this is gonna be one hell of a show tank when your done. it looks soooo sweet. I love the different lighting schemes thruout the day! are all those different bulbs in 1 fixture, timed differently??

what I would do, is check around...pick a sponsor and see what strains you really like. I think less is likely to go wrong if you get all your fish from the same person. Kenny Cheung has some great selection to choose from. he can also order anything that you would need. if your into high bodied fish, or like Wayne Ng fish, check out Dan Espinosa, great guy with great fish aswell!

take care man! glad to have you around here!

**EDIT** -- I did alittle more reading thru this thread and see that ur gonna go with gulf coast since they are local, thats gonna be great. they got some quality fish, and best of all you will be able to go pick them in person! I dont think it gets better than that.

[Matt in Houston]

Yes my fixture allows for 3 different timer settings, including the LEDs...so you can actually get 4 different events...

Morning lights A
Middday lights A+B
Evening lights B
Night lights LED

Each setting (A) or (B) or (LED) has its own timer built into the control panel on the light. Its a great fixture, I highly recommend it.

Here is an update on my miracle grow cycle...the safe start really did help!

Ammonia ~3ppm, API liquid test.
Nitrite off the charts, HOT pink on the test strip...
Nitrate ~ 40, test strip.

Seems like my nitrate jumped from ~10 to ~40 in 24 hours...thats a good sign!

[joanr]

So how's it going Matt? Cycled yet? When are you going to stock that awsome tank?

[Matt in Houston]

Tank has been eating daily ammonia doses like crazy, but its still very high in nitrite...and of course nitrates...I havent done any water changes since I started the cycle.

The water is tinted like dark tea from all the manzanita...in fact it made the pink background look burnt orange...

I'm hoping to see some loss in nitrites this week...then I will do a massive water change to rid the nitrates and be done. I am a little over 2 weeks into the cycle so it should be ready very soon.

[darbex]

Burnt orange is a great color

[Lytehouse]

Burnt orange is a great color

+1

[Matt in Houston]

Tank is fully cycled after 21 days and now has a few fish in it...so far two LDA31 Orange Sport Panaque, ~125 Green Neon Tetra, and 6 Discus who are all doing great so far...here are a few teaser shots real quick...I grew some hair algae on the wood where it gets a lot of light during the day, I will deal with that later. The discus were a little camera shy tonight, after all its their first full day in the tank. Once the blue LEDS come on at night they are exploring around everywhere. Anyway its getting late need to get to bed!

[mareshow]

those fish are amazing and in that tank they look absolutely stunning, you'll have to post more pictures when they are out and about!