Zero Water Change Planted Discus Tank Proposal???

[Eddie]

Talkin the talk is much different than walkin the walk. Like I already said, good luck. Document everything if it does work out for you but you won't need much paper. LOL Or in today's computer world, you won't need any kbs.

[Mxx]

Thanks again for your constructive comments. To be fair to those that have, I'm not the one that has come up with the no-water-change aquarium concept. I've certainly heard of people doing it with different tank types, though not specifically with Discus, which would perhaps be the logical extreme to prove that it's a fully viable methodology . I'll have to get through a copy of Ecology of the Planted Aquarium book to broaden my knowledge on this particular subject before I'd commit to jumping off the deep end with this. But this approach is certainly not new or revolutionary, and the basis of it has kinda basically been happening for a few billion years now.

Can any of you tell me though which water parameters other than Nitrates you'd be concerned over though? Nobody seems to have quite answered what exactly they are concerned with doing water changes, so apart from Nitrates which are not so difficult to deal with I'm still at a loss as to exactly what people are worried about with this. Rodrigo, did the "Filter Guys" happen to mention precisely what they thought were the limiting water chemistry factors? If ten gallons of nylon pot scrubbers as biological medium weren't enough then I could always consider partitioning off the back 6 inches of the tank (instead or even in addition to the canisters), and filling that with dividers and pot scrubbers to easily create a 37 gallon biological filter sump maze within the back of the tank. I've seen a 40 gallon plastic garbage can filled with volcanic rock used as a simple and effective makeshift aerobic/anaerobic filter as well before, which could be housed under a tank set to eye level.

Achieving a solid balance of all the necessary planted tank parameters is a delicate dance certainly, as Intect implied, (despite that I'd nevertheless be utilizing some technological 'cheats' to help this), but I'd never heard the nematode thing before so I'll have to look into that.

BTW Warlock, black water recycling, via reed beds or more mechanical means is nothing new. Wisconsin allows recycled "poo water" to be used for washing clothes and cars among other uses. And Australia has been extensively researching its use for drinking water even, despite that doing so has certain psychological barriers for some.

[inmisawa]

It's certainly an interesting idea, but as many have already commented it's be theorized. Since I am no where the expert on this, I'd just like to give my two cents on your overflow. I would be concerned with the return flow coming up in one of your overflows. I think this would limit your ability to get some good directional flow on the bottom of your substrate where food and feces is going to eventually accumulate, especially around the base of your plants.

I have a trapazoid overflow in the center of my 180 gal with two return lines coming back from the sump, both on individual pumps. Each pump is rated at 350 gph. I have the nozzels for the returns on each side of the overflow, pointed to each forward corner of the tank. It creates a flow that pushes the water in a circular direction on each side, eventually back us tpwards the overflow. It's done a really great job of keeping the bottom of my tank clear of debris, but don't get me wrong, it's not perfect. As for canisters, I'd rather shut my aquarium down than ever have to deal with another one of those things. Keep in mind, that's just my preference.

I understand your desire to not want to do water changes, I work a lot and it limits the time I have to my tank. If you're going to do this, I'd abandon the idea of initially trying to raise juvies in it. I'm doing my best to get water changes in where I can and keeping them fed, but I'm seeing poor results with mine. I'm learning I can't keep on top of this like I would like to. I think I'm just going to buy ful grown fish from now on. If you decide to raise them in the set up, I'd try a couple in your experiment tank first, I'd hate to see you ruin 10-12 fish if it doesn't work the way you want.

Anyway, best of luck. Keep us posted!

[Eddie]

Thanks again for your constructive comments. To be fair to those that have, I'm not the one that has come up with the no-water-change aquarium concept. I've certainly heard of people doing it with different tank types, though not specifically with Discus, which would perhaps be the logical extreme to prove that it's a fully viable methodology . I'll have to get through a copy of Ecology of the Planted Aquarium book to broaden my knowledge on this particular subject before I'd commit to jumping off the deep end with this. But this approach is certainly not new or revolutionary, and the basis of it has kinda basically been happening for a few billion years now.

Can any of you tell me though which water parameters other than Nitrates you'd be concerned over though? Nobody seems to have quite answered what exactly they are concerned with doing water changes, so apart from Nitrates which are not so difficult to deal with I'm still at a loss as to exactly what people are worried about with this. Rodrigo, did the "Filter Guys" happen to mention precisely what they thought were the limiting water chemistry factors? If ten gallons of nylon pot scrubbers as biological medium weren't enough then I could always consider partitioning off the back 6 inches of the tank (instead or even in addition to the canisters), and filling that with dividers and pot scrubbers to easily create a 37 gallon biological filter sump maze within the back of the tank. I've seen a 40 gallon plastic garbage can filled with volcanic rock used as a simple and effective makeshift aerobic/anaerobic filter as well before, which could be housed under a tank set to eye level.

Achieving a solid balance of all the necessary planted tank parameters is a delicate dance certainly, as Intect implied, (despite that I'd nevertheless be utilizing some technological 'cheats' to help this), but I'd never heard the nematode thing before so I'll have to look into that.

BTW Warlock, black water recycling, via reed beds or more mechanical means is nothing new. Wisconsin allows recycled "poo water" to be used for washing clothes and cars among other uses. And Australia has been extensively researching its use for drinking water even, despite that doing so has certain psychological barriers for some.

Nobody is saying the now water change aquarium concept won't work but its just not optimal for discus. It's largely related to, what one person see's/thinks of what a discus is supposed to look like. Sure, keeping a bunch of culls or stunted fish in a no water change set-up is easy.

As far as water parameters related to keeping/raising discus, do some research, get a foundation and then try to do the impossible.

[Dkarc@Aol.com]

Not economically nor ecologically feasable. Possible? Anything is possible. But it's just not feasable, even with the equipment we can supply. It might work for the first year or two, but eventually things will crash. Biggest issue I encounter when people dont do water changes is their alkalinity crashes (bacteria require it to process the ammonia/nitrite) or their heterotrophs get way out of control. Even with regular dosing of a bicarbonate, a "zero exchange" system is not feasable when discussing your plans. Yes these types of systems are being used on larger commercial shrimp farms, but their water quality requirements are far less than discus needs.

If you're looking for a low maintenance or "zero exchange" fish tank, stick with another type of fish. Dont intend that to be rude, but if you're going to do discus, you need to meet some of their basic needs if you wish to be successful. Granted I have seen some successful discus tanks go with once monthly water changes (50%). But they started with adults and fed very lightly. However, I would love it if you could prove me wrong.

-Ryan

[Mxx]

Nobody is saying the now water change aquarium concept won't work but its just not optimal for discus. It's largely related to, what one person see's/thinks of what a discus is supposed to look like. Sure, keeping a bunch of culls or stunted fish in a no water change set-up is easy.

As far as water parameters related to keeping/raising discus, do some research, get a foundation and then try to do the impossible.

Hi Eddie, thanks for the input. But pessimism and dogma aside, I still haven't heard anyone here suggest a single water quality parameter that cannot be better controlled or more easily controlled by other means than through constant water changes. And you're yet to put forth any actual reasons as well, so could you please try to? Or apart from saying that that's simply how it's done, explain exactly why this would result in stunted growth or would be impossible to achieve? And I don't see what water filtration the municipal water supply could possibly have that I couldn't better with my own tank in order to achieve better water from my filter than that coming out of the tap.

The most informed looking opinion I'd been able to find on the web thus far in regards to growth limiting/inhibiting hormones (GIS, which I suppose is what we should be concerned by in this discussion) is that they perhaps do actually exist though not at all in the manner that most people believe, and can be mediated by the following means: carbon or zeolite filtering, protein skimmers with or without ozone, water changes, and with the use of live plants and live rock. So I could in that case cover four out of five easily still without the constant laborious water changes. The plants and carbon would take care of any other excess dissolved organic compounds which could be detrimental, (despite that most are apparently beneficial and in fact used by plants).

I ordered half-a-dozen new books on discus the other night so until then it's just internet research at the moment for me such as this forum where I'm consulting those more experienced with regards to particular parameters.

[Mxx]

Not economically nor ecologically feasable. Possible? Anything is possible. But it's just not feasable, even with the equipment we can supply. It might work for the first year or two, but eventually things will crash. Biggest issue I encounter when people dont do water changes is their alkalinity crashes (bacteria require it to process the ammonia/nitrite) or their heterotrophs get way out of control. Even with regular dosing of a bicarbonate, a "zero exchange" system is not feasable when discussing your plans. Yes these types of systems are being used on larger commercial shrimp farms, but their water quality requirements are far less than discus needs.

If you're looking for a low maintenance or "zero exchange" fish tank, stick with another type of fish. Dont intend that to be rude, but if you're going to do discus, you need to meet some of their basic needs if you wish to be successful. Granted I have seen some successful discus tanks go with once monthly water changes (50%). But they started with adults and fed very lightly. However, I would love it if you could prove me wrong.

-Ryan

Hi Ryan, I'll have to look into the heterotroph blooms to find out more about that, but that's exactly the sort of advice I need! To prevent the KH from declining to the point where the organic acids produced by organic activity would cause a PH crash apparently all you need to do is maintain a small sprig of coral or small bag of crushed coral in your filter. It's trial and error to find out exactly how little coral is best to maintain the Kh and Ph at the ideal level, but the coral will slowly dissolve and keep the Ph from crashing all the meanwhile. So as long as you maintain the appropriate amount of that then your Ph should remain safe, and the plants will benefit from a trace of Kh. You could buy a digitally controlled calcium reactor as well, but it's really not necessary.

[Kingdom Come Discus]

MMX

I know with my 220 FOWLR tank I seldom have to do water changes. I have two very large Angels a Queen and Emperor, three tangs, Betta gamma and a very large Lion-fish. The fish have been thriving for over three years and all but the Queen Angel was the size of my thumb when I put them in the tank. But this is not about a Salt Water Tank I know.

One thing I might have missed but I don't think was mentioned was the water to fish ratio in the Discus natural habitat. Something which just can't be replicated in a closed system.

I am waiting or should I say wishing for a natural system which will grow and maintain Discus the way many grow delicate soft, hard corals and maintain healthy delicate salt water fish using only natural methods. In the meantime I will continue to do massive daily water changes.

I do encourage you to do all the research and experimenting you can. Although, the responses you have received here are from very knowledgeable people, many of which have done years of homework on the subject, you should not be discouraged, as I know most of the responses you didn't want to hear. They are all just trying to keep you from wasting your time. Although, I am sure many tried to do the same for Thomas Edison too.

I wish you the best in your efforts.

Just enjoy what your doing that is all that counts,

[mountain_priest]

i had my 120 gal tank on this kind of setup for a year for experiment and i say be prepared for a lot of trial and errors and might as well tell your juvies goodbye once you release them in the tank. once the setup is aged(plants rooted and water flow paved their path) everything will become easy... for you but not your discus. ph will linger at 5 or below. i tried raising juvies and adults in there, wild and domestics, and i sum it up as a very expensive experiment. heavy toll on juvies, almost zero on domestics, those that survived were stunts or became deformed on their fins and gill plates. adult domestics tend to get sick easy on this setup. adult wild performed a little better(made my heckel pair spawned, unfortunately i was a novice... fry only lasted a day of free swimming). now the longest i can keep my tank without changing water is 2 weeks, with a huge water change after that. if it goes beyond that without a water change you might end up browsing on the sickness/disease section here. hope this help you a bit. i'll be glad to know how yours will fare.

ejay

[Dkarc@Aol.com]

Using crushed coral can work, but the issue with it at times is that it can alter your water chemistry drastically (depending on your starting parameters). It can be far easier to consistently dose it, or a calcium reactor as you stated.

Heterotrophs will always be in the system. Cant avoid them. Best thing you can do is control them as best as possible. They will get out of control if the mechanical filtration is not up to par, or is not cleaned frequently enough. They consume detritus, produce ammonia, and consume oxygen in the system. Sure you could go ultra high tech with a drum filter, but that takes big $$$$$. Ozone helps, but it's not a fix. There is no substitute for water changes as there is zero organic build up in new/clean water. From my professional experience, that tends to the be issue with discus or any other sensitive species. They are sensitive to the organic build up in the system. Kind of like really stale air. Livable, but not ideal. You could throw that into the general catagory of "water quality" if you'd like.

Let's say for a minute you think you figured out a way that you can do this feasably. What would you do if a single piece of your equipment fails? Say a water pump fails and you are forced to do a massive water change to correct the water quality (high ammonia/nitrite, low DO, temp, etc...take your pick). How would you handle that if you rely strictly upon this technology? With all the trace element dosing, filter cleaning, testing, monitoring, etc...you would save time and money just doing a simple water change. It's better for the fish and even though there is some work involved, the reward would eventually be large, healthy discus that greet you at the front of the tank begging for food (no better reward than that when working with discus IMO).

Keep this in mind, even the uber high tech reef geeks (myself included) using all the latest gadgets and gizmos to maintain water quality in their systems, still do regular water changes. Ask yourself, if they are relying on calcium reactors, skimmers, ozone, carbon, carbon dosing, etc, then why are they doing water changes too?


-Ryan

[antpal01]

Mxx, I hear you on the desire to try to avoid WC's period. In my experience with Discus (a lot less than some of the folks replying here), I am not convinved it's possible to create a healthy environment for Discus without frequent water changes. I can see how the fish respond if I wind up not siphoning off the bottom as frequently as I should. For most of us on the forum, we can look at the fish and see if something is not looking right. And the first precaution when that something pops up is to be very aggressive on the WC's. In many cases, that can help (and in most cases, the fish were susceptible to the disease from poor husbandry or too many missed WC's in the first place).

I can not comment on the specific water chemistry parameter changes that happen in a water change. But I think that's really what you are trying to get to: what gets removed in the WC and how can you create a filter/ natural ecosystem balance to reproduce it without the WC. Did I net this out correctly?

I think it's a really interesting topic, and I am eager to see the results. A few ideas to share:

1) Is there a way to set up a control tank? Maybe the same size, stocking, plants, light, feeding, co2, etc but with regular/ frequent water changes? I think this should provide a really good comparison and help you confirm whether the tank with zero WC's is really thriving.

2) I have an automated water change system for my tank. It changes about 80 gallons/ day on a total volume of about 140 gallons. It is 100% automated - I don't touch a thing. The display tank (which is pretty heavily stocked) is upstairs and the sump, where the water change system is set up, is in the basement. In addition to the 80 gallons/ day, I also siphon off the bottom of the display tank every other day or so (takes about 3 minutes). The tank has a few potted plants, but no substrate (I actually started by transforming a planted tank into a discus tank and wound up swapping out the substrate and removing the plants with the exception of a few that are now in pots). In addition to the daily automated changes, usually on the weekends, I change more water. I don't have to kill myself with these changes, though, because I have the automated system (which I can use the change more than 80 gallons/ day if I want).

I'd be happy to share details about it if you'd like to discuss. It's not very high tech, but is really failsafe and easy. I know that you are trying to avoid changes, and this has been a really good way for me to minimize the effort in keeping the tank and maximize time enjoying it. Might be something to consider as a type of compromise from a strict zero water change system.

BTW - have you kept reefs or other fish in addition to what you mentioned in your previous posts? I've had many types of freshwater fish plus actually had a full blown 90 gallon SPS plus LPS and Softies tank w @1,000 watts of light. I did a lot of research and learned through trial and error to finally get to a stable and healthy position with the reef tank and again with the discus tank. The research is really important, but there's no substitue for watching the animals (and plants). They will tell you whether the condiditons are good or not. A really great guy from GARF (Geothernal Aquatic Research Foundation)explained that to me when I first got into Reef tanks - it took a while, but I learned and grew to appreciate what he meant.

Interested to hear what else you learn in your research.

thx,
Ant

[scottthomas]

The most informed looking opinion I'd been able to find on the web thus far in regards to growth limiting/inhibiting hormones (GIS, which I suppose is what we should be concerned by in this discussion)

Tito? Is that you? I don’t buy the old hormone growth inhibiting argument.

In order to grow out impressive discus that many discriminating enthusiasts on this site consider to have appealing shape, color, and size; you will need to feed very heavily with protein rich foods multiple times a day and still maintain fairly exact water parameters with close to zero nitrites or nitrates, little temp fluctuation below 82 degrees (strong evidence suggests that even warmer temps stimulate maximum appetite and consequently better growth but not so great for plants), keep parasite and bacterial loads to at least very bare minimum, stable pH, no big jumps in CO2 levels, keep a large enough group that they are comfortable as shoaling fish, and many other variables. You will find that there is some debate about with of these factors plays the largest or most important role in raising high quality discus. However, both breeders and successful discus keepers alike on this site have consistently reported from personal experience for years that the best results come from heavy feedings of quality foods and frequent water changes. You may very well have a way to omit frequent water changes. However, I think it would be easier to develop a simple automated water change system rather than the complex and expensive Tank you describe. It takes me about 45 minutes to change a total of almost 200 gallons of water and clean 12 tanks. Most of that time I sit and read a book in my fish room while one tank drains and another fills at the same time.


I am behind you 100% if you love plants and discus and want to keep them together. Just don’t expect to raise show quality specimens in a planted tank.

[YSS]

Here is an old thread related to this subject...

http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showth...hlight=planted

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/ph...75-update.html

[Len]

If I missed your objective, I'll apologize ahead of time but... If you don't have the time or inclination to do water chnages, how are you going to maintain a heavily planted aquarium? Completely putting the discus aside, You will need to test many parameters of your tank regularly. Items like phosphates, nitrates, Ph, Kh, Iron, just to name a few. Then you are going to have to dose chemicals into the tank several times a week to maintain the needed amounts of each of those parameters. Aside from those tasks, regardless of how clean or stable or whatever you keep your tank, you are going to have to clean it in some form or another. plants will decay and sludge will form on the bottom after time and you also will get algae in one form or another. Maybe not lots, but if you don't want it to build up and look ugly, you will be getting your pot scrubby or scraper out to clean it. Don't get me wrong, I love planted tanks, and keep them myself. It's a lot of work, but to me worth it because of what I get back -- but it's a heck of a lot more work than siphoning water out of a bare bottom tank, giving a quick wipe down and then filling back up. Ok so babbling over, using plants to suppliment filtration and reduce nitrate - great plan. Reducing time spent on maintaining tank - just won't happen.

[Eddie]

Hi Eddie, thanks for the input. But pessimism and dogma aside, I still haven't heard anyone here suggest a single water quality parameter that cannot be better controlled or more easily controlled by other means than through constant water changes. And you're yet to put forth any actual reasons as well, so could you please try to? Or apart from saying that that's simply how it's done, explain exactly why this would result in stunted growth or would be impossible to achieve? And I don't see what water filtration the municipal water supply could possibly have that I couldn't better with my own tank in order to achieve better water from my filter than that coming out of the tap.

The most informed looking opinion I'd been able to find on the web thus far in regards to growth limiting/inhibiting hormones (GIS, which I suppose is what we should be concerned by in this discussion) is that they perhaps do actually exist though not at all in the manner that most people believe, and can be mediated by the following means: carbon or zeolite filtering, protein skimmers with or without ozone, water changes, and with the use of live plants and live rock. So I could in that case cover four out of five easily still without the constant laborious water changes. The plants and carbon would take care of any other excess dissolved organic compounds which could be detrimental, (despite that most are apparently beneficial and in fact used by plants).

I ordered half-a-dozen new books on discus the other night so until then it's just internet research at the moment for me such as this forum where I'm consulting those more experienced with regards to particular parameters.

Actually, what I said was...do some research of your own. You will learn on your own, just as everyone here. There are some good books on discus too, if you would like some good reading. Hope you got some good ones.