100 gallon square tank morphed into discus tank

[tacks]

Hi great tank and video and love the sound track. Ed

[2wheelsx2]

Hahaha...yeah, I forgot to edit it out.

[JL15219]

No problem. I would have assumed the same. I just decided to keep things simple this time as I'm a discus n00b. Didn't want to tackle too many things at once....high bioload, high light, high temps, CO2, etc. I am using plain quartz sand, no dosing except a bit of Excel and low lighting, just enough to keep the plants growing slowly to minimize my work.

I know what you mean it can get complicated really quick.....

[eco-mod]

Great setup! I actually expected at least some co2 which made it more impressive that you didn't. Keep up the good work, for a "newbie" it looks pretty darn good.

[2wheelsx2]

Great setup! I actually expected at least some co2 which made it more impressive that you didn't. Keep up the good work, for a "newbie" it looks pretty darn good.

It would have a lot easier for the plants part with CO2, but more difficult with the fish and this tank is fish first, unlike my past tanks, so no CO2, at least for now or the foreseeable future.

[Apistomaster]

Hi twowheels,

I am in the process of rehabbing my 125 gal tank to be a primarily SA Characin tank and any of my 10 F1 Nhamunda Blues which do not pair off are destined to be the primary show fish in it.
I am also going with a low tech planted tank. Many of the plants I plan to use are the same as what you used, Brazilian Star Grass, the formerly named, Alteranantha reinekii, Cyperus helfneri, Dwarf Chain swords, Cryptocoryne affinis and Limnophila indica. These will be planted in the 1-1/2 inch thick layer of quartz river sand. I will pot the few larger plants and medium sized plants. I have 2-dual lamp. 36 inch HO T-5 light fixtures so the total lighting comes from 4 X 39 watt lamps but they produce more light more cheaply than equivalent T-8 or T-12 lamps. I will have 156 watts of light so that is barely enough lighting. My few larger plants will be potted. I will have one large Amazon Sword, several E. parviflorus "Tropica", a few dwarf lilies and a few Kleiner Bar Swords.
I plan to stock at least 60 Green Neons which have always done well in the warm water Discus need, 2 dozen Rummy Nose, 2 dozen Silver Hatchetfish and I am trying to find 2 dozen Nannostomus eques Pencilfish. I should add a group of rhomboid shaped Tetras like Diamond Tetras, Black Phantoms or similar for shape contrast. The Bottom feeders will be some of my F1 L134 plecos and no Corydoras. My algae eaters will be 6 Farlowella Twig catfish, 6 Spotted Headstanders and 2 dozen Otocinclus. I will leave out common Bushy Noses because they often damage large sword plant leaves and uproot other plants.
I have begun working on the change over but it takes time to do by myself and I have a back problem which slows me down but none the less, I am getting excited to have a planted tank this large stocked with mainly various species of Characins of different shapes and habits. Your thread reinforces my plan to go with mainly Characins. I have had a dozen Black Darter Tetras which are also going to end up in this tank so I will have several odd shaped or rare Tetras. I expect about 4 to 6 F1 Nhamunda Blue Discus as my major show fish. I have a wet/dry filter powered by a MagDrive 9.5 and a refurbished Fluval 404 Canister filter so I will have at least 1100 gph of filter inflow per hour so the tank will be well filtered.
I am a competent aquatic gardener but I prefer to not rely on CO2 injection either. The idea is to have as nice a looking tank as I can but as technologically simple as possible using the equipment I have on hand. I do hope some of the F1 Nhamunda end up being un-mated females I can eventually pair with a couple top grade wild Royal Blues. This would allow me to work on two lines of tank raised wild type Blue Discus.

[2wheelsx2]

Larry, 156 Wt5HO is more than plenty for most of those plants. I am running 2 banks of T5NO in my 125 (84 watts) and 2 banks of Marineland Doublebrite LED's in plain gravel and have no problems growing huge amounts of Java Fern and Anubias, along with Jungle Vals, but I am using pressurized CO2 in this tank so it allows me to use less light.

In this square tank, once I'm done the canopy, I am planning on running each back of 2x24w t5HO for 6 hours with a 2 hour over lap where all the light are on, so it'll be mainly 48 watts. I have grown dwarf chainsword (E. tenellus) in very low light, but they don't not propagate as fast as when using CO2/higher light. I do not intend to pot any plants, but rather, I use root tabs with all the bigger rooted plants, including the red lotus I recently got. The tabs I use are from Root Medic. Many people use the Jobes plant sticks, but as my cories and plecos disturb the substrate, I prefer not to use something which will affect the water quality.

I like the Sterbai cories for the bottom dwellers and they stir up the substrate more allowing my filter and water changes to pick up more detritus than the plecos. They also in smaller quantities (IMO) making the cleaning more manageable. I do have 5 L134 in there now, along with 4 L066 and 6 L340 and 3 or 4 L333 and that's about all the plecos I want in there. I did have some BNP's at one point, but either they didn't like the 29 C temperature or couldn't compete well enough for food (they were pretty small) and perished due to unknown causes. Overall, I'm pretty satisfied with the growth so far even with the 48 w of t5HO only. The characins add some flavour to the tank that having just discus does not. Unfortunately, I think my mistake was what you suggested, that the black neons are not tolerating the higher temperatures very well, as I've had about 20 of them perish. The Rummy Nose, on the other hand, are getting fat and huge. I look forward to seeing your tank, as I love the Nhamunda Blues, and if I had access to some, I would have got them instead of the Tefe's for this tank.

[Apistomaster]

I have always had good success with keeping Black Neons with Discus. Black Neon Tetras are a species I breed every few years to get a 100 or so. I was comparing the difference in temperature tolerance between Black Phantoms and Red Phantoms. Red Phantoms do better when kept at 80*F or less but Black Phantoms handle warmer water better, My Red Phantoms in my Blue Discus tank have done better than I expected.

You have an excellent selection of plecos well suited for Discus tanks but as you know, these do not eat algae.
I raise these kinds of plecos and plan to use them as my bottom feeders instead of Corydoras. I will try a couple dozen Otocinclus and 6 Farlowella as my algae eaters. These species clean plant leaves without damaging them. I am also planning to include Chilodus punctatus as they are also gentle on the leaves algae eaters although they are a Tetra.
One Bushy Nose I like to use is Ancistrus claro(LDA 08) but they are hard to find. I have lined up a breeding trio and maybe 18 1" fry. These attain a maximum size of 2-1/2 inches but they are harder to breed and not as hardy as common BNP. They are well worth breeding for a small scale breeder such as myself.

I am pleased to have my F1 Nhamunda Blues but it has been very hard for me to control my impulses to not buy some wild Green Discus. I decided that my F2 gen of my Nhamunda Blue must pay for any new wild Discus I get in the future. I have one favorite and that is any wild Discus. I only have given up Heckels because they are so difficult to breed. I have a few friends getting back into keeping wild Green Discus and they have bred them successfully in the past. I am hoping they do so again so i can get some of their F1 Greens. Both only use the natural feeding methods and not any artificial method. The artificial discus larvae feeding method works but some people only change the water 3 times a day at 8 hour intervals. That isn't frequent enough to to maintain a minimal bacterial bloom which can cause defects like deformed gill plates and some other problems. That is why it is more widely practiced on the SE Asian Discus farms where labor costs are low. Any bright 10 year old kid can learn the technique but it is important to add fresh egg yolk paste and fresh water about every 2 hours in order to avoid the bacterial blooms which can cause defective gill covers and other defects.

[2wheelsx2]

I have always had good success with keeping Black Neons with Discus. Black Neon Tetras are a species I breed every few years to get a 100 or so.
.
.
.

You have an excellent selection of plecos well suited for Discus tanks but as you know, these do not eat algae.

Yeah, I don't why I am having a problem. Although at this point, it looks like the population has stabilized. I am down to about 30 from the original 50. I've lost maybe 4 rummy nose, which may be due to old age, as 6 were from my original population which is over 3 years in my keeping.

As for the plecos, yeah, I am only keeping them as bottom feeders and for my own plecos, not really expecting them to clean any algae. At some point, I may add some Baryancistrus species in there which will eat some algae, but at this point I am happy with what I have, although I was about to contact you about some Peckoltia compta soon.

And don't be too complacent with plants and Hypans. Some of my Staurogyne repens has been stripped bald by my L333 or L066 (I know it isn't the Peckolita as this happened before I added them and the L340. My L333 also stripped my Bacopa carolinia in my 15 growout. So much so that I began to add them in as food from my CO2 injected tank. I've taken to providing quite a bit of greens for my Ancistrus and Hypans to prevent them from eating my more delicate plants. Nothing seems to touch the Ludwigia though, so I seem to be safe there, as that's my favourite plant in the tank.

[Apistomaster]

The main reason I prefer to pot my larger plants in pots made from clear juice bottle bottoms is because it allows me to rearrange their locations without damaging their root systems. My pots do not have a drain hole so roots do not spread. But to make this work well enough for the plants to thrive, the potted plants must be supplied with plenty of substrate fertilizer but in a closed pot that fertilizer remains available to that potted plant.

I have only experimented with small DIY yeast based CO2 systems but it is my understanding that supplemental CO2, even from a sophisticated delivery system, doesn't help much unless the light intensity is on the high side. I was able to provide intense light in 20 gal long tanks but for my six feet long 125 gal I would need more light than 156 watts to gain much from CO2. I enjoy a planted tank but not quite well enough to invest in a sophisticated automated CO2 system. But plenty of plant species can do well in a tank as well lighted as mine. But many of the most demanding plants need more light plus CO2 in order to thrive.

Is it possible that when using a high tech CO2 system but with less intense lighting that the algae problems are less likely? I know enough about aquatic gardening to be dangerous but I lack experience using sophisticated CO2 systems on large and heavily planted tanks.

[2wheelsx2]

I have only experimented with small DIY yeast based CO2 systems but it is my understanding that supplemental CO2, even from a sophisticated delivery system, doesn't help much unless the light intensity is on the high side. I was able to provide intense light in 20 gal long tanks but for my six feet long 125 gal I would need more light than 156 watts to gain much from CO2. I enjoy a planted tank but not quite well enough to invest in a sophisticated automated CO2 system. But plenty of plant species can do well in a tank as well lighted as mine. But many of the most demanding plants need more light plus CO2 in order to thrive.

Is it possible that when using a high tech CO2 system but with less intense lighting that the algae problems are less likely? I know enough about aquatic gardening to be dangerous but I lack experience using sophisticated CO2 systems on large and heavily planted tanks.

Tom Barr spoke on this very topic when he was in Vancouver at a hobbyist meeting. He stated that CO2 helps growth at all lighting levels, unless you are well below the threshold where anything grows. The 2 things the plants need to grow are light and nutrients in the form of NPK and CO2. So by removing the CO2 limiting you can then experiment with lighting levels to grow at the rate that you want. And you're correct, CO2 seems to aid in algae management at all lighting levels, although the balance between poisoning your fish and growing plants well without algae in a very high light tank is beyond me (tried and and always had some algae problems, so I gave that up).

So I'm currently experimenting with 2 systems: One is low light, CO2 injected. The second is moderate light with high surface agitation. The latter is my cube. So far, I've had no BBA, but have had the usual start up brown diatomaceous algae which is probably exacerbating by the quartz sand, but it seems to be abating now, especially since I inserted all the root tabs. Time will tell.

[2wheelsx2]

Since I'm been on this thread, thought I should update with a few pics.

Cryptocoryne parva:


My attempt at a moss treetop with Xmas moss which hasn't taken yet:


Ludwigia repens:

[2wheelsx2]

Just realized I hadn't posted updated pics for a while. I added some manzanita branches and some apistos and rams (but no pics as they are fast buggers). Full tank shots from 2 sides from about 2 weeks ago:




And the lineup!

[Sameen]

Beautiful!

[2wheelsx2]

Thanks, I'm really enjoying this tank right now. Still have to get the canopy finished and then I can stop fiddling with it.