I am going to lose my hair!!!

[ericatdallas]

I also think it's a disservice to potential discus keepers to under emphasize water changes as a way to maintain discus health, particularly wrt growing discus. They need a lot of food to become the big beautiful specimens everybody wants, and that drives water quality thru the floor rather quickly. Live plants would help, I'm sure, but even with them and very advanced techniques like ozone, changing water is never a bad idea. Plan on doing a lot of it to be truly successful, and you may get by on less than expected.

I hope you weren't suggesting I'm under-emphasizing WCs? I made a casual remark which zchauvin responded to. I had to carefully qualify my statements at that point. Note, I stated "adult" discus in my response as well.

However, with that said, I think it's a disservice to an individual to not give them the benefit of the doubt by providing all the information and letting them make their own decisions.

Even in nature, there is a regular WC (rain) although you could view that as an advanced form of filtration.

[Jhhnn]

I hope you weren't suggesting I'm under-emphasizing WCs? I made a casual remark which zchauvin responded to. I had to carefully qualify my statements at that point. Note, I stated "adult" discus in my response as well.

However, with that said, I think it's a disservice to an individual to not give them the benefit of the doubt by providing all the information and letting them make their own decisions.

Even in nature, there is a regular WC (rain) although you could view that as an advanced form of filtration.

Not at all. People will obviously make their own decisions, regardless of what's said here. I just know that tending to the basics has served me well since coming back to discus 2 years ago, and I see changing a lot of water, staying well within the safe zone of water quality as a big part of that. The fish I've bought from Kenny, fish that came to me healthy, have stayed that way, grown quite large, and thrived with little to no fuss whatsoever. Could I do less of it? Probably, but I've gone to some trouble and expense to make it easy, and have no regrets doing that. I just try to emphasize what's worked for me, what I actually learned from some of the more diligent water changers here, like Eddie, and from the literature. Done well, changing water & siphoning off debris is never the wrong thing to do with growing teenage discus or adults, imho.

I intend to keep the discus I have for many years- I'm really very interesting in finding out how long they'll live under very good conditions, and how much pleasure I'll derive from that... 7-8 years, maybe longer? who knows?

[Darrell Ward]

How people choose to keep their fish is their business. It's their money. However, water changes do more than give the fish "clean water". It also replaces valuable minerals that fish need and "use up" in a closed system. This is the reason pure RO water needs to be remineralized in some form. Normal filtration alone is not going to do that.

[Bud]

hmmm....I thought I read somewhere,(or maybe heard it from a guy,who heard it from a guy,who.......... )that the amount of bacteria in the water pales in comparison to the amount in the sand/gravel,hydro sponges,prefilters and internal sponges(and or course bio media).I change 100% a day,using advise of the successful keepers on this forum,and my fish are growing very fast!Think Ill stick with that regimine.