My first 55g discus tank

[pakash]

First:

I´ve decided to stay away from my african cichlids and move on to a planted discus tank.

Fish: Since it is a planted tank i would only buy 4 discus
- 20 Cardinals or neons
- 15 Snails for algae
- 2 clown plecostomus
- 8 corys

Filtration: aquaclear 50 and another canister maybe a marineland c360

Light: 4 54w t5ho and leds for night.
Substrate:Black or red
Plants: Anubias, Cabomba Caroliana, Hemianthus Cuba, and some red ones, but i want a cool tank, but im not so good at aquascaping, so please help, my problem is where to put some rocks and driftwood and all.

Do you think it is too many fish or what would be a nice combo for my tank.
The other question is, is it too difficult to take care of these fish and the plants, and what about waterchanges do i have to vacuum the substrate or how iif i have as foreground plant the hemianthus cuba, and what fertilizers do you guys use.

CO2: REACTOR for 55g

[WMD]

i'll say this according to my personal experience and no advise should be taken unless you agree with it .
i would only buy 4 discus
- 4 discus is not a good idea you should get 6, i have four and they are doing good but not as good as other people discus, they hide a lot and they will eat very slow.

Substrate:Black or red
- if you are going to have substrate i suggest you go for adults or sub adults, if you wanna grow out some juvies i suggest you go bare bottom, its easier to clean.

is it too difficult to take care of these fish and the plants,
- i have bad experience with plants so let the other suggest

what about waterchanges do i have to vacuum
- with juvies you have to change and vacuum the bottom after each feeding, lots and lots of water change,

this is just an advice and previous experience dont take it seriously and you also should start reading DISCUS FOR BEGINNERS, it can be found on the main topics.

[x2h]

Your plan looks fine except I would suggest to have a lot of easy gorwing plants to begin with, such as swords. These plants will help you fight the algae by the size of their biomass and their fast growth. Therefore the more the merrier, and the less headache. Also your lighting level seems high. That's asking for algae. Try remove one or two of them. Since discus are expensive, you might want to have the other fish and plants in the tank for a while. When things are in harmony, water chemistry is stable, you can add your discus. At least that's how it worked for me.

You could also get a lot of useful tips on growing plants from theplantedtank.net. Some amazing tanks and aquascaping there, which I am sure will inspire you.

Planted tank and discus are two challenging things, I would suggest mastering one of them at a time, not trying both at the same time. Since plants are cheaper and harder to kill, I would suggest trying them first.

[fast93accord]

I think 4 t5ho's is gonna be way too much light. I have 2 t5ho's on my 55g, co2 and have algae...

[discuspaul]

I would suggest getting 5 or 6 discus - not smaller than 4" fish, to reduce aggression/pecking order problems, and lower the number of other fish - keep it down to around a dozen cardinals and 5 or 6 Cories - forget the Plecos for now, and reduce the number of snails.
Lighting - remove 2 of the T5 HO's and just use 2.
Substrate - Do you really like red or black ? Black will tend to pepper some discus depending on the strain and perhaps will not bring out the best coloration in the discus. I dislike the unnatural contrast of red substrate in a planted tank, but that's just a preference thing.
I use white silica PFS for best fish & plant coloration IMO. (and very easy to vac, keep clean, and grows plants very well.)
Plants - Java Ferns, Anubias, several varieties of Swords (Echinodorus), Hygros, Ludwigia. Rotalas, Lotus, Aponogeton - they'll all grow well in sand using root tab ferts.
Water Changes - daily if you can - 50% or more. Every second day would be ok, but twice weekly as a bare minimum.
It may help you to have a read through my Beginner's Guide to Getting Started with Discus - link:

http://www.forum.simplydiscus.com/sh...ed-with-Discus

As an example, here's my 70 odd gallon planted discus tank for you to check out - pics taken several months ago when the Red Snake Skins were just around 3" - they're over 5" now.
http://s1105.photobucket.com/albums/...l/FTS-Osaka260
PM me anytime if I can be of help.
Best of luck.

[srusso]

I have moved on to a reef tank now, but almost the same setup. I would buy discus that are adults as others have said. I successfully grewout 6 discus in my 55 planted but they never stopped hiding. Rarely came out when I was around. And if anyone else walked up to the tank it was like the "6 stooges" slamming into every side of the tank. One would spook another very easy... In the end it was explained to my that juvinals grown in a planted tank are very likely to remain very skittish. B/c of their ability to hide when young.

Additionally as others have also said... Master a planted first... Then add your discus.

Someone mentioned not using 4 T5s, I would disagree here. IMHO that would be the correct lighting, considering your adding CO2. You'll want 6700K bulbs.

Lastly, see my old posts. I posted tons of pictures. One of the most rewarding things about planted tanks is the small daily growth only you will notice. :-)

Ps. Planted tanks can be one of the hardest to achieve in the hobby.

Pps. I did 50% water changes every 3 days in my heavily planted amazon tank.

[srusso]

Ooohh and skip the cardinals and neons and go with rummy nose. They actually school MUCH better then the others. Red noses also act as a signal for water quality too!! The redder the better!