My Planted Tank Experience

[ericatdallas]

This was inspired by the stories told in other threads/topics of how people tried a planted tank and learned some valuable yet expensive lessons. Hopefully it will be a collection of stories (in one easy to find place) from people who started a planted Discus tank and converted to BB after realizing its advantages. The hope is that a new hobbyist will learn from our mistakes. I suppose someone could share a planted tank success story as well. I'm sure we're all eager to read one and learn from that as well. There's been a few threads where people come out and admit their past failures, but they're so well hidden in other topics, it is hard for new members to find.

This is my story of how I started a 75G planted tank with 265W CFL lighting. I kept a combination of fast growing plants (hygros, anacharis, etc) and some slower growing plants (wendtii and some others). My tank mates were snails, cories, otos, and plecos (to help keep the excess food to a minimum). I used natural colored gravel. I kept the temperature at mid-to-high 80's. I had my lights on a timer (forgot the exact schedule) but it was about 12/12 on/off. I had a Fluval 405, a Whisper 60, and a dual sponge filter. So my bio- and mechanical filtration was more than adequate. I was worried about the flow at one point, but I know from my BB tank that when the Discus are healthy, they aren't bothered my the heavy water movement. In fact, in another thread, I pointed out my Discus enjoyed spending time right under the HOB filter or swimming up to the hose as water was filling the tank.

I chose to ignore the advice of the SD members here and this is what happened... Mistake #1. I could tell from my old posts that I had tunnel vision and no matter what anyone said to me, I was going to go planted. There was no changing my mind.

I was certain I wanted a planted tank. After all, they look nicer and the plants would 'clean' the water. Against the advice of the members here, I jumped right in and bought 6 juvenile Discus from a local breeder for $10 each. They were about 1-1.5" each. What a great deal! I was going to raise them and make them 'show quality' discus. The people here obviously were stuck in their ways. I had been keeping fish for YEARS! I knew what I was doing. Mistake #2 was jumping right in without fully understanding what I was getting into. In fact, I had read all the advice against planted tanks here, but didn't post about my plan until AFTER I had already bought the Discus.

Mistake #3 was thinking I was different than all the other people who had tried this BEFORE me. In my original posts, I saw (and remember) that I had tried to find other threads like my situation. Having been here for a while, I know that LOTS of people try what I do ALL the time and it's not unique at all.

At first, things weren't too bad. I changed the water 2 times per day at about 25-50% (depending on my mood). I made sure to clean the gravel, section-by-section (each day I would clean a different part). I also knew I had to feed my BH mix and my earthworm flakes a lot to help with growth. No problem, between the plants and my twice daily cleanings, I knew it would work. This was when I was doing them from buckets only. So make no mistake, I was willing to put the work in and I was dedicated.

...and for a while it did work. I had two bully Discus that ate everything while the others hid from them and found their way behind drift wood, inside caves, and between plants. After a while, the big ones kept growing and the small ones ...well stayed small.

I checked my nitrates, ammonia, nitrites BEFORE and AFTER (EVERY) WC (I still have the ridiculous spreadsheet). ZERO ammonia, ZERO nitrites, and less than 5ppm nitrates at ALL times. Then cleaning my tank one day, the weakest of the small discus got sucked by my siphon. Casualty one. It was so weak it couldn't outrun the siphon (not normal!).

A week or so later, another one swam behind a rock and died. Crap.

Another day, one just turned upside down and died... dang! I forgot what happened to the fourth one, but I had two left when I finally decided to get more.

So now I had to go back to the breeder and buy more. He cracked a joke and said, "I love beginners, it allows me to afford my hobby <wink>" He gave me some advice, threw in a few free Discus. I ended up picking up 15 with the expectation that half would die. A week earlier, I had bought a 75G and kept it BB. I decided to listen to the advice here --- and to do it RELIGIOUSLY!

I ended up only losing ONE Discus from the 15 that I bought (I believe it was too over-feeding, I fed out of schedule in the middle of the night and the next day it was bloated). I would like to mention that the two that did survive from the first batch ended up dying shortly after I moved them to the BB tank. I ended up selling 10 (TEN) of the other Discus. Although my Discus aren't show quality, I can confidently say they are well above the quality that a lot of other local hobbyists have and much better than any I've seen grownout (from juvies to adult) in a planted tank.

As for my planted tank. I forgot to mention that due to my excessive feeding that the gravel had leeches and worms (remember, nitrates/nitrites/ammonia were perfect but that doesn't mean my gravel was 'clean'). Well, I did a thorough cleaning after Discus died and I accidentally unleashed pockets of gases and mulm from the gravel. The tank clouded up quickly. I thought I had managed, but it caused a MASSIVE ammonia spike and killed my plecos, otos, and cories. After that, I tore down the tank, threw away the plants and gravel. Not to say I won't try again, but maybe when I have more time and more experience...

That's my planted tank story... hope someone can learn from my mistakes. Best advice, listen to your elders

So looking back, what happened? Well, for starters, it's not just about water quality... it also has to do with the psychology of the fish and feeling safe. The intense light might have made the weaker fish more shy. They also backed down when it was feeding time. Also, there are probably a lot of things that happened that I was too inexperienced to recognize.

Am I saying planted growout tanks are IMPOSSIBLE? Not at all, I'm just saying if you're new to Discus, you might want to learn what MOST people do for growout tanks BEFORE you try a planted tank. In a few years, I might try again. The trauma and hard work it took still haunts me. I might fail in the future, but at least, then I'll do it knowing full well what I am seeing. It'll also give me perspective when I see the Discus aren't doing well and I will be quicker at recognizing the symptoms (obvious for experienced hobbyists, not so much for inexperienced discus keepers).

I wish I had a picture of my Discus from the first batch. They were sickly looking... even from an inexperienced eye, I could see there was something not right. Looking back at my old posts, I probably made other mistakes as well that I wouldn't today. I also wouldn't have made those mistakes if I had just listened to the people here and either bought adults for my planted tank or raised my discus in BB as originally advised.

This is a shot of them at 5-7 months (can't remember when this picture was taken)...



Here's a shot of my Discus at about 10 months (the albino is not a growout)... again, not show quality, but better than the first batch... DEAD. This was b/c I did BB, fed the way members here advised, and switched to 75-90% DAILY WC.



I ended up selling the rest of the blues, but I still have the tangerines (it's been well over a year now since).

[judy]

My planted tank story is similar to Erics's in some respects. I've kept discus for about 25 years, and at the beginning, started with a planted tank, 78 gallons, and half a dozen discus. That tank was a horrendous amount of work, with huge water changes (bucket brigade 3X a week for eighty percent) and religious substrate vacuuming (a third at a time), and even with that the nitrate levels crept up, and up ... and up. And one day, the beautiful little fish I had raised to adulthood just started keeling over and dying. Nitrate tests, which I had not done for months because hey, look how clean I keep my tank, showed levels thru the roof. Only then did I look into nitrate and discus and discover that at a certain point it's horribly hard on discus. Fatal, in my case.
From there, I continued to keep a planted tank with community fish who seem to do just fine in planted tanks. Eventually I could not resist the pull of discus, but watched the nitrates as well, and my fish did fine for years, even pairing off and spawning. But damn, it was a ridiculous amount of work. I began to hate it. When I finally upgraded to a 125, I went BB and potted all my plants.
Now, cleaning the tank bottom is a piece of cake (I could not believe the crud even my well-kept substrate unleashed when I emptied out the 78), the potted plants look great and are flourishing with their in-pot fertilizer, I don't need to supplement the water with ferts-- and that means far less likelihood of algae (the tank is spotless), I can re-landscape instantly if the mood strikes, the fish seem even healthier (a subjective impression, but I swear they are more perky), don't seem in the least bit perturbed at missing substrate, and I actually love doing WCs because it is so easy.
For those who want planted tanks, oh, yes it can work. And if having that substrate for the plants is so important aesthetically, then it can work also. But the amount of work you have to put into it really spoiled the joy of the tank for me. I would never go back. At the very most, I might put a very thin layer of pool filter sand down, just for appearance. I have some in a couple of buckets stashed away. But... well, I'm happy with the tank now. And if it ain't broke, why fix it? Here's the new... and the old 78 with its substrate removed.

http://i1235.photobucket.com/albums/...plantscape.jpg

http://i1235.photobucket.com/albums/...10614_0012.jpg

[yim11]

Thank you very much for this great info Eric!

Another great post:

I wanted a planted tank, so I ignored the advice I read here and threw 2.5 inch juvies into a newly planted tank. I figured daily water changes weren't really necessary and the people on this forum were just "over the top".

After a month or so, I decided to do some daily water changes due to some illness and the behavior of the fish changed dramatically. Their appetites went up and they became way more active. In the end, I spent a year plus constantly trying to keep the tank clean and food bits out of the plants and substrate. Sometimes it almost seemed like the fish were purposefully spitting little bits of food into the plants! The discus were OK as I was constantly changing water, but the plants hated it and never really grew. My nitrates never got above 10ppm, but there was a ton of organic material floating in the tank and my guys were less active and less aggressive eaters if I ever skipped one day's water change. That's the thing, I went into the whole planted tank thing thinking it would lead to "almost no work", but it wound up being a lot more work than if I had gone BB.

Now, about 16 months into the journey, I'm more comfortable with my planted tank. I only do wcs 2-3 times a week, I only feed beefheart and other messy food before wcs and I feed less food overall. I'm happy with it now that they are adults, but there's no way that I'd ever raise juvies in a planted tank again. Never again!

As for creating a natural environment, I encourage you to read more about what their habitat actually looks like. Here's one good article:

http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.u...t.php?sid=2724

I think you'll find that the typical discus planted tank with submersed plants like swords (like the tank I have) is in no way a natural environment. I like my plants, but they are definitely in the tank for me and not the fish.

[jrman83]

New here and my first post. Was reading through some of the stickys.

I must say that it is surprising to read about going against a planted tank. I have been keeping heavily planted (T5HO lighting, CO2, fert dosing, etc) tanks for about 2yrs now. I have 5 tanks total with 2 of them being 125g, 1-75g and a couple of smaller ones. I was thinking of starting a 90G (not set on the size quite yet) in a few months, heavily planting it with mostly low light plants, natural substrate, CO2, low end side of medium level lighting and minimal ferts. I wanted to go with 4-5 Discus and a decent size school of probably Cardinal Tetras.

Are you telling me that nobody has a successful planted Discus tank and the majority of the site members recommend against it? If I felt I couldn't plant the tank, although the ideas of the pics in the post above is pretty cool (great looking tank), I wouldn't do it. I love the look of Discus, but IMO fish do not make a tank and a tank of fish with nothing else is boring to me.....no offense to anyone here I hope. I have no intention of breeding.

Anyway, just looking around and doing some reading. I will just make it a 40B Cory breeding tank if I go against the Discus idea.

[ericatdallas]

New here and my first post. Was reading through some of the stickys.

Thanks for reading the stickies!

I must say that it is surprising to read about going against a planted tank.

Yes, that's why this thread was started b/c a new thread regarding planted tanks is started almost weekly

Are you telling me that nobody has a successful planted Discus tank and the majority of the site members recommend against it? If I felt I couldn't plant the tank, although the ideas of the pics in the post above is pretty cool (great looking tank), I wouldn't do it. I love the look of Discus, but IMO fish do not make a tank and a tank of fish with nothing else is boring to me.....no offense to anyone here I hope. I have no intention of breeding.

Hmm... I think pretty much everyone recommends AGAINST growout tanks (starting with juveniles). I'm not sure what ratio is for or against Discus in planted tanks when they're adults. One big issue is that most new keepers buy juveniles to save money, then try to grow them out in a planted tank.

[sunrise]

Hi! I didn't realize that a planted tank wasn't such a good idea. I've had one for about three years. Two of those years I've had discus in it. They were about 3'' at purchase time. Is that considered juvenile? Anyway, they've grown and seem to be okay. Haven't lost any. Course, there's only three in a 75 gallon and one angel fish. Vacuuming the gravel is time consuming but, oh well.
Now I understand why I see so many pictures of BB tanks. Wondered about that.

Laura

[yim11]

Hi! I didn't realize that a planted tank wasn't such a good idea.

It's not that it isn't a good idea, I think adult discus in a planted tank are a beautiful sight to see. Perhaps said differently: Trying to raise 2-3" juvenile discus in a planted isn't such a good idea.

The BB tanks can provide more optimal conditions to get a 2-3" fish to planted tank size

[sunrise]

Is it also a bad idea to add juvenile discus to a planted tank that has adult discus already in the tank?

Laura

[Rudustin]

New to the forum but a substrate tank with under gravel filter and 125 gallons twenty years ago gave me the very same problems that Eric talks about in his thread! I had Wattley discus and one day after a water change everything died including the plants! It sent me downward spiraling into not keeping Discus until about two months ago. I have a 65 gallon BB with Swords in a cool imitation of a rock made from aquarium approved resin. The rock has many holes and I just stuck the roots of the swords in the holes and the plants are doing really well but even better the Juvenile discus are doing great and I have perfect water tests and it is a joy to clean up the poop! I have to be careful not to overfeed regardless. Even the scraping of algae off the tank walls is easier without a substrate. My discus are doing well and are hungry all the time!!! They are growing very quickly. Have another 20 gallon long with two adults and they are huge! All of my tanks, including another twenty long and a small five gallon with rams in it are all bare bottom. I've seen planted tanks and they are beautiful but for me the BB is the best.

[Rudustin]

My experience with adding juvenile discus to full adults in planted or not planted tanks gets a little hairy because the big ones bully the little ones so much that they hide most of the time and get little if enough to eat.

[ericatdallas]

Is it also a bad idea to add juvenile discus to a planted tank that has adult discus already in the tank?

Laura

My experience with adding juvenile discus to full adults in planted or not planted tanks gets a little hairy because the big ones bully the little ones so much that they hide most of the time and get little if enough to eat.

that's my opinion too... based on my experience, the little discus -will- hide if given the opportunity. This really reduces the number of opportunities they have to feed. Right now, I have seven adult discus with two juvies in one tank (I got the juvies from someone else along with some adults as a group) and they're doing okay. They still get picked on, but they prefer to stay with the group still and will eat pretty well when I feed them. If they were allowed to hide, they probably wouldn't get as much food (just whatever floats their way. Now, they aggressively go after the food. When I had some Discus cones, a net that I dropped, and a PVC pipe in there (I was using it as a temporary breeding cone) the small ones were always trying to hide around them, near them, and in the PVC case I saw them trying to go into it (not wide enough but they tried).

Also, the lighting has to be taken into consideration for planted tanks. Especially with Albinos... if they're like other species (which I'm sure they are), their eyes are very sensitive to ALL light. So the more intense the light is, the more uncomfortable they will be. I'm not sure how fish eyes are different, but I imagine it's very similar to our understanding of mammailian eyes.

[rbarn]

1. ALWAYS put adults in planted tanks. "planted grow out tank" is just asking for headaches and usually just wont work.

2. You MUST be patient. If you had just started with the tank as a planted tank, got it established and balanced for months. Then you slowly raise the water temps up. Then you add adult discus. Over feeding is a problem with any fish tank.

We also dont know how stable your PH and water temps were through the water change routine or in the day light cycle as the plants absorb and release Co2 fluctuating water PH. Was your tank Co2 injected for PH stabilization ? Most people miss this on planted setups.

[sunrise]

Okay, you all are really scaring me now. I don't check the PH in my tank very often. I have two DIY in my 75 gallon and I turn on a bubbler at night because I'm afraid they will run out of oxygen.( My daughter lost a couple of discus because of lack of oxygen.) I'm sure that must cause a fluctuation in PH, right?
Maybe I'm not scientific enough to keep discus. LOL.
Having said all that, the only other tank I have is a 20 gallon long. Is that big enough to keep 2 or 3 juvenile discus in for grow out?

Laura

[ExReefer]

Here is a simple story. The story begins with feeding your fish (something you can’t avoid). Some of that food gets absorbed by the fish as nutrients and some of it turns into waste. Some of it goes uneaten as well. Over time, uneaten food and waste will build up and degrade water quality. It does not “go away” if you use filters and it would take a great deal of fast growing nitrate hogging plants to make a dent in your nitrates. Basically, the waste gets removed by cleaning filter media and replacing water.

If you want to make it harder on yourself by trapping uneaten food/waste in your substrate, rocks, decor, etc. then you will have more work to do in this hobby. Again, it’s just more work, but it can be done. Many of us chose to go an easier route by using one or all the following methods:

1) bare bottom tanks (easier to locate the waste)
2) no decorations in the tanks (easier to locate the waste)
3) avoiding hard to clean filters (easier to squeeze out a sponge filter than it is to open up a canister filter)
4) feeding “clean” foods (beefheart is messy, freeze dried black worms are not)
5) keeping smaller populations of discus per tank (more fish, more food, more waste, more frequent cleaning)

The end.

[sunrise]

Here is a simple story. The story begins with feeding your fish (something you can’t avoid). Some of that food gets absorbed by the fish as nutrients and some of it turns into waste. Some of it goes uneaten as well. Over time, uneaten food and waste will build up and degrade water quality. It does not “go away” if you use filters and it would take a great deal of fast growing nitrate hogging plants to make a dent in your nitrates. Basically, the waste gets removed by cleaning filter media and replacing water.

If you want to make it harder on yourself by trapping uneaten food/waste in your substrate, rocks, decor, etc. then you will have more work to do in this hobby. Again, it’s just more work, but it can be done. Many of us chose to go an easier route by using one or all the following methods:

1) bare bottom tanks (easier to locate the waste)
2) no decorations in the tanks (easier to locate the waste)
3) avoiding hard to clean filters (easier to squeeze out a sponge filter than it is to open up a canister filter)
4) feeding “clean” foods (beefheart is messy, freeze dried black worms are not)
5) keeping smaller populations of discus per tank (more fish, more food, more waste, more frequent cleaning)

The end.

I feel like I've just been sat in the corner with a dunce cap on my head.: