Tank Setup Questionaire

[brewmaster15]

People often keep Amano shrimp with Discus and they do well with the temps. Honestly even cherry shrimp handle the low 80s many people keep discus at..

[ravvlet]

Hey, I tested both my planter 20 and the 55 - the water in the 55 hasn’t been conditioned as I was only filling it to test the tank for leaks. The planted, established tank has actually reached neutral PH at 7.0 (oops - I checked my tank log and I hadn’t tested in a couple weeks). The 55 is reading at 7.4, the tap water in there has been sitting for about 24hrs. I’m not sure if that’s long enough to count as aged!

And that’s great to know, I was worried about neos because a friend who lives in the south tried keeping them but lost them over the summer when her house got really hot - but maybe that was due to other factors and not temp. I am planning on keeping adult discus at 84, which is technically within upper range for neos. Sure would be cheaper to just move shrimp I already have in there!

[brewmaster15]

Many here keep all their discus at 82. I keep my non breeding discus 84-86F.

81-82 is fine for adults though it may trigger spawning. So technically you can hedge your bets with the shrimp a bit .

[seanyuki]

Al Sabetta and your thought on this.....I usually suggest eight discus to new discus hobbyists, even for unforeseen circumstances you loose two fish, you still have six. It always establishes a pecking order. This is the reason people will say to keep at least 6. The higher the number of fish the less you will see the problem as the aggression gets spread out over the entire tank. When you get four discus, They set a pecking order and whoever is on bottom will always be the smallest(aka runt) and one gets sick and moved to the hospital tank. The remaining three, the alpha aggressiveness becomes bigger.

[brewmaster15]

Al Sabetta and your thought on this.....I usually suggest eight discus to new discus hobbyists, even for unforeseen circumstances you loose two fish, you still have six. It always establishes a pecking order. This is the reason people will say to keep at least 6. The higher the number of fish the less you will see the problem as the aggression gets spread out over the entire tank. When you get four discus, They set a pecking order and whoever is on bottom will always be the smallest(aka runt) and one gets sick and moved to the hospital tank. The remaining three, the alpha aggressiveness becomes bigger.

Hi Francis,
Those are all valid points and generally what I suggest as well. However sometimes the general advice we all give doesnt fit . This hobbyist,ravvlet, is planning to keep discus in a heavily planted 55 gal tank. Growing out a group of 8 discus in that tank is really not ideal. So what advice can we offer? Only thing that comes to mind is a few Adults in that tank. That alleviates the problem of the pecking order and stunting we often in small groups of discus and if you stock with all the same gender you further reduce any serious spawning drama. So for this particular hobbyist.. a few adults of the same gender are probably the safest bet in that heavily planted 55 gal.

99.9% of the time I would advise a novice to get a bunch of discus and grow them out in a bare bottom tank until adult and then add plants and substrate.. but that would not fit here.
Hope that explains my reasoning.

[seanyuki]

Great advice Al.

[ravvlet]

Is it due to the additional difficultly in cleaning with a planted tank that you recommend adults only? Or due to the loss of water volume bc of plants, etc? If I had space for two 55’s, I would do a grow out tank… I just can’t think of where I could fit one in the house, haha. Maybe the bedroom. My partner would hate that. Bunch of expensive fish watching us sleep!

I also did not realize it was a terrible idea to do planted until I started really researching, and have been collecting plants and cuttings for a month or so - I have a slightly ridiculous amount waiting to go in that tank, and I am out of space in my other tanks to keep ‘em. I was assured by a couple LFS who “used to keep discus” that a bare bottom was not necessary. I love the idea of raising the little guys up, but it seems I have started off on quite the wrong foot. Does stunting in discus cause the same health problems as in goldfish, or is it mostly cosmetic?

As far as sexing them goes - I thought discus were for the most part not sexually dimorphic. I have to admit unless my angels paired off half the time I was never totally sure one way or the other.

It WAS a bare bottom until today, because I put in sand.

If I leave the sand, and plant as minimally as I can, would that be acceptable? Should I take the sand out? Sorry, I am really great at second guessing myself. It just sounds like from what y’all are saying, it would be better/less complicated to do minimum tank decor unless I can afford adults, and then I’d need some way to guarantee their sex.

Oh gosh, while I am asking a million questions, will keeping them in a heavily planted tank be bad for their health in some way? Maybe I’m reading too much into it.

Sorry y’all, its been a long weekend here! Real nervous about these guys as they’re so expensive and it seems like there are so many things I am already doing wrong.

[brewmaster15]

I'm sorry. What you are looking to do is very much what many novices to discus want to do. I could tell you exactly how to go about starting with discus so you would have the best chance for large healthy discus but unfortunately densely planted tanks are not a good starting point for alot of reasons and your 55 gal is really on the lower limit for tank size for a group.... thats why I suggested as I did. ..

Keep in mind that just because its not the best way to start the hobby..it doesnt mean its not doable. Its obvious you are skilled with plants.. my advice is learn more about discus. .. plant your tank and consider just a few adults. Its probably the best compromise for you. Keep in mind an adult Discus is around 6" diameter give or take. Visualize that in your 55 gal.. plant to the far corners and back.. leave the foreground open. Small driftwood..no sharp edges.

Discus adults can be sexed by experienced keepers and importers to a fair degree.. you may have a surprise but thats always the case.

[ravvlet]

I'm sorry. What you are looking to do is very much what many novices to discus want to do. I could tell you exactly how to go about starting with discus so you would have the best chance for large healthy discus but unfortunately densely planted tanks are not a good starting point for alot of reasons and your 55 gal is really on the lower limit for tank size for a group.... thats why I suggested as I did. ..

Keep in mind that just because its not the best way to start the hobby..it doesnt mean its not doable. Its obvious you are skilled with plants.. my advice is learn more about discus. .. plant your tank and consider just a few adults. Its probably the best compromise for you. Keep in mind an adult Discus is around 6" diameter give or take. Visualize that in your 55 gal.. plant to the far corners and back.. leave the foreground open. Small driftwood..no sharp edges.

Discus adults can be sexed. By experienced keepers and importers to a fair degree.. you may have a surprise but thats always the case.

Ah, ok, thank you. Yeah, I know a 55 is small. I dearly wish we had room for a 75; a 75 is what I kept angels in many years ago. Unfortunately, here in Seattle SQFT is at a major premium and many houses build up and not out, so anything deeper than the 12 inches I get with the 55 simply won’t fit - I have it wedged into the spot it’s at with barely any room to spare, haha! I suppose I COULD rearrange the entire rec room and get entirely new furniture to make more room for a tank, but by then my partner will have pulled all her hair out and I may end up having to sleep on the couch in there - I guess I’d get to really admire the fish!

Thank you also for the pointers on adult size. I was looking at the place you suggested (Golden State Discus) and it does look like they have adults. Would 4 be ok? Should we do three instead, or maybe a pair, or would a pair be unhappy? I am hoping to get them sometime early next year, if everything works out with the plants at temp, but I’m not sure if shipping in the cold season is going to be too hard on the fish?

And yes, the scape I have planned has a spiderwood piece covered in java fern (literally covered - I had an entire trashbag of the stuff), jungle val along the back, pennywort and bucephalandra as well as some hacked down hornwort throughout the back-center, leaving a mostly unobstructed area of dwarf hairgrass across the front center, with a large sword on the side opposite the spider wood and maybe some medium to small decorative stone (inert). I have some ludwigia repens to stick here and there for a pop of red, and a tiger lotus (they get big, but tend to either stay low or have shoots that go up to the top of the water) somewhere in there. I also have an obscene amount of floaters which I find combats algae pretty well, but needs to be kept coralled. Its a mix of frogbit and duckweed (the goldfish eats it, haha, I get it for free from the LFS).

I plan on running the tank sans discus with just the shrimp and snails for a bit at 82 to see how the plants do - many are propagated from my 20; the plants grow so fast with the CO2 that that tank is bursting.

I will say though, that I have access to a massive CNC router and thick acrylic sheeting, and have considered maybe building a narrow-but long/tall custom tank at some point in the future. Would be a really cool project.

[Second Hand Pat]

Hi ravvlet, while the tank you describe sounds gorgeous I do not think the discus will have any room. I am going ask you start with something a little simpler. There is a video on the forum which is a really good starting point on getting a handle on discus and here's the link . This video is well worth your time. Please watch it.
Pata

[bluelagoon]

Even if you get adult discus. You're still going to have to siphon/clean the substrate quite often, so some of the ground cover plants won't work in a discus tank. I wouldn't even try that. It might work for a while but but tanks like that usually will often have Hexamita issues in a discus tank. If the LPS are like the ones here. I wouldn't take their advice when it comes to discus. There's a lot more (much more) work growing discus out in a planted tank than a bare bottom. Might even be cheaper to buy grown out discus. The amount of food and water that it takes to get them that big isn't cheap.

[ravvlet]

It sounds like at this point I should probably do a different species of fish entirely. That’s unfortunate. Is there somewhere where the slides from that video presentation are available? I don’t do great with info from videos - it sticks better if I can read it!

[brewmaster15]

It sounds like at this point I should probably do a different species of fish entirely. That’s unfortunate. Is there somewhere where the slides from that video presentation are available? I don’t do great with info from videos - it sticks better if I can read it!

There are slides in the presentation.. I guarantee it won't be over your head at all..I know the guy that did it fairly well.

[ravvlet]

Thanks for the advice all, I really appreciate you taking the time! I’ll watch the video and take notes, and have a good think. I can always do a discus set up later, if what I have won’t work. I want to make sure whatever we stock can be healthy and happy.

[ravvlet]

There are slides in the presentation.. I guarantee it won't be over your head at all..I know the guy that did it fairly well.

Hahaha! I see now why you said this. Nice. I burst out laughing when you showed the example of a bad planted tank - with a remarkably similar layout to what I wanted to do…I am really getting called out here! Were those fish stunted because they were grown out in that tank? Does stunting them affect their health like it does goldfish (goldfish eventually end up with organ failure)?

At least my kids are enthusiastic about doing a community tropical instead of this really won’t work.