Growing out in planted tank

[strawberryblonde]

When you say your water quality is bad, what exactly do you mean? What parameters are bad?

I'm glad that you're holding off on discus for now till you figure out a better water change system. They really won't grow out nice and big with only a 25% WC per day or every other day.

[MKD]

Im sure it has been said too many times before, your other option is
You can get small size and grow them out in barebottom tank. At the same time set up planted tank and there you go 2 projects running. Try to keep both running well then combine them when discus reach adult.

[Diesel323]

Im sure it has been said too many times before, your other option is
You can get small size and grow them out in barebottom tank. At the same time set up planted tank and there you go 2 projects running. Try to keep both running well then combine them when discus reach adult.

I am not allowed to setup another tank in the house, also I don't have room. When I end up moving in about 5-6 years I will setup a grow out tank along with a quarantine tank also.
I have my daughters fish tank in her room with angel fish and others, and my tank in my man cave which is like my show tank. It has been fully operational for 7 months. It already has stock and plants and have been doing great for 4 months.
I can't make enough ro water every day and no place to store over what I have already. I either have to wait completely on discus or do the best I can and see what I end up with. Like I said doesn't matter to me if my fish aren't show quality just a good looking fish for entertainment.

[strawberryblonde]

Still need to know what parameters are bad in your tap water.

Discus can handle most tap water. Unless your water is so bad that even you can't drink it?

[Diesel323]

Still need to know what parameters are bad in your tap water.

Discus can handle most tap water. Unless your water is so bad that even you can't drink it?

Ph is 9 goes higher after 24 hours on tds meter 1200+ and gh and kh is so high that it takes like 40 drops to change color with api test kit. My daughters tank I had setup cycled and then put in fish with tap water all dead within a week. Even half tap half ro still all dead after a week. Went all ro water adding trace no dead fish after that.

[Second Hand Pat]

I definitely want discus but with my tap water quality issue I can only use ro water and 95% water change everyday on a 125gal tank and 40gal sump just won't happen. I have storage for only 70gal of ro water. I figured with plants and a crazy filter system along with my daily water change of 25gal and once a week water change of 65gal would be sufficient enough to grow out discus from 3inch to at least 6inch. I don't need show fish I just need some stunning healthy fish. When I move I am definitely going to grow out in a separate bare bottom tank. As for now I am stuck with what I have.

Buying larger would be perfect but I would enjoy watching them grow and seeing how the interact with each other over time.

I am going to hold off for now buying the fish until I can look into a few more things about water quality. I am going to setup my orp probe on my Neptune system and monitor that and see what happens over time before and after water changes. I always thought orp was for salt water only so I never set it up, plus I really didn't have a clue what it was really good for until I was told here to look into Doc's and the 2 sort of go along.

Thank you all for the feedback, it really does help a lot in some of my decision making. I know most of you have have decades of experience but I still would like to at least learn for myself, to some sort of degree.

Diesel, consider something like this http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showth...unhappy+summer.
Pat

[Diesel323]

Diesel, consider something like this http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showth...unhappy+summer.
Pat

I started with something similar but water still was terrible.

[rickztahone]

Ph is 9 goes higher after 24 hours on tds meter 1200+ and gh and kh is so high that it takes like 40 drops to change color with api test kit. My daughters tank I had setup cycled and then put in fish with tap water all dead within a week. Even half tap half ro still all dead after a week. Went all ro water adding trace no dead fish after that.

I believe in your case RO and reminerlizing it is your best bet.

[pastry]

"FINAL UPDATE" (by the way, sorry to Diesel for now seeing his questions; that said, Diesel, you had the best people on here helping you out... definitely follow their lead! John, Toni, Rick, Skip, Pat, and more!)

Alrighty, so I'll use this for a "final update" to this thread. The tank won't close down but the intent was to let current/future SD patrons know how my discus turned out.

-I started off with a cycled 150 gallon tank (dear God I'm not going into details on cycling) that had sand from Folly Beach, SC, driftwood from Lake Moultrie, SC, a fluval canister filter, water changes directly from tap (tap closely averages ph of 7.2), temperature of 83-84 degrees. Total water (minus space taken my substrate, wood, etc., would estimate between 130 & 135 gallons... and I'm very confident on that since I know how much the substrate & wood take up)
-Food predominantly was FDBW with spinach, beefheart, and frozen bloodworms for the first 1.5 years (then started pushing flakes in order to get more vitamins into them... just my opinion).
-Started with 5 Piwow RT's from Harry Marsh in North Carolina (3 were "normal" and he threw in 2 runts) + 3 VR's from Kenny
-Later added 2 Red Cover females (3 months later) from Kenny and he threw in a bonus little scorpion (which I lost soon afterwards... he got picked on BIG time... sorry Kenny)
-Today I have 2 VRs, 4 RT's from Harry and lost both RC's, 1 VR, and 1 grown baby from an RT spawn due to bad water quality at times, an RC getting beat the heck up by other RC until it had a wound that wouldn't heal, and then one VR just HAAAAD to get the bloodworm that drifted underneath a stump... in which it got stuck and died.
-tankmates were 5 corys, an ever expanding group of lemon tetras (that multiplied like crazy... had to keep thinning them out to around a dozen... had over 50 at one point), 1 BN pleco. (Currently I have 7 lemons, 1 BN, 5 dwarf cories, 2 banjo cats, 2 amano shrimp, 2 red-striped gobies from central America that I recently added 2 months ago and looooove... they were meant for my wife's aquarium at her school classroom but I didn't want her to kill them like she has some others in the past)
-Water Changes were 2x per week at approximately 65% each time (straight tap except for first winter; I aged the water the first winter with 2 40 gallon tubs while aerating and dosing with prime). If I ever missed a water change a week then I could DEFINITELY notice a change in "happiness" of my fish.
-Tried to switch from canister filter to DIY sump towards the end of first year but ended up screwing it up. That's when I lost several discus. Too long of a story tell here but in short I rushed something that I did not know what I was doing.
-Original canister filter became noisy so I switched to another one (not sure name; transparent blue looking canister that I love)
-Had several pairs of discus throughout the time have little freeswimmers. Still have one pair that successfully had freeswimmers that reach 3+ weeks old (one actually reached about 6-9 months old before I had a month of bad water quality due to slacking... had 2nd newborn, finals for night classes, work, etc... so discus suffered).

PLEASE let me know if there's any parameters that anyone wants to know and I have not mentioned.

LESSONS LEARNED:
1. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" - my original canister was just fine. When I tried to do the sump then I majorly screwed up the "balance" and couldn't get back to it. Can't explain that sentence... it is what it is. I do still believe that sumps are better than canisters (not speaking from experience) but I should've just left things alone until I knew what the heck I was doing.
2. 65% WC's twice a week doesn't cut it. Not saying that for growth of discus... but just for "happiness"-factor of the discus (obviously discus would grow more if I did more WCs). That was probably the bare minimum and my tank was not overstocked either. Like I mentioned earlier, I could tell a difference in my fish if I skipped a WC. I've been extremely busy during this entire time but if I had to do it all over again I think I would at least do 2 65% WC's + 1 90% WC per week the entire time.
3. Their diet sucked. I should've done more variety than I did. I thought they'd never accepted flakes yet when I finally tried this year then they took them like it was nothing.
4. The "safety net" for the RT parents I did was something very simple and definitely helped them raise some little ones in the community tank. It didn't stop other fish from swimming to their side but still helped limit other fish on their side.
5. Probably would use 2 canister filters simultaneously if not using sump
6. Get rid of plants that were rooted in substrate (use java fern on wood, anubias on wood, and floating lettuce only)
7. Only use driftwood that minimized driftwood-to-substrate contact in order to negate places that trapped poop and other crud

I have not taken out my remain discus to measure. I'll try later. By eyeballing them (which I know most of us wouldn't trust eyeballing for s***), I'd say:
-Largest Virgin Red (Male): 6.75"
-Smaller Virgin Red (Male): 6.00"
-Largest Piwow RT (Male): 6.25"
-2nd Largest Piwow RT (Female): 6.00"
-3rd Largest Piwow RT (Female; spent 3 months in wife's small school aquarium tank and was definitely stunted): 5.5"
-Smallest Piwow RT (sex unknown; should've been a "cull" since it was a runt and had an injured eye... we call him/her "One-eyed Willy"): 4"

I'm surprised by the growth of the large VR. The VR I lost was also keeping up in growth before I lost it (to a stump). Very very impressed by Kenny/Forrest's VR strains growth rate. I'm sure they'd grow even larger with someone who was better than I was with WC's. All 3 were males by the way (the deceased VR was a male; both RC's were females... one of those RC's was a tramp who "did it" with 3 different dudes... both RC's were absolutely beautiful... both barely got over 5.25"). All VR males were GREAT parents. My 2 RTs are still GREAT parents (great meaning they could raise freeswimmers within a community "to a point"... then lemons would pick them off).

I strongly believe that an understocked, large planted tank can grow young discus to an average of 6.75-7" but definitely with a better diet & WC regime than I offered (at least twice as much WC than I did and add more than just meat for diet). That said, no doubt would I say that bare-bottom with daily WCs (or multiple daily WCs) would yield a much better growth average. I'm just stuck with one tank and my wife would not allow a BB (honestly, I didn't want a BB either). There's a chance I might move the RT pair to their own tank and then give away the others left so I can "do it all again" but I have to really think about it. I know darn well if I "do it all over again" that I will certainly up the heck out of the water changes... however, I might try to figure out a way to "hide" a separate tank that would be BB while I grow some young ones out in a BB (I'm not a cheapo... I just like buying young fish and watching them develop!).

I'll get some pics up here soon of the tank & "survivors". Hope this thread has helped people and/or helps future people. Would love to see more "growing in planted" threads from others yet I understand the shared view that discus will be much better developed in BB tanks with a much higher rate of WCs (as would any species of fish... yet discus are DEFINTELY more sensitive to new water when it comes to growth). Thanks to all that've helped. Pat & Toni, try not to get your boobs wet during water changes anymore :P

[pastry]

Some updated pics (also forgot to add that I have one pair of lyre-tail checkerboard dwarf cichlids in this tank right now... about to move to separate tank soon though). A shot of two right as putting some flakes into the water current. Also, I reeeaaaaally have wanted to get rid of "willy" but my wife would never let me (yet she'll watch me cut the head off of a live mullet for bait when we're out on the boat... go figure). One pic is of goby.

[pastry]

Might be time for me to bring this back...
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[pastry]

Bad phone pics. Strong pair fanning wrigglers. Couldn't get good angle. Would like to see a few make it like in past.
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[Filip]

Great planted Elliot. Hope you'll be lucky enough to see wrigglers in there .
BTW . What is that bushy reddish threadlike thing in the center of our tank ?

[pastry]

Thanks Filip! There only seems to be about 30 to 40 Wiggler's right now. I've only ever had babies make it to adulthood if there were about 100 or
150. So I don't think any will survive this round.

The red hairy stuff is actually long roots from Java ferns. I just took out a ton of Java ferns a few weeks ago because it was getting to the point where I couldn't see the fish any more! But when I did that then is hard to balance the Driftwood that it was originally on and it's slightly tilted towards the back so that the roots kind of turned into a hair ball that faces the front.

Getting new phone soon so my pics will hopefully never be as crappy. Drives me nuts with current phone camera!

[Filip]

The Java roots looks so natural they just add to the whole beauty . Lucky you ,you must have a perfect soft tap water having wrigglers and baby discus in your display tank . It must be a pretty nice sight to see parents with babies in a natural planted environment .