Originally Posted by
Paul Sabucchi
Hi and welcome to this forum, nice to see new people catching the discus bug.
With the advice above you can't really go wrong so no need for me to repeat it. Just adding my nuggets: before painting bottom and/or sides of the tank you may want to have some dry runs putting cardboard painted with your choice of colour beneath/behind the tank. Alternatively you could use yoga mats trimmed to size (added advantage of insulating the glass from temperature/vibrations/uneven stand. Easy to change if the colour is not working for you. Best anyway to avoid darker tones that may encourage some strains of discus to darken as a kind of mimetism.
My second bit of advice is to plan beforehand how you are going to do the water changes, you are going to be changing probably a lot more water more often (particularly if you purchase younger fish) than you did with your previous tanks. The more of a chore changing water becomes and the less you will feel like doing it. In a recent topic we were remarking how often we spill water on the floor, that can lead to a very disgruntled spouse!
Last bit of advice is to get a decent (liquid reagent) test kit (ammonia, nitrite, nitrate as a bare minimum but pH, KH, GH and phosphates are also nice to have) and let us know how your tap water tests out.
Most of all though enjoy the ride!