First post!

[Chiles]

Hello everyone, this is my first post here! I've recently gotten into keeping discus (about 3 weeks now!) and went to my LFS to pick up 2 8-10cm discus (at least from what I've attempted to measure. They're scared of my ruler). I have them in a 55g planted with a bristle nose pleco and betta fish and so far they don't seem to be fighting and seem to be getting along well. I bought it from my LFS because the manager goes out to pick the discus and they quarantine all fish for 7 weeks before they sell. I currently feed them a mix of freeze dried blackwork cubes that they go crazy over and frozen beef heart. I have made them a BH mix of shrimp, BH, spinach, peas and spirulina but haven't fed it to them yet because I'm still trying to get them used to the BH first (one has but the other one is still having issues :P).

I was wondering if I have too many plants in the tank and whether the discus are too small to be in a planted. The picture with one discus is the smaller of the two and I've been quite paranoid about him being stunted. Does he look like that? He is much pickier than the other larger one as well. One last question, do they look like they have too much colour for discus their size? I hope you guys aren't sick of newbies like me asking questions all the time but any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Tank specs are:
Fluval 306 canister filter + spray bar
Temp is 28 C

Here are the attached photos:
IMG_9537.jpgIMG_9542.jpgIMG_9548.jpg

[Second Hand Pat]

Hi Charles and welcome to SimplyDiscus. These guys do not seem to be behind in their growth but since you are a newbie it would really be best to grow them out in a bare bottom tank for best growth and health of the fish. Since some of the plants are attached to the wood you could pot any plants needing to grow in the substrate and remove the substrate.

You will be shocked how quickly the substrate will collect junk especially once you start feeding the BH mix. That junk can really affect the health of the discus. If you decide to remove the substrate please post so we can suggest to good approach for substrate removal.

If you poke around the forum you with also find that discus do better in groups of six or more. This is a great place to learn about discus and the fish are well worth your time and effort. Here's a thread in the beginner section of the forum with a great video on keeping discus http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showth...CH-THIS-VIDEO!. It is an hour long but well worth your time.
Pat

[Doogy262]

I agree and your choice of substrate although nice is the worst possible choice.Very hard to clean and everything sinks to the bottom out of reach.A pfs would have been a better choice,also agree that they do much better in larger groups.Hope you plan on lg. regular water changes.Good luck...

[Chiles]

Hi Charles and welcome to SimplyDiscus. These guys do not seem to be behind in their growth but since you are a newbie it would really be best to grow them out in a bare bottom tank for best growth and health of the fish. Since some of the plants are attached to the wood you could pot any plants needing to grow in the substrate and remove the substrate.

You will be shocked how quickly the substrate will collect junk especially once you start feeding the BH mix. That junk can really affect the health of the discus. If you decide to remove the substrate please post so we can suggest to good approach for substrate removal.

If you poke around the forum you with also find that discus do better in groups of six or more. This is a great place to learn about discus and the fish are well worth your time and effort. Here's a thread in the beginner section of the forum with a great video on keeping discus http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showth...CH-THIS-VIDEO!. It is an hour long but well worth your time.
Pat

Hello Pat,
Thank you very much for all this info it is greatly appreciated . I've watched that video and it has so much great info. I've read about potting plants but did not know how to go about it. I also plan on removing the substrate. Should I remove 80% and leave a thin layer or should I just remove it all? Was planning to use a very large net to just scoop everything out.

About the gravel:
I plan on removing the substrate but it seemed like a really daunting task so I just tried my best to siphon as much as I could out but now that I starting to feed bh mix it seems like an even more challenging task to clean than taking the gravel out! Should I remove 80% and leave a thin layer or should I just remove it all? Was planning to use a very large net to just scoop everything out. I would love to hear your idea though . Also for the pots would clay pots with the holes at the bottom work?

About stocking:
I want to add more but they've been in there as a pair for almost a month now and it's only a 55g tank with a betta + albino bristlenose pleco run by a fluval 306 with eheim biomax. I didn't get more to begin with because I knew the
plants would pose an issue. Wouldn't 6 be too much for the filter to handle and wouldn't they fight?

Again thank you so much for your extremely helpful reply and I hope to hear back from you soon!
- Charles

[Chiles]

Hello pat. Thank you for your great advice! The video has many good points.

About the gravel:
I will definitely start finding pots to pot my plants in. Would clay pots work for them? After potting the plants I will remove the substrate. Should I remove 80% leaving a thin coat or remove 100%? I was thinking of using a large net to scoop it out but what would you recommend?

About stocking:
I did consider buying 4 discus but I thought that the plants and substrate as well as the tank being only 55 gallons with a betta and bristlenose pleco would be too high of a bioload. Wouldn't adding 4 more discus put too much pressure on the filter which is a fluval 306?

I really appreciate your advice pat and hope to hear from you soon. Also, what is a pfs?

P.S I posted a reply before but said a mod had to approve �� so maybe there will be another post on the same thing lol

[Second Hand Pat]

Hello Pat,
Thank you very much for all this info it is greatly appreciated . I've watched that video and it has so much great info. I've read about potting plants but did not know how to go about it. I also plan on removing the substrate. Should I remove 80% and leave a thin layer or should I just remove it all? Was planning to use a very large net to just scoop everything out.

About the gravel:
I plan on removing the substrate but it seemed like a really daunting task so I just tried my best to siphon as much as I could out but now that I starting to feed bh mix it seems like an even more challenging task to clean than taking the gravel out! Should I remove 80% and leave a thin layer or should I just remove it all? Was planning to use a very large net to just scoop everything out. I would love to hear your idea though . Also for the pots would clay pots with the holes at the bottom work?

About stocking:
I want to add more but they've been in there as a pair for almost a month now and it's only a 55g tank with a betta + albino bristlenose pleco run by a fluval 306 with eheim biomax. I didn't get more to begin with because I knew the
plants would pose an issue. Wouldn't 6 be too much for the filter to handle and wouldn't they fight?

Again thank you so much for your extremely helpful reply and I hope to hear back from you soon!
- Charles

Hi Charles, on the removal of the gravel you are going turn off your heater and filter and move the fish and plants to a bucket with some of the tank water. Use a plastic clean dustpan to remove the gravel. Once the gravel is removed you will drain the tank and refill with clean warm water. Add prime if needed and add your fish back to the tank and turn on the filter/heater.

You may want to rinse the plants/wood in clean water, pot any which need potting and add to the tank. Note that your tank may go thru a mini-cycle so stay on top of the water changes for about a week.

Also note, I do not do plants do so hopefully Filip or others can chime in on that if needed.
Pat

[Filip]

Hi Charles and welcome to discus and this forum .
I would do the same here , take out the fish in a bucket with a heater and an airstone and then take out everything , change 100% water after all the work , wait 2-3 hours with strong aggitation and filtration to outgass the tap water, put dechlor , and put back the fish again .

I use plastic cups as pots because they seem least visible to me , you can use just about anything , and holes on the bottom are not necessary . I also put less than an inch of organic soil at the bottom and cap it with 1-2 inch PFS sand to boost the plant growth . PFS is pool filter sand and after the barebottom is the second best option for discus tanks.
Here is just an example of my current setup with Plastic cups and plastic slopes in the back of the tank , and another photo of Barebotom tank with cups where I use to grow my baby discus :

IMG_20190509_203108~3.jpg
IMG_20190509_203443~2.jpg


And here is the growout Barebottom with plastic cups and a link from my growout journal :

IMG_20170305_235635.jpg
IMG-1489241805410-V.jpg



My tank journal link for further details :

http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showth...discus+growout

[Chiles]

Hello Filip and Pat,

Thank you very much for the advice your tanks look gorgeous by the way filip! I am currently very busy with school at the moment so I will probably take it out this weekend or next weekend. Would 100% water change stress the fish too much?

[Filip]

Hello Filip and Pat,

Thank you very much for the advice your tanks look gorgeous by the way filip! I am currently very busy with school at the moment so I will probably take it out this weekend or next weekend. Would 100% water change stress the fish too much?

Thanks for the compliment Charles .
100% WC wouldn't stress the fish only if it's aged( meaning outgassed and pH stabilized ) .
Since your fish will be out in he bucket , you could age the water in your main tank, after your done with reconstruction, with your filters running and maybe a strong pump for aggitating water suface added . After a couple of hours the water should be stabilized and safe for discus .

[14Discus]

Gotta say........superb/awesome fish and tanks.

[Filip]

Gotta say........superb/awesome fish and tanks.

Thanks Bill .I appreciate it a lot.

Btw Charls I made the background slopes by folding a thick transparent paper on a 90 angle and pour the sand in top of them . That should keep the sand secured Ithe back and safe from getting in the front .
Today I came across idea to make the current plastic pots from a cutted coconut , to make them look more natural , so I will post the results too once im done with it.

[Chiles]

Hello everyone! It's been a while but I've removed all the gravel! Happened about a week ago but I kept on forgetting to post :P but here's my update:

IMG_9576.jpg

The discus seem to be getting bigger and I've accepted that the discus I've posted above is never going to eat beef heart even though I've starved him for two days Do you guys have any tips to get him to eat beef heart or should I find an alternative? I've been talking to my LFS about getting a 100 gallon tank so I can house more discus. In preparation for this I've bought a marine pure 8x8x1" plate and was wondering if it's a good idea to put it into the current tank for seeding or will it clog up from the detritus?

Thank you for all the advice you have given me guys, I hope to hear back from you soon!

[Filip]

Hello everyone! It's been a while but I've removed all the gravel! Happened about a week ago but I kept on forgetting to post :P but here's my update:

IMG_9576.jpg

The discus seem to be getting bigger and I've accepted that the discus I've posted above is never going to eat beef heart even though I've starved him for two days Do you guys have any tips to get him to eat beef heart or should I find an alternative? I've been talking to my LFS about getting a 100 gallon tank so I can house more discus. In preparation for this I've bought a marine pure 8x8x1" plate and was wondering if it's a good idea to put it into the current tank for seeding or will it clog up from the detritus?

Thank you for all the advice you have given me guys, I hope to hear back from you soon!

Nicely done Charles . It's odd they won't accept BH , raw BH or a BH mix is ussualy their favorite food.
Marine pure plate put in to your current tank or your current filters ,would make a good starting bio media for your next 100 G tank .
Good luck with your new 100 G and your newly acquired discus . Please do share some photos , once you get them .