120g discus expat hob riparium

[greengreen84]

Hi everyone, I haven't been on here for a while now, But now I'm finally getting another discus tank after 2 and half years of waiting (not intentional!) 😂

I've been living on tiny 30L planted tanks for the last 2.5 years now and it hasn't cured my itch for discus and it's come back with a vengeance at 120 gallons of fish tank 😄

The tank has been going for about 3 weeks now and its almost finished with the decor, Plants, Filter and is almosted cycled too, I should be ready to buy the discus next week or 2 fingers crossed.

I only have a small problem with the Ph being at 8, but I think its the substrate or a faulty test kit I'm not sure yet?

Here's the plant and fish list, most of the fish will be taken out and 8 adult discuses will go in instead.
Plants:
Peace Lily
Lucky bamboo
Dichromena latifolia
Chamaedorea cataractarum
hydrocotyle Leucocephala
philodendron scandens
Duckweed
Amazon frogbit
Java fern
Anbus
Fish:
18 x Endlers
12 x neon tetras
2 x German blue rams
I have to add more temporary fish to cycle the tank properly.

I'm hoping the bioload will be fine with the final setup, I will have:
- 8 x Discus 8cm ea 320L
- 8 x bronze coryandas 7.5cm ea 90L
- 2 x German rams 7.5cm ea 23L
Total bioload - 423L

I'm hoping the bioload is okay, the tank is 120x50x85cm but it has rounded edges, So not sure about the total gallons.

Also I setup a 5 stage filter for water changes with an extremely long outlet hose to make water changes an easier thing to do.

But I'm not sure if the filter is good enough for Shanghai's terrible water quality, I might have to upgrade it to a ro filter with a mineral filter attached to it, I'll see how I go but.

Also Equipment
2,000 LPH (530 GPH) hob filter
2 x 20 watts led spot lights for the plants on top of the tank
2 x 1,000 watt heaters for the cold winters here in Shanghai
Tank - caoyang 120x50x85

Here's a few pics when I first set it up.8713087129
87131

[greengreen84]

Today's current setup
87133

[jmf3460]

what are the dimensions of this tank. I like the rounded corners.

[Discus-n00b]

Looking forward to this one. I love the Riparium idea.

[greengreen84]

The dimensions of the tank is 120x50x85cm (48x20x35in). Thanks Discus-n00b I've been planning it for about 3 months now, its crazy hard to find stuff in a different language over here so I'm always scrolling through the pages on taobao until I see the picture of what I want and bam its mine :D

Also today I went to the Fish market and got a new rock background for the tank it looks awesome! I had to tape 4 pieces together just because of the its odd size, cost me about 8 bucks USD good deal that's for sure.
87138

[jmf3460]

that's a tall tank, better get your step stool ready :) is the background on the outside?

[greengreen84]

Yeah, I know what you mean. Even with a stool its hard to reach the ground even with a extended scrubber brush, I can only just reach the bottom of the tank and also to answer your question yes, The background is on the outside of the tank.

[Blademan]

The dimensions of the tank is 120x50x85cm (48x20x35in). Thanks Discus-n00b I've been planning it for about 3 months now, its crazy hard to find stuff in a different language over here so I'm always scrolling through the pages on taobao until I see the picture of what I want and bam its mine :D

Also today I went to the Fish market and got a new rock background for the tank it looks awesome! I had to tape 4 pieces together just because of the its odd size, cost me about 8 bucks USD good deal that's for sure.
87138

Hi I live in Beiilun Ningbo 3hrs away from Shanghia originally from the UK, and your right so difficult over here as I dont speak much Chinese, heres a photo of my tank that i bought locally for 4000RMB, it has a built in sump filter.
87142

87141

[greengreen84]

Nice setup blademan, 4,000 RMB seems about right for with the brand, sump and size of the tank I paid about 3,000 RMB for mine but it's a no name brand basically, I just like the look of it.
So you live in Ningbo nice not far from me we should meet up some time, How long have you been here in China? are you over the culture shock yet? And do you like the food there? I've heard that they have some interesting food lol:laugh:

[Blademan]

Nice setup blademan, 4,000 RMB seems about right for with the brand, sump and size of the tank I paid about 3,000 RMB for mine but it's a no name brand basically, I just like the look of it.
So you live in Ningbo nice not far from me we should meet up some time, How long have you been here in China? are you over the culture shock yet? And do you like the food there? I've heard that they have some interesting food lol:laugh:

David sent you PM, regarding the local food it is not my taste, much prefer Japenese or Korean food to Chinese, heres my other tank a 50 gallon bowfront, moved the discus from this when i set up the bigger tank, paid 1800RMB for this one

87143

[greengreen84]

@ Blademan - Nice tank and good price too.
Just took a screenshot of the Discus that I will be ordering soon, The taobao seller seems to be okay and has lots of good reviews here's the pics.
871448714587146

[Blademan]

I like the look of them, what is the weblink I will go on and look for myself

[greengreen84]

Just copy this.
http://h5.m.taobao.com/awp/core/detail.htm?id=36444909715&spm=0.0.0.0&sid=60fc5dd4caff41b1&abtest=6&rn=299bc79f536c9c5ccafb5a5fafad487d

[Blademan]

Just copy this.
http://h5.m.taobao.com/awp/core/detail.htm?id=36444909715&spm=0.0.0.0&sid=60fc5dd4caff41b1&abtest=6&rn=299bc79f536c9c5ccafb5a5fafad487d

These are around 3.5 inch, the ones you are interested in are these wild Discus ?

[greengreen84]

I don't think they are, I know there is an options to pick ornamental or no colour, But I have no idea what it means.

[Blademan]

I don't think they are, I know there is an options to pick ornamental or no colour, But I have no idea what it means.

The discus shown in the pictures you posted, I think these are wild discus but I am not 100%, the experts on here will know for sure, but i really do like the look of these

[greengreen84]

Hey everyone, I've bought a few more things for the tank and it's almost ready.

I had to buy a different light as the plants weren't doing so good, So I got a 20 watt T8 Led light with red and blue spectrum and a light hanger for it too, Its doing a great job growing the plants on top of the tank that's for sure.

I also got a Jebao wave pump RW-8, I've put it on the lowest setting at the moment at 800lph 10% of its speed, Its a really nice little pump I have to say, it has a lot of nice little feature to help clean up the tank.

So I'm getting ready for the discus now and all stocked up with frezze dried, flake and pellets foods now just need to order the Discus now.

but only one problem I've had a blue ram die from bloat on the weekend so the question is should I wait a while or just the buy Discus?

I just did a 25% water change today so I'm hoping that will fix the problem as everything else is okay i did some tests just to make sure
nh3&4 0ppm
nitrates 10ppm
ph is 7.4
gh is 7
kh is at 3.88000
88001
88002
88002
88003
88004
88005
88005
88006

[Reesj]

nice set-up. I hope you know what you are doing with those plants growing on top rather than inside :)

[greengreen84]

Thanks Reesj, I tried a riparium on a 10 gallon tank first before I tried this one, It was okay but I used natural sunlight for that one instead of LEDs but I'm trying something different with this tank and hoping for a better result.

I'm off to jiangyin rd near peoples square today, I'm hoping there's some good quality discus since the taobao seller isn't responding to my girlfriend's questions in Chinese.

[Reesj]

BTW a small heads up! My discus love cardinals and neons! Specially considering the neons do not get that large even 3 inch Asian discus love to go after them!

[greengreen84]

Okay I decided I've been waiting long enough yesterday and bought what I could find in the shops, Plus the misses wanted some red melons and I couldn't talk her out of it, so I decided just keep to a yellow to red colours instead.

I'm not sure what type some of discus are so I'm going to roughly guess, if you know tell me, so I bought
2 x red melons
3 x yellow melons
2 x Orange pigeons
1 x brown discus
880578805888059880608806188062

[greengreen84]

An update on the discus, They are slowly getting used the new tank but they're still a bit skittish at the moment but are eating well.

I'm also changing my ideas on water changes and starting to adopt the ideas on this forum with 50% water changes every second day to start with, My original idea was to change 25% of the water once a week but after reading everyone's posts on water changes, I completely changed my idea lol.

Today I bought a few more tap filter pieces and upgraded it from a 5 stage filter to a 7 stage filter with a kdf filter and a nitrate resin filter, This should fix my nitrate problem in the tap water.

I'm not sure if I need the kdf filter but I have lots of rust in the pipes so I thought that the kdf would take out any dissolved metals from the tap water, I could just get a ro filter but I don't want to waste so much water and i don't want to deal with a booster pump.

So the filter now has a sediment filter (1 micron), cto, Gac, ion exchange, kdf, nitrate resin and a reminalizer and hopefully that's good enough.

also I'm slowly changing tank filter substrate to matrix instead of fertised plant substrate to cut down on the dissolved organics and I'm going BB!

I realised that my last discus tank wasn't best for their health and I should try to improve on my methods of keeping them
so I'm swaping to matrix and filter wool in the filter, bb in the tank and 50% water changes every second day.

I haven't taken out all the substrate yet, I'm trying to do it slowly so the bacteria can build up in the filter, I don't want to do any sudden changes with this tank so I'm going to do it over a week or so with everything anyway here's some pics of the tank.
881768817788178881798817988180