How fast can I change my water without stressing the discus?

[Joseph.FK]

Hi, I have been reading the forum as much as I can. I am in the stage of buying all the necessary equipment. I plan to have about a dozen of 4” discus in the 125 gallon BB tank, and change the water daily with aged water. I can manage 50% daily. Would I be stressing the discus too much if I use a very powerful submersible pump, both to remove and replaced the water, to super-speed up the process? How fast can I remove the water? How much turbulent can the discus take when I replace the 60 gallons? I just want to be realistic with what I can and cannot do.

[DJW]

Have you seen this video?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWMnPZKJWaE

[FishFanMan]

Now that's a WC!

[Joseph.FK]

I saw that video last week when I was reading through the forum. I was amazed at how tough the discus are. If they don't mind this quick turbulent change, I would rather get a more powerful pump to be more efficient with time. May be I can even try to do 2 times a day as John recommended - feeding beef heart twice a day. This would just be until the discus will get to their full potential size.

[Filip]

They won't mind laundry washing machine turbulence for a short period,with aged water you can do as fast you can get.

But they do mind a constant turbulence and flow so watch for filters and powerheads flow.

If you can manage Wc 2 times a day with 4-5 meals, 2 times beefheart,that would be best care you can give them IMO.

[dprais1]

I emptied my tanks for a while with a 1.24" hose to siphon. Emptied 50 gallons + in 4-5 minutes, maybe less. The discus don't care.

But the faster the water travels the more suction it creates. you can suck up some large amounts of gravel/ sand. You can cause some damage to your discus if they get to close.

[Joseph.FK]

This is really cool. I did not know the discus don't mind the rush. Thanks you.

[Discus3anatic]

How do you guys prevent gas bubbles from water changes, i dont have the luxury or option to keep a 100 gallon barrel in my bedroom or upstairs where my discus tank is to age my water, so i just pour 3 capfulls of prime and use the faucet. Making sure the temps are the same with my infarred therm gun.. And everytime i do a water change 80% or so the tank is filled with micro bubbles and it pulls all the slimecoat on my discus.

I tried taking the hose out of the water and putting it on the very top pinched between my hood so it splashes against my slate stones but that doesnt fix it.. Im doing a water change again and i heared putting a sock on the end of the hose will fix it.. Im going to try that but i dont see what thats going to do lol.

[DJW]

If you run the water through foam or pillow batting it helps with the bubbles. Connect a soda bottle to the hose, fill the soda bottle with foam or floss. I cut off the bottom of the bottle and cover it with nylon stocking & rubberband to hold the foam inside.

[Woodduck]

Buy a filter sock and run your water through that. 200 or 100 micron will work just fine.

[Discus3anatic]

well i dont have that, but what i did was stuff my siphon python tube with some filter floss, then some fluval polishing pads and then a small micron sponge and i filled the tank up slower and while there were still micro bubbles it was like 70% better, ima get more polishing pads and stuff the whole thing with it next time

[Filip]

If you run the water through foam or pillow batting it helps with the bubbles. Connect a soda bottle to the hose, fill the soda bottle with foam or floss. I cut off the bottom of the bottle and cover it with nylon stocking & rubberband to hold the foam inside.

I do the same way with soda bottle.I think is more efficient since the water flows through a lot more foam material then just to attach it to the end of the hose, and thus it's better outgassed.

[Discus3anatic]

I did another water change today and this time my python gravel vac tube i had shoved from end to end polishing pads and kept the water flow lower coming from the faucet.. and wow.. its amazing you can see the polishing pads have tons of bubbles in them as they outgas the water. I hardly had any micro bubbles in my water and on my fish... prior to this every water change my plants and gravel and discus and other fish had so many microbubbles on them i could see the slime coat floating off.. And it took like an hour or two for the bubbles to go away...

Now there are practicly no bubbles.. Im starting to wonder if these microbubbles could be part of the problem for some of my sick discus

[bluelagoon]

I did another water change today and this time my python gravel vac tube i had shoved from end to end polishing pads and kept the water flow lower coming from the faucet.. and wow.. its amazing you can see the polishing pads have tons of bubbles in them as they outgas the water. I hardly had any micro bubbles in my water and on my fish... prior to this every water change my plants and gravel and discus and other fish had so many microbubbles on them i could see the slime coat floating off.. And it took like an hour or two for the bubbles to go away...

Now there are practicly no bubbles.. Im starting to wonder if these microbubbles could be part of the problem for some of my sick discus

Yes,micro bubbles will stress your discus.I've tried tap water but my discus didn't like it;I went back to aging my water.

[rickztahone]

I did another water change today and this time my python gravel vac tube i had shoved from end to end polishing pads and kept the water flow lower coming from the faucet.. and wow.. its amazing you can see the polishing pads have tons of bubbles in them as they outgas the water. I hardly had any micro bubbles in my water and on my fish... prior to this every water change my plants and gravel and discus and other fish had so many microbubbles on them i could see the slime coat floating off.. And it took like an hour or two for the bubbles to go away...

Now there are practicly no bubbles.. Im starting to wonder if these microbubbles could be part of the problem for some of my sick discus


Yes,micro bubbles will stress your discus.I've tried tap water but my discus didn't like it;I went back to aging my water.

Yes, this is a known problem with micro bubbles. I employed the 200 micron sock with prefilter wrapped around the hose.