Onewolf
09-04-2017, 10:19 AM
The destination
A 90 gallon Discus/community/display tank in the family room with 6-7 adult Discus. While waiting for the juvi Discus to mature in a grow tank the 90 will be populated with ~16 Cardinal Tetras, ~14 X-Ray Tetras, 5-6 Sterbai Cory, 3-4 Ottos, 1 Pleco
The journey
We would like to purchase 10-12 approx 2.5" Discus of 6-7 different strains/patterns. We want a mix of colors/solids/stripes/etc.
The reality: I have not been able to find many 2.5" Discus of desired strains from a single breeder so the current plan is to purchase approx 3" juvis which seem more plentiful/available. Hans has everything we want except Yellow Diamond/Crystal so I plan to purchase 8 juvis from Hans and 3 from Wattley.
The current planned mixture of strains looks like:
Wattley:
2 Albino Yellow Crystals Yellow
1 High Body Turquoise Blue
16 Cardinal Tetra (Go immediately into 90 community tank)
Hans:
2 German Wonder Blue/Brown/Red
2 Blue Diamond Blue
2 Pigeon Snakeskin Orange/Red/White
1 Checkerboard Orange
1 Fire Red Red
The 'Grow' tank is a 40 gallon breeder tank located in my wife's sewing/crafts room. Her only requirement for this tank is that the stand look like a decent piece of furniture. Therefore I built a 2x4 stand enclosed in 3/4" red oak veneer plywood and 3/4" red oak boards on the front. I think it's overbuilt such that it could support 10,000 lbs. :)
We live in Central Florida and our tap water is rather hard and we have a whole house water softener. For some reason the water softener removes a lot more GH than KH.
Tap water (with our whole house water softener):
7.5 PH (tap and aged)
120 ppm KH
20 PPM GH
250 TDS
Grow Tank Details
Bare Bottom
Daily 50% water changes
Maintain the grow tank at 87-88 degrees - Aqueon Pro 150 heater
Penn Plax Cascade 100 HOB filter + Lustar Hydro IV sponge filter
Beamswork ET Series 36" light + timer
Feeding Plan: Feed Frozen Beefheart (Start with San Fransisco Bay) three times daily (6AM, 12PM, 6PM) + Auto timer feed flake/pellets at 9AM and 3PM). Water change after 6PM feeding.
Current Status of grow tank:
The 40 grow tank is assembled and I am cycling the filters using Dr Tim's Ammonium Chloride solution (I was unable to find 'household' ammonia that didn't foam up when the bottle is shaken) and Seachem Stability to encourage bacteria to grow.
I have been cycling the tank for 4 days now and the ammonia is at 2ppm but no signs of nitrite.
Once the filters have cycled I will order the discus.
Current Status of 90 gal display tank
My wife insisted on having a full canopy because she's concerned that having four adventurous cats could be a problem with just a glass canopy. Therefore we ordered an Aquarium Woods Grande Crown stand/canopy in Espresso (http://aquariumwoodproducts.com/aquariumcabinet_grandseries.html) from a LFS and it took 5 weeks before it was delivered to the store. While we waited for the stand to be delivered I cycled two Penn Plax Cascade 1200 filters with the tank in the garage. We picked up and setup the stand/tank in the family room. I like the canopy setup with the front doors for easy/quick access and the whole front of the canopy can be flipped up/back for more complete access. I still have the two canister filters cycling using 5 gallon buckets in the garage with Dr Tim's Ammonium Chloride and Seachem Stability.
We are currently waiting for the tannins to finish leaching out of some driftwood in our swimming pool before we aquascape and fill the tank with water. I plan to install a black backdrop for the tank as well.
Stay tuned.
http://www.onewolf.org/Album/Aquariums/Discus%20Grow%20Tank/slides/20170819_044616.jpg
http://www.onewolf.org/Album/Aquariums/Discus%20Grow%20Tank/slides/20170819_082117.jpg
http://www.onewolf.org/Album/Aquariums/Discus%20Grow%20Tank/slides/20170819_073742.jpg
http://www.onewolf.org/Album/Aquariums/Discus%20Grow%20Tank/slides/20170819_073840.jpg
http://www.onewolf.org/Album/Aquariums/Discus%20Grow%20Tank/slides/20170819_155934.jpg
http://www.onewolf.org/Album/Aquariums/Discus%20Grow%20Tank/slides/20170822_052042.jpg
http://www.onewolf.org/Album/Aquariums/Discus%20Grow%20Tank/slides/20170827_102954.jpg
http://www.onewolf.org/Album/Aquariums/Discus%20Grow%20Tank/slides/IMG_4910.jpg
http://www.onewolf.org/Album/Aquariums/Discus%20Grow%20Tank/slides/IMG_4965.JPG
The 90 gal cycling the filters in the garage:
http://www.onewolf.org/Album/Aquariums/90%20Gal%20Community/slides/IMG_4915.JPG
http://www.onewolf.org/Album/Aquariums/90%20Gal%20Community/slides/IMG_4912.JPG
http://www.onewolf.org/Album/Aquariums/90%20Gal%20Community/slides/IMG_4972.JPG
A 90 gallon Discus/community/display tank in the family room with 6-7 adult Discus. While waiting for the juvi Discus to mature in a grow tank the 90 will be populated with ~16 Cardinal Tetras, ~14 X-Ray Tetras, 5-6 Sterbai Cory, 3-4 Ottos, 1 Pleco
The journey
We would like to purchase 10-12 approx 2.5" Discus of 6-7 different strains/patterns. We want a mix of colors/solids/stripes/etc.
The reality: I have not been able to find many 2.5" Discus of desired strains from a single breeder so the current plan is to purchase approx 3" juvis which seem more plentiful/available. Hans has everything we want except Yellow Diamond/Crystal so I plan to purchase 8 juvis from Hans and 3 from Wattley.
The current planned mixture of strains looks like:
Wattley:
2 Albino Yellow Crystals Yellow
1 High Body Turquoise Blue
16 Cardinal Tetra (Go immediately into 90 community tank)
Hans:
2 German Wonder Blue/Brown/Red
2 Blue Diamond Blue
2 Pigeon Snakeskin Orange/Red/White
1 Checkerboard Orange
1 Fire Red Red
The 'Grow' tank is a 40 gallon breeder tank located in my wife's sewing/crafts room. Her only requirement for this tank is that the stand look like a decent piece of furniture. Therefore I built a 2x4 stand enclosed in 3/4" red oak veneer plywood and 3/4" red oak boards on the front. I think it's overbuilt such that it could support 10,000 lbs. :)
We live in Central Florida and our tap water is rather hard and we have a whole house water softener. For some reason the water softener removes a lot more GH than KH.
Tap water (with our whole house water softener):
7.5 PH (tap and aged)
120 ppm KH
20 PPM GH
250 TDS
Grow Tank Details
Bare Bottom
Daily 50% water changes
Maintain the grow tank at 87-88 degrees - Aqueon Pro 150 heater
Penn Plax Cascade 100 HOB filter + Lustar Hydro IV sponge filter
Beamswork ET Series 36" light + timer
Feeding Plan: Feed Frozen Beefheart (Start with San Fransisco Bay) three times daily (6AM, 12PM, 6PM) + Auto timer feed flake/pellets at 9AM and 3PM). Water change after 6PM feeding.
Current Status of grow tank:
The 40 grow tank is assembled and I am cycling the filters using Dr Tim's Ammonium Chloride solution (I was unable to find 'household' ammonia that didn't foam up when the bottle is shaken) and Seachem Stability to encourage bacteria to grow.
I have been cycling the tank for 4 days now and the ammonia is at 2ppm but no signs of nitrite.
Once the filters have cycled I will order the discus.
Current Status of 90 gal display tank
My wife insisted on having a full canopy because she's concerned that having four adventurous cats could be a problem with just a glass canopy. Therefore we ordered an Aquarium Woods Grande Crown stand/canopy in Espresso (http://aquariumwoodproducts.com/aquariumcabinet_grandseries.html) from a LFS and it took 5 weeks before it was delivered to the store. While we waited for the stand to be delivered I cycled two Penn Plax Cascade 1200 filters with the tank in the garage. We picked up and setup the stand/tank in the family room. I like the canopy setup with the front doors for easy/quick access and the whole front of the canopy can be flipped up/back for more complete access. I still have the two canister filters cycling using 5 gallon buckets in the garage with Dr Tim's Ammonium Chloride and Seachem Stability.
We are currently waiting for the tannins to finish leaching out of some driftwood in our swimming pool before we aquascape and fill the tank with water. I plan to install a black backdrop for the tank as well.
Stay tuned.
http://www.onewolf.org/Album/Aquariums/Discus%20Grow%20Tank/slides/20170819_044616.jpg
http://www.onewolf.org/Album/Aquariums/Discus%20Grow%20Tank/slides/20170819_082117.jpg
http://www.onewolf.org/Album/Aquariums/Discus%20Grow%20Tank/slides/20170819_073742.jpg
http://www.onewolf.org/Album/Aquariums/Discus%20Grow%20Tank/slides/20170819_073840.jpg
http://www.onewolf.org/Album/Aquariums/Discus%20Grow%20Tank/slides/20170819_155934.jpg
http://www.onewolf.org/Album/Aquariums/Discus%20Grow%20Tank/slides/20170822_052042.jpg
http://www.onewolf.org/Album/Aquariums/Discus%20Grow%20Tank/slides/20170827_102954.jpg
http://www.onewolf.org/Album/Aquariums/Discus%20Grow%20Tank/slides/IMG_4910.jpg
http://www.onewolf.org/Album/Aquariums/Discus%20Grow%20Tank/slides/IMG_4965.JPG
The 90 gal cycling the filters in the garage:
http://www.onewolf.org/Album/Aquariums/90%20Gal%20Community/slides/IMG_4915.JPG
http://www.onewolf.org/Album/Aquariums/90%20Gal%20Community/slides/IMG_4912.JPG
http://www.onewolf.org/Album/Aquariums/90%20Gal%20Community/slides/IMG_4972.JPG