Preparing for Bio-Load When New Fish are Added

[Pet Detective]

I am currently preparing my 65 gallon planted aquarium tank to purchase 4-5 discus. I have a cascade canister filter and a UV submersible filter, a Co2 tank for my plants, about 5 tetras, 4 siamese algae eaters and a 2 1/2" placo. I removed over half of the plants and am slowly increasing the temperature to reach 85 degrees to acclimate the remaining plants, anubias, java ferns, ozelot sword and balansae, and of course an aged piece of driftwood. My water quality is excellent right now. I am raising the temperature one degree every other day.
Realizing that the bio-load will change when I add my new discuss, is there anything I should or should not do as I prepare my tank before introducing them? It will be an investment for the new additions, and I am seeking advice on what I didn't think about that could cause a disaster that could have been avoided. Any advice will be appreciated.
131407

[Second Hand Pat]

I would suggest using a QT for new arrivals and quarantine for six weeks. If you run into issues with your new discus it is much easier to treat in a QT vs a display tank with plants. Have you kept discus and plants before? If not I would suggest doing some reading on the forum before committing.
Pat

[Pet Detective]

Pat, that is great advice and I didn't think about having a quarantine tank set up ahead of time to make sure everyone is healthy and won't contaminate my tank or other fish. My experience has been with fresh water fish only. I am prepared to monitor the water quality and prepare water changes regularly, but I know that something will happen that I didn't see coming. I will get the quarantine tank set up to cover that base. Thanks!

[Iminit]

What size discus will you be getting? Are you ready to do daily water changes? Planted tanks are harder to keep discus in. Most of the fish waste get stuck in the plants so you will be vacuuming daily. Next if your discus do get sick and you have to treat the tank you may have to remove the plants. Some meds will kill them. Next have you been keeping plants for a long time? Have you been using co2 for a long time.I wouldn’t recommend co2. Sometimes with co2 there is a big ph swing during the day. Great for plants not so much for fish.

[nah]

The plants are for us, not the fish. Some of us have bare tanks with a few branches, at the most. As expected to maintain is much easier. If 85 degrees it too much for the plants or other fish the discus will do fine at 80 degrees.

[Iminit]

Many plants will live at 85. Some melt but will grow back. I would not recommend 80 for discus. For a beginner I’d say 84-86. 131446

[14Discus]

Many plants will live at 85. Some melt but will grow back. I would not recommend 80 for discus. For a beginner I’d say 84-86. 131446

+1

Btw.......even a non-beginner like me goes w a constant 86 degrees and the fish love it, stay healthy, and all is well. Just my thoughts. 80 is, imho, not warm enough for discus.

[nah]

The warmer the temperature the shorter the life span. Higher temps speed up the metabolism, and thus the life cycle. The difference between 79 and 75 isn't going to take years off your fishs life, but 75 to 85 will. Also, if you hope to spawn those fish you will want to be in the 80 to 82 degree range.

[Iminit]

We are talking discus? Mine lay eggs regularly at 86. 75 would just kill these fish.

[number1sixerfan]

In addition to the other advice, I would just say carefully acclimate the Discus to the CO2. Plenty of people use CO2 with discus planted tanks, I would just say start out light. I had a planted tank years ago with adult discus and eventually got rid of it as I was just too paranoid, but plenty of people do just fine.

[Pet Detective]

WOW! I didn't expect this much of a response to my plea for help! You are all wonderful and I will try to address all of your considerate concerns. I had great success with a 65 gal planted aquarium caring for angel fish. I left home for a week when my father died in February and an ice storm knocked out the power for three days. My pet sitter tried to save my fish, but my beautiful mature koi angels didn't make it. Since I had to replant the tank and basically start over, I have decided to challenge myself with a discus tank. I know I can do it, I have two filter systems working now, and removed half of the plants. I believe that the plants help balance the PH and Nitrates, and make keeping the tank healthy. Plus, the plants provide hiding places for fish and add beauty to the tank. If I didn't have success with my planted tank, I would be all-in for a non planted tank. I am not breeding fish, I just want a beautiful tank with beautiful discus.
I am not quite there yet with setting up an automated water changing system, so I am going to have to wager the benefit of having plants, and dealing with nitrates, and water changes. I want my aquarium to be somewhat of a display to show off healthy fish and plants. I will need to monitor the nitrate spike that is coming when I add the fish. Currently the tank is at zero, where it should be.
I am leaning towards 4-5 3" discus to start with.
I am searching for a 20 gallon quarantine tank (Pat's suggestion) to set up as a transition tank before entering them to the big tank
I have ordered a Co2 regulator to manage the fluctuations of Co2 in the tank
I already have an external canister filter and a UV filter to help keep the water clean.
I am also planning to add more algae eater fish to help keep the tank clean. I currently am under staffed for that, but that is an easy fix.
Thank you thank you thank you for responding to my post. I will keep you informed as I get everything ready for my new babies!

[14Discus]

I’d suggest 5”+ fish and thus avoid the growing out issues you’d have w a complicated tank like you’re talking about. Growing out 3” fish in the setting you are heading towards could be indeed tough. 3” fish are best grown out in a bare bottom tank for ease in cleaning since your feeding regimen will be quite intense if you want to bring/grow your fish to the glorious large sizes. Sorry to bring up still another issue, but I just want you to increase your likelihood of success.

[Iminit]

I like you have kept plants. I’ve done it for a long time. I would not recommend co2 as I stated earlier. Angels are much more forgiving than discus. A planted discus tank is very hard to up keep. The substrate needs to be cleaned. Fish waste which builds up at the base of plants and rocks needs to be removed. So your plants won’t be getting food from that. So you will need ferts. 3” discus. Would be best if grown out in a 30-55g tank and than latter moved into your display tank when at the 6” mark. Buying 6” discus would be a better move but not a guarantee to succeed.
You saw my tank above. That was last yr after a bout of cross contamination I’ve moved most of the gravel out and put the plants in planters. Meds can ruin a planted tank and discus are susceptible to certain things. This is that tank now.131449. And this is my 50g growout tank.131450. These discus are fed 6-10x a day and 60% water changed daily. I got these at 3.5”

[number1sixerfan]

I would not recommend co2 as I stated earlier. Angels are much more forgiving than discus.

In addition to that, all of those plants are low tech hardy plants. I would amend my earlier statement and say I definitely wouldn't use Co2 in this tank. Kind of glanced over in the initial post.

Also to the OP, you could use a fertilizer + carbon (obviously not anywhere as effective as a system) like Thrive C from Nilocg. One of the best sources for plant fertilizer in general, very popular brand on the planted tank boards. It would be a really good all in one low tech (and lower dosed) fertilizer you could does even lower as you dial in with needs. I use it in my planted tank with Discus for the same purpose.. but to be very clear with low tech plants it really isn't mandatory and I'd certainly avoid if feeding younger <5in discus frequently (mine are full adults that get less feedings).

https://www.nilocg.com/shop/thrive-c-all-in-one-liquid-fertilizer-for-aquarium-plants/