Am I ready for Discus?

[Dawna]

Hello everyone. I am new to Simply Discus and for the last month have been reading alot of the forums, I now have deleted all other forums and have joined this one, You are exactly what I am looking for.
Now are you ready for this? I have a 50 gal. tank, Little bit of rock (barely covering bottom), 3 pieces of african driftwood. 2 fake plant's (hate snail's). My system is a fluval 304, In it I have ammonia remover, bio max,only half the carbon . Is this correct? Should I put peat in the other half of the carbon? I have had the tank running for 7 weeks now and I am 98% sure I have gone through the cycle. Have gone through the high ammonia, Not to high though, after that really high nitrites, Did water changes and all that fun stuff. Yesterday every thing was normal but my ph was a little high. nitrite 0.1, ammonia 0, ph 7.8 or is that fine? I just did a 75% water change this morn. I think I covered everything if not ask away. So am I ready for these wonderful fishes? Please say yes ;D. If not what can I do now. Also are three juvies good for my size tank? Sorry if I seem to be a pain but I have been wanting discus for so long and I want to do it right. Any insight would be great. Thank-you
Dawna

[KD]

Hi Dawna,
My Ph is 7.8 to 8 and I have been successful since the start in April. I do not have any gravel and such, seems to grow out bigger babies and is so much easier to keep clean (nothing to get hidden under). I clean my tank everyday, higher PH is more important to keep clean- there is less acids in the water. At first I had some ornaments in the tank that were cleaned everyday- I took them out being frightened Discus tend to bump into things and get scrapes. I have heard Discus don't like carbon? I only use biological filtration- I have two tanks a 90 and 55 corner, in the 55 I have one Aquaclear 300 and two big sponges that had already been used in my other tank to get the bio filtration going.
What is you GH & KH you may want that checked out and make sure you don't have cholrine or cholramines too.
I am pretty new to this too and have learned a ton on this board.
Well sounds like a great start- Watch out though - you'll want more tanks and Dicus soon.
Have a Great time with it!
Karen

[Willie]

Dawna;

There should be no detectable nitrite in a fully cycled tank, so you're not fully cycled yet. But you've gone through the huge nitrite spike, so you're on your way.

Get minimum 6 discus from one single source. Your best approach is a local breeder with similar water conditions. The next best source is one of the sponsored people here. Be sure they all come from the same source and get ready to make water changes.

Good luck, Willie

[Cosmo]

Hi Dawna..

Welcome to Simply :)

Stable Ph is more important than trying to keep it artifically low.. they should do fine in your water.. Carbon isn't in and of itself bad.. it's just that after it soaks up everything it can soak in, it starts leaching it back into the water... that's what's bad ... Unfotunately, there's no indicator to tell you when it reaches saturation and most people don't exchange their carbon often enough.. so... it's better to do without and just make sure you do frequent water changes... same effect, more predictable.. carbon is good for removing medication though if you ever need to do that...

Willie's right, juveniles do better in a batch of 6 than in a batch of 3 .. when you do find a good breeder, make sure to ask them what water parameters the fish have been brought up in, what they've been eating, and what would be recommended in the way of temp etc. to get the tank ready to receive the new arrivals.

Then... sit back and get ready to do daily water changes, buy more tanks, buy more discus, .........

Best of luck and enjoy :)

Jim

[fish_maniac]

Dawna,
Welcome to the Simply! The water coming out from mytap is 7.6 and it goes up to 8.2 after a day in the storage bin with air stone and heat. My discus tank is at 8.2 and all of them are doing OK. It is too high for breeding but OK for grow up.
I would get at least 6 to 8 small discus since theywill do are better than 3.


Best of luck!

Kam

[Dawna]

Hi everyone, I would like to say thank-you for all the reply's. For two day's my tank have had all the normal ph etc. nitrites are down to 0. I took in a water sample last night where I am going to get my discus to make sure all match and they do. Now I need to ask are 6 juvies not too much for my 50 gal. tank? what about when they get bigger, won't I have to take some out? And what do you suggest is the best food to start them off?
Thanks again Dawna

[Cosmo]

Hi Dawna,

6 juveniles should do fine in a 50 gal BB - you'll be pretty much maxed out when they reach adulthood, but by then you'll probably have 3 or 4 more tanks anyway :)

Food depends upon your budget, what's available to you, and, how fast you'd like to see them grow.. many use beefheart either commercially prepared or made at home but you need to be careful with that since it fouls the water real fast if not eaten or quickly removed from the tank.

Live Brine or Black worms are excellent foods, but can be pricey and a pain ... frozen brine and Blood worms are usually available at most LFS's and are good hi protein foods (protein = growth).. most of us seem to prefer Hikari brand, seems to be the highest quality (these can be bought online as well for much less)

Good to maintain a variety to insure they get all the nutrition they need.. Tetra Color Bits, New Life Spectrum Discus Pellets, and a good quality grow out flake are all good choices (the Tetra bits are best soaked some first to avoid bloat).

Feed small portions as often per day as you can 4- 6 if possible, more frequent feedings will give you greater growth. I feed mine 6 times a day, 4 of which are dispensed by an autofeeder - brine/worms for break and last meal of the day, flake and pellets in between.

Whatever you feed be sure you don't feed so much that leftover food isn't allowed to accummulate in the tank or you'll experience problems - syphon out if need be ..

hth

Jim

[krandrus]

Hey Dawna,

I am from Calgary as well and I have been keeping Discus for about 6 months. Your Calgary water is ph 8.2.

I am familiar with most of the local sources for discus and would be happy to discuss them with you. You can email me your number at krandrus@yahoo.com and I would be happy to talk with you. There are some very poor sources of fish in town here, and it is very important to get good fish. I got one sick fish in my original batch and it has made life with discus a very difficult experience.

Kevin

[Dawna]

Well I went and bought my Discus today and I am grateful to this forum and to the people at the place where I had purchased them (I do not know if I am aloud to say the name of the store in this forum so I won't) for giving me the help and not discourage me from getting them like alot of other forums have before I found simply discus.
I bought 3 brilliant blues juvies for now, and there are some reds that will be ready to go in the next week or so.
I am sure I will have lot's more question's and any advice would be greatful.
Kevin If you don't mind I will take you up on e-mailing you soon to talk about Discis in Calgary The people I have found to purchase them came highly recommended by a few people and pet stores.
:) Dawna

[Rhinoboy38]

ok i have a suggestion and its not about the water stuff.....i had this happen to me. did you buy the tank brand new or did you get it from someone used.... i got one of mine at a tagsale and when i was at the point your at and about to get some discus i had a leak. now if i gotten some good fish in there they probly would have been belly up right there.

[Dawna]

Oh so sorry rhinoboy, My brother inlaw built me my tank, it is made out of thick plexi glass and rounded in the two front corner's. He has his own Plastic's shop and know's his stuff. If I ever get my camera back from being repaired I will learn to post some picture's. I now have three blues in the tank almost grown twice the size in three weeks ( Don't know if that is good or bad ) ( normal or not). And three more smaller ones just bought on thursday in QT tank. I hope thing's are going better for you now.

Dawna

[Dawna]

And I forgot to mention welcome back simply, was looking for you everyday. missed you alot.