Newbie here, wanted to say "Hi"

[Makingwaves]

This is the second time around - this better work.. LOL

Decided to take the plunge and went for it. Bought my first discus 2 weeks ago. Went with a breeding pair of adults (one red tourq. and a cobalt blue).
Tankmates include some neon and glowlight tetras, rasporas, 3 chinese AE's, and some cory cats (albino and emerald green).

Home for them is a 55 gal. corner tank, gravel base, all fake plants, fake driftwood, filtration is a UGF with a 402 powerhead, Rena Canister XP2 to be updated to a XP3. Temp is at 85, Nitrites and Ammonia are at 0, my PH is a lil high at 7.5. I'm doing water changes every other day and are about 25%.

A couple of questions. Been reading about carbon use, one of the packs included with the XP canisters is the Bio-Chem with contains carbon - can I still use this?

With the high PH, (I'd like it around 7.0) I was going to put the peat pellets in the filter, good/bad/indifferent? Will the bio-chem pack negate the effect of the peat. Tetra also makes a blackwater additive, I like the effect it gives to the water, but only lasts a couple of days, is the bio-chem effecting this?

Also - the discus will only eat live blood worms. I don't mind feeding them this (the LPS isn't that far away) - did try doing a 50/50 mix with frozen, seems they ate the live, after that wouldn't touch it.

I'm also considering getting 2 more smaller Discus in the very near future if things continue to go well. Opinions?

Any suggestions, or things I should look out for? Been lurking, but it appears to be a wonderful place here.

TIA,
Keith

[Mike_T]

welcome to the board! have you read through the stickied posts at the top of this forum? they'll answer a lot of those questions. that should give you a good idea on how to set up and care for the fish. there's also the Simply Library (http://www.simplydiscus.com), read through that and it should answer a lot of your questions. stick a post in the food section asking what others feed their discus, you'll find that a wide variety of foods are fed...and congratulations. hope you stick around.

-miket

[Stephish]

The gurus will tell you not to mess with your PH - it's fine unless you want to breed, and then just mix tap water with reverse osmosis (details elsewhere). Blackwater can make it hard to keep PH stable. Also sounds like your tank is pretty maxed out. You'll want a second one for a school of juveniles (I'm telling you, these folks are evil!) :D Good luck!

[Carol_Roberts]

Your pH is fine, don't worry about changing it.
Black water extract is a waste of money. Your carbon is probably removing it from the tank.

Undergravel filters are not recommended for discus. I bet it's getting full of live blackworms ;) I fyou are going to change to a different filter you should go with a hang on the back like Aqua Clear. Canister filters are a pain to clean and the bacteria quickly dies during a power failure.

would just do the adult pair in this tank. If you decide you want more discus grow out 6 + juveniles in a bare bottom 55 gallon.

[Cosmo]

black water tonic is essentially a waste of money, unless you've got really lousy water in your area (and probably even still) .. and.. will bring down the ph, in a not always predicatable way so you may experience ph crashes as well.

Carbon is only bad if a) - it's cheap carbon that will leach phosphates etc (which biochem probably wont') or b) you leave it in too long and it starts leaching everything it previously absorbed. Problem is, most people leave it in too long so the prefered alternative is regular substantial water changes. Carbons and resins are great for removing meds, but again, once they get too old they're counterproductive.

Under gravel filters seem like a good idea and used to be recommended.. but not any more for Discus... ever lift one out after a few months or more... YUCK :( no way your powerhead will keep the area between the plate and the tank bottom free of buildup.. your nitrates aren't bad so your buildup under there probably isn't too bad.. yet

Carol's right about the worms too.. you probably notice worm pieces coming out of the powerheads on occassion? the worms will dig down below the plate and get sucked up.. sometimes they pass thru the powerhead intact, sometimes not but it does provide a treat for the fish either way.. probably the only good thing about UGF's I can think of :) but.. better off w/o it..

Discus get spoiled to live worms very very quickly, can be a tough habit to break... I know :o Feed them the frozen and/or flake/pettlets for breakfast when they're hungriest and they'll slowly come around

definately go w/ the bb tank for the juveniles.. it'll only be the first of many more tanks to come... trust me :D
Jim

[tlum]

Hi Keith,

Welcome to the symply forum. I also suggest that you should remove the Chinese AE from the tank. Chinese AE attacks slow moving fish and may not be a good tankmate for discus.

TerryL