Please help???????????/

[nimo69]

I have been looking at discus for a long time . I have a few questions ?I have a 150 gallons tank and I have lots of live plants and (two ) mag 350 and a undergravel filter . My first Question the ph ? The Temp what should it be ?the Hardness ?? after waterchange should I use stress coat ?? Would clown loach hurt my discus (help with snails). How control water hardness ...


Please help I want the discus to be happy
Thank You
nimo69

[Robin764]

Greetings, and welcome:)
I would first of all get rid of the undergravel filter. They are "Crap-traps". It is nearly impossible to clean out the nasty things that stay down under there. Discus can be kept at a range of ph. Mine are kept and bred in a 7.8 ph. The trick is to keep it stable. Are you using an RO system? Aged water? I use tap water treated with Prime (a dechlorinating agent). Others use RO's, or age and heat their water.
Discus first and foremost need clean water. Secondly they need clean water....
Third a variety of food.
Most discus keepers myself included change 20-50% daily. I keep my discus at 84 degrees. Anything from 84-86 is the average.
There are plenty of awesome threads under the beginner section, and the water section to help you with your water parameters.
Some folks do keep clown loaches with their discus. I did at one time myself to solve my snail problem, but gave them away after the problem was solved. I switched from a planted to barebottom, and still had snails left over for a bit.
Once the discus bug bites you, I'm afraid there is no cure:)
So welcome aboard!!

Robin

[Carol_Roberts]

First thing you need to do is read through the beginner section here. There is lots of information for those new to discus. After reading you will find that pH and hardness do not matter much for juveniles discus. Undergravel filters are bad. Frequent water changes are good and the temp should be 84.

[Robin764]

lol, Carol, we must have been typing at the same time:):)

Robin

[ShinShin]

I will offer my experience and some opinions, too, to your questions.

pH - <7.0, the closer to 5.8 you can maintain it, the better.

UGF - Lose them. They are discus killers. Plants aren't too crazy about them either. Pot the plants and go barebottom on the tank.

Temp- 82-84F

I can't speak on hardness but conductivity I would shoot for 60-100 microsiemens.

Stress coat - No. I would use a conditioner that contained sodium thiosulfate only, unless you have chloromines in your water, then I'd go with Prime.

I don't recommend clown loaches with discus. The are nocturnal and disturb them while at rest. I have had them harass the discus, too.

[Cosmo]

Nimo,

What other than the plants and loaches do you have in the tank? Bio load is always a concern in Discus tanks.

Generally, UGF's are not recommended for Discus tanks due to their tendency to build up waste under the plates and consequently generate hi levels of nitrates. Perhaps your plants offset that.. Also sounds like the UGF is the only bio filter you have.. ?

Discus are sensitive to ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates... test your water and see where your readings fall. Ammonia/nitrates should be zero, and nitrates should ideally be zero or close to it.. they should never exceed 20. You may need to add additional bio filtration depending upon your results.

Discus can adapt to various degrees of water hardness and ph levels. Ideally, they prefer soft acidic water but there are many on the forum who are successful with very hard and very alkaline water. Daily water changes of 30 to 50% of the tank are recommended to keep the water quality up, but there are many who do less, however once a week is insufficient IMO. Again, the UGF would be a concern to me.

You should age your water if at all possible before adding it to the aquarium, airate it and bring it up to temp while aging. Use something like Prime to remove chlorine and/or chloramines and neutralize any ammonia, heavy metals, etc that may be present in your tap water.

Temp may be a concern to you as Discus need higher temps than most freshwater fish. A temp of 84 would be about the lowest I'd go, regular temps of 86/88 are not uncommon though. You will need a hospital tank if your fish become ill, as then you would want to raise the temp, certain treatments even require a temp of 92+ which is not a problem for the fish, but probably would be for your plants.

I don't keep anything other than Discus with my Discus, but there are those who keep clown loaches in their Discus tanks and don't report problems.

You should read thru the planted tank posts on the forum, and maybe even post there for more targeted advise. There are quite a few people who keep planted Discus tanks, but I'm not one of them.

hth's a little

Jim

[Cosmo]

I type too much :( There were no other posts here when I started.. lol Sorry for repeating what everyone else already said :)
Jim

[alpine]

ShinShin, I follow your posts, The recommendation to 5.8 ph is a little radical. I am a beginner like him and I have read many times PH is not that critical for overall keeping of discus unless you are breeding and hatching eggs.


roberto.

[ShinShin]

;lol Radiacal - no, optimal - yes.

I am "old school". I still believe discus ought to be kept as close to the natural conditions where they evolved.

True, discus are kept at all sorts of different pH and other water parameters. Presently, mine are kept at 6.5 pH because it is more convient for me as that is my tap water value. I am working on a better system to at least let me keep some at that range (5.8).

I kept discus in water in southcentral Pennsylvania where the town water was from a limestone river system, and while that water produced the great trout fishing it did little for the discus. When I switched to DI water and 5.8 pH, the difference was incredible in the looks and behavior of the discus and apistogrammas I also raised. Everybody started breeding.

[bio new]

lol, Carol, we must have been typing at the same time:):)

Robin

Pretty tiring reading such thread, but, I think its o.k. Newbies are like that, we help them what we can.

CHEERS!