advice needed

[mr.amir]

hello
i want to know which is better for juvenile discus fast and healthy growth
keeping them in a 50 gallon tank with 100% daily water changes or keeping them in a 145 gallon tank with just 10% water changes
and if the bigger tank is better then how many discus should i keep in there?
thanks all..

[Wes]

The 55 gallon clean water and a lot of good food. The 145 could make the fish skidish.

[Sean Buehrle]

The 55 of course.

You can have a 1000 gallon tank and at 10% changes your water will be crap in no time.

Waterchanges are the key to success.

[LizStreithorst]

No way I can give you an answer until I know how many you have and what size they are. I consider them juvies from 2" until they are 4 months and then I start calling them sub adults.

[Wes]

Sorry I made a assumption 69746

[LizStreithorst]

Sorry I made a assumption 69746

I imagine that you assumed correctly, but you never know for sure unless you ask.

[Sean Buehrle]

There was a woman on here about 8 years ago that gave a shot at growing out discus in a big swimming pool, I cant remember what her name was but it didn't work at all.
If I remember correctly they didn't grow more than an inch over the summer.
It was a neat experiment but surprised alot of folks on the outcome, most were expecting huge growth rates, if I remember right she also grew out some of the same spawn in her house and they grew normally far outpacing the pool housed fish.

I think it might have been April?

She had some sort of a party called debauchery in October or something like that, was around Halloween.

[discuspaul]

You could be right, Sean, it might have been April - sounds like something she might do.
I think it might have had something to do with the temp maintained in the pool ?

[LizStreithorst]

It was Beth from the southernmost tip of Lousiana. I remember her from the Aquaforum days. It didn't work but it was a great experiment.

[LizStreithorst]

It was Beth from the southernmost tip of Lousiana. I remember her from the Aquaforum days. It didn't work but it was a great experiment.

[mr.amir]

i'm not settled with number or size of the fish yet but i'd like to know the perfect dimensions for a tank and number of discus that fits there
the tank i've now is 31" * 17" * 19", i'd like to know if 6 of 2.5" discus in there would grow to their approx size with 100% daily water changes and good quality food and if a sponge filter is fine with this much water changes or do i need an external canister filter there too?

[Wes]

I use aquaclear hang on filter with my setups. I put 2 sponges in it instead of carbon and media. IMO. Keeps water clearer between water changes, adds some flow, aquaclears are adjustable flow, easy to clean, and the returning water add O2 breaking water surface. I use a cut piece of the filter , cut a slot in it to make a prefiler. 40 gallons for 6 - 2.5" is ok but 60 gallons for 6 full grown would be better. Many people use canister filters the the aquaclear works for me.

[Sean Buehrle]

I think your tank would be fine with 100% changes every day and 6 fish.

1 sponge filter and a hang on back power filter for added bio and aeration .

Go for it.

[zimmjeff]

how cool would it be to swim with your fish? Than when you wanted to take them out you could pretend to be on a fish collecting trip.

[ericatdallas]

hello
i want to know which is better for juvenile discus fast and healthy growth
keeping them in a 50 gallon tank with 100% daily water changes or keeping them in a 145 gallon tank with just 10% water changes
and if the bigger tank is better then how many discus should i keep in there?
thanks all..

Well, that's almost kind of silly question. With 100% WC, you're going to have clean water daily while a 10% WC, you'll always have junk in it.

But if you're interested, I did a quick calculation.

If you did 75% daily on a 50G aquarium, you would need to do about 51% WC on a 145G aquarium to keep the nitrates at the same level.

This may seem counter-intuitive, but it's b/c the WC paramters converge over time. So while your 145G starts out cleaner, you remove crap slower.

In conclusion, 75% of 50G is 37.5 GPD while 51% on 145G is 72.5 GPD.

So to get the same benefit on a 145 GPD tank, you need to use almost twice as much water. That's assuming your water is well-mixed, which is harder in a 145G tank.

I'm not discounting the benefits of having space for fish though (and I can imagine at a certain bio-load and stocking level, the psychological impact of space plays a role).

[ericatdallas]

Oh, in case you're wondering, 10% WC on the 145G leads to almost 10 times more nitrates over time as compared to 75% on a 50G.