Consigliere
12-28-2011, 02:37 AM
I haven't posted on this forum yet because I wasn't entirely sure I was going to make this a discus tank. My wife made it very clear that this tank needed some show quality fish because of the proportions. I knew I wanted a very large school of small tertras. I'm going to stock 50-60 cardinals and 20 -25 silver hatchets, but we both decided discus were a must as well! I had been lurking here for a while and knew there were a few suppliers in Ontario that were within driving distance so we looked at a few websites and determined that we would do discus in this tank 100%. The plan will be for 12 - 15, with the emphasis on standing out in a fairly heavily planted woodscape. I've had some recommendations for reds, and I would like to have blues as well. Specific species I'm not sure about. Would be looking for recommendations on that. I've never kept discus before but have done my research. The quantity and quality of feeding will be new to me, that's fore sure. The auto water change that is hooked up to my house drain will be a very nice feature.
I've been working on a tank build over the last 2 years. If I remember correctly, I got hooked up with the tank builder from someone on this forum. Long story (the whole build is on my blog) short, I have a 250G manzy tank planted with crypts (parva, wedntii 'green', wendtii 'bronze', cordata, balansae ponderfolia, retrospiralis and albida), anubias (barteri ), ferns (needle leaf, windelov and regular) and apongetong crispus
The tank has been up for about 8 or 9 weeks. All the equipment, installation and setup is detailed on my blog but the important things are :
Lighting: 480W T5H0, 4 x Geismann midday, 2x Geismann aquaflora for 6hrs a day and climbing
Filter: 70G Sump with 20G isolation chamber, Quiet One 9000 pump, 36W UV sterilizer, pressurized CO2 injection, pH controller, 800W heating, auto water change setup with sump pump to house drain
Tank: 250G custom, 3x 2" drains, 2x 2" returns
Hardscape: Manzanita driftwood zip tied together
Substrate: Netlea brown aqua soil
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-nuBVf-tkeps/Tu1tmty8scI/AAAAAAAABZw/M0hJnDYQaxk/s800/DSC_0204.JPG
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/--PhmW7yWnnI/Tu1uYZcsinI/AAAAAAAABac/4OuJGl45a08/s800/DSC_0257.JPG
Most of the crypts in this shot (about a week old) have completed melted. The parva and wendtii 'green' took the least damage after planting. The melted plants are just starting to sprout back now. Will be a while to everything grows out and thickens up to the intended levels. Onto the fish:
Current Fish/Inverts; 2 x clown pleco, 2 x rubber nose pleco, 1 x albino bushynose pleco, 11x panda corys, 13x otos and ~80-90 ghost shrimp.
The plan will be to add a few more plecos, a school of 15-20 sterbai corys, a few more otos, and any inverts I can get locally that would be suitable. I'm wondering about rams as well. I haven't read good things about rams and corys together. Anyone have positive experience with this stocking? After that discus will hopefully be going in.
I'm also going to beef up the planting with some smaller anubias species. I'm going to add 5-6 stems of anubias nana 'gold' and 'petite' to the driftwood.
I still have to repair my CO2 solenoid to optimize the setup and put the cabinet around the stand. Other than that, this setup is just needing some fish!
I've been working on a tank build over the last 2 years. If I remember correctly, I got hooked up with the tank builder from someone on this forum. Long story (the whole build is on my blog) short, I have a 250G manzy tank planted with crypts (parva, wedntii 'green', wendtii 'bronze', cordata, balansae ponderfolia, retrospiralis and albida), anubias (barteri ), ferns (needle leaf, windelov and regular) and apongetong crispus
The tank has been up for about 8 or 9 weeks. All the equipment, installation and setup is detailed on my blog but the important things are :
Lighting: 480W T5H0, 4 x Geismann midday, 2x Geismann aquaflora for 6hrs a day and climbing
Filter: 70G Sump with 20G isolation chamber, Quiet One 9000 pump, 36W UV sterilizer, pressurized CO2 injection, pH controller, 800W heating, auto water change setup with sump pump to house drain
Tank: 250G custom, 3x 2" drains, 2x 2" returns
Hardscape: Manzanita driftwood zip tied together
Substrate: Netlea brown aqua soil
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-nuBVf-tkeps/Tu1tmty8scI/AAAAAAAABZw/M0hJnDYQaxk/s800/DSC_0204.JPG
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/--PhmW7yWnnI/Tu1uYZcsinI/AAAAAAAABac/4OuJGl45a08/s800/DSC_0257.JPG
Most of the crypts in this shot (about a week old) have completed melted. The parva and wendtii 'green' took the least damage after planting. The melted plants are just starting to sprout back now. Will be a while to everything grows out and thickens up to the intended levels. Onto the fish:
Current Fish/Inverts; 2 x clown pleco, 2 x rubber nose pleco, 1 x albino bushynose pleco, 11x panda corys, 13x otos and ~80-90 ghost shrimp.
The plan will be to add a few more plecos, a school of 15-20 sterbai corys, a few more otos, and any inverts I can get locally that would be suitable. I'm wondering about rams as well. I haven't read good things about rams and corys together. Anyone have positive experience with this stocking? After that discus will hopefully be going in.
I'm also going to beef up the planting with some smaller anubias species. I'm going to add 5-6 stems of anubias nana 'gold' and 'petite' to the driftwood.
I still have to repair my CO2 solenoid to optimize the setup and put the cabinet around the stand. Other than that, this setup is just needing some fish!