Is my setup correct?

[Serline]

was recently blessed with a used 75g tank with a gorgeous wooden cabinet + canopy that matches my living room. ive always wanted to do discus but they are so expensive and I would be devistated if I spent $50+ per fish and have them all die from a small mistake

I just got done plumbing my 3 stage rodi to mitigate my awful well water, planning to use saltyshrimp to get the gh and kh perfect. i also happened to get gifted a barely used oase bm thermo 850 from a guy who went all out and suddenly got cold feet. i dont have experience with canisters but its rated for 225 gallons. planning to do heavy plants, tank is still in progress but already have some huge mopani wood.

my main questions are:

are weekly water changes still necessary with this giant filter and a densely planted setup?

is saltyshrimp (planning to mix the bee shrimp and neo variety) a good option or is there something better/cheaper I could be using?

do i absolutely need to have a heater in rodi resivior? (it sits around room temp, i know that should be obvious but also use the water for my other tanks which are colder, not sure how to make everyone happy with that as I only have space for 1 brute can near the rodi. I have another with wheels for transferring the water like at fish stores)

this isnt my first rodeo but it is with these fish, most of my knowledge is saltwater but tbh ive always found these intimidating

thanks for reading if you got this far

[Second Hand Pat]

Hi Serline and welcome to SimplyDiscus. My first suggestion is to keep discus without plants first. Learn how to keep the fish well before adding plants. Discus will do better with daily water changes (about a third of the tank volume). Discus should be kept temp wise at about 82. Sometimes higher temps are needed. You may need a heater for your water change bin. I would also suggest keeping discus as the only fish in the tank as a starting point. Learn how to quarantine especially when getting new fish.
Pat

[Second Hand Pat]

Hi Serline, after reading your post again I looked up saltyshrimp. I see these products are using for shrimp. Are you planning on adding shrimp with discus. If yes shrimp might be a tasty treat for discus so you might want to rethink your plan.
Pat

[Charlyc11]

Welcome to SimplyDiscus
First what are your water paraments before and after aging for 24hrs with aeration. TDS, PH, GH and KH.

[dspeers]

Now I am curious, I get how aging affects pH, but how does it impact gH, kH, and TDS?

[Charlyc11]

Now I am curious, I get how aging affects pH, but how does it impact gH, kH, and TDS?

It doesn't, PH mainly to see before and after the GH, KH and TDS to know where it's at.

[Willie]

What's missing in your description is your water changing set up. Changing water is drudgery, but absolutely critical to healthy discus. You need to set up a simple system to condition water, to drain water and to refill the tank. Also, a canister filter is a poor fit for a discus tank because they are difficult to clean. Running a filter does not clean the tank. Cleaning the filter cleans the tank. And there's no such thing as over filtering...

[jeep]

Here's a good thread on the importance of water changes, regardless of filtration -

https://forum.simplydiscus.com/forum/main-discus-topics/discus-basics-for-beginners/93550-what-are-bioload-and-biomass-and-why-they-are-important

[Charlyc11]

I ask for your water parameters since the less you fuss over the water the easier your water changes are going to be. Awful well water does not describe what you have and plenty of us use well water. My well has little to none KH so I have to add buffer and I still have to do lot's of water changes to keep the PH stable. I have a very large RO unit and I stopped using on a regular basis unless I wanted to breed. Now I just age, filter (carbon block + sediment), add alkaline buffer and heat my water before I do water changes. My average TDS lately is 240 it use to be less but I increase my buffer adds. I use Tidal filters, Wet Dry sumps and sponge filters on my 3 tanks (125G, 90G and 55G). All tanks are bare bottom so my daily bottom cleaning takes 15 min.