howdy new to discus

[bruceau]

Hey people,

thought id say hi and share what im getting myself into atm..

i have a tank which is about 30x20x20
water is:
ph 6.9
nitrates/nitrites/ammonia 0

i have 4 little discus, i think i may have a couple of pairs, i see them shimmer at each other and they break off into groups of 2.

iv only had them about 2 weeks things are going well, i have a mix of tetras coydas and a small tiger pleco, and a couple of klown loaches.

tank has a fluval 105 and gravel and plants and some driftwood.

iv been told that it can be risky to keep discus with gravel/plants but i guess i will see how i go, iv been keeping fish for years this is my first attempt at growing this young discus up, as they grow ill more then likly get them a bigger tank i really want to build a 100% planted and discus tank in the near future.

i brought the discus off Don a Brisbane breeder enjoy the pics, i plan to take photos as the grow up so i can keep track of the colours as the mature.

http://www.tubes.net.au/dump/discus/1.jpg
http://www.tubes.net.au/dump/discus/2.jpg
http://www.tubes.net.au/dump/discus/3.jpg
http://www.tubes.net.au/dump/discus/4.jpg
http://www.tubes.net.au/dump/discus/5.jpg
http://www.tubes.net.au/dump/discus/6.jpg
http://www.tubes.net.au/dump/discus/7.jpg

[Mickey C]

Welcome aboard Bruce. Looks like your guys are swimming around quite happily :)

I assume your dimensions are in inches? So it's roughly 75*50*50cm? Owning a Fluval 105 myself I think they're only rated to 100L, so you're looking at 180L? You don't happen to have a larger filter? ;)

I'm sure you're going to find heaps of useful information here!

[bruceau]

yeah well the problem was i brought the filter for a 24x12x12 and it had a problem so i quickly brought this tank. (was very unplanned and rushed) the tank split.

its been keeping the quality of the water very well for the last 6 months so im going to stick with it for now i plan to buy a new filter when i start the new tank project..

since i got the discus im keeping an eye on the water quality to ensure they will be happy and going to try and keep a 20% water change once a week.

[Merrilyn]

Hi Bruce, welcome to the forum :wave

Nice looking tank you've got there. You can boost your filtration with the addition of a simple sponge filter.

Your pleco could be a problem down the track. They tend to develop a taste for discus body slime and worry the discus while they're trying to sleep. Not the best tankmates for discus :wink:

Young discus need lots of food and pristine water for optimum growth, that' why we recommend a tank without plants for growing out juveniles.

Water changes need to be in the order of 30% twice a week, with thorough gravel vacuuming at each water change. The best growth rate comes with feeding 6 or more times a day along with daily waterchanges.

As you can see, the 'King of the aquarium' is a lot more particular about tank conditions than the average fish. It's quite a challenge to raise good discus, but also very rewarding.

Welcome to the club.

[bruceau]

iv just upgrade my tank to a 200lt crn tank, and im gunna get a new ehiem in a couple of days ;) plenty of room to grow now ;P

[nicholas76]

New Pics needed :!:

[bruceau]

Hey Guys,

Sorry about the delay in pics, i did post some a few weeks ago in another thread but here's a good place to keep updating so ill make the effort to keep posting in here...

so... a update on whats happend:
picked up a trigon 190 cheap like $200... amazingly good deal.

Cons: one of the fish kept getting sick and has died... but since hes gone all the other fish have become much more active and happy, so sad that it was that he died, i think the other 3 are better off for it?

fish are now happy to eat out of my hand...


heres some pics:
http://img841.imageshack.us/img841/4432/img4614b.th.jpg (http://img841.imageshack.us/i/img4614b.jpg/)
http://img651.imageshack.us/img651/9454/img4621z.th.jpg (http://img651.imageshack.us/i/img4621z.jpg/)
http://img715.imageshack.us/img715/1498/img4624jg.th.jpg (http://img715.imageshack.us/i/img4624jg.jpg/)
http://img841.imageshack.us/img841/5125/img4631u.th.jpg (http://img841.imageshack.us/i/img4631u.jpg/)
http://img841.imageshack.us/img841/1567/img4633d.th.jpg (http://img841.imageshack.us/i/img4633d.jpg/)
http://img820.imageshack.us/img820/2254/img4636ee.th.jpg (http://img820.imageshack.us/i/img4636ee.jpg/)
http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/834/img4649f.th.jpg (http://img143.imageshack.us/i/img4649f.jpg/)
http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/9729/img4651v.th.jpg (http://img199.imageshack.us/i/img4651v.jpg/)
http://img801.imageshack.us/img801/1662/img4655a.th.jpg (http://img801.imageshack.us/i/img4655a.jpg/)





PS: i had a horrid time in the last week, MASSIVE PH CRASH!!....
So i was in a rush and went to a pet store and picked up some chlorine remover, sadly didnt have all the other good stuff in it... and when i did the water change, it had a massive affect on my ph and caused a massive crash obviously i couldn't understand what was going on, and changed more water which caused more of a problem 2 days later the ph was way way way down, i think my filters were screwed, and i pulled a large majority of my fish out sadly the dmg was done i lost alot of my cherries shrimps :/ saved some..

so at this point im now keeping an eye on the Ni/Na/Am and Ph and doing water changes to keep it down...

silly mistake anyways next time i wont be using anything but trusted products like primed.... and if i cant find it... ill really do some research before i use a different product.. also i don't have the room for a water cycling/prep tank or i would to that... :/ such a stupid rookie mistake, my face is honestly red as this is the first time its ever happened to me and iv had tanks since i was like 9 yo...

sorry to the TL;DR post ;)