Wild Altum Angels and Discus

[shakadog]

Hey all,

I am nearly at the stage of adding some fish to my tank at home. I also have a tank in my office that I have wild Angels in and 3 of these are Altums. Unfortunately there is something in this tank from a previous life that is causing its kh to rise to nearly 8 and thus its ph to over 7 no matter how many water changes etc I do. In fact when I do a large water change the fish start dying because of the ph drop and subsequent rise afterwards.

So I am thinking of removing the Altums and taking them home and having a school of Altums and maybe going with wild strain discus.

To say this is a topic that gets a bit of a debate is an understatement in terms of angels with discus. If you have done it successfully how long have you had it working for?

It's a large tank and there would be ample room but you also here about supposed cross contimantion of diseases etc between the two types of fish.

Any info be great as seriously debating trying to catch the last 3 Altums and take them home tonight when I leave the office.

[Nathan]

Do you know whats causing the kh increase? Sounds like rocks are leeching calcium raising you kh. What about your gh?

[shakadog]

No in the work tank I can't find it. The tank used to have Frontosa but it was stripped back to nothing. The only thing I can think of is the universal background either leeches KH or absorbed it from when it was a frontosa tank.

We took all gravel, White rock everything out and the water going in is neutral with almost no KH and GH in it and the tank is fully planted and has amazonia as its substrate with CO2 fertilisation. So everything in the tank should give a low ph and KH.

The tank im setting up at home is almost the same setup except for being a new tank and I had to add alkaline buffer to get a reading and get the ph to between 6.3 and 6.7.

So all very confusing, tank looks good though plants have grown in very well.

[Nathan]

Thats very strange. Anything unusual in your filter?

Pics?

[shakadog]

No there is nothing that can raise KH and ph in the filters. Have checked all that.

[Monarodan]

Hi there I have a6x2x2 with a home made background use to grow out my babie discus and l catfish in so lots of food going in and wood in there ph is a prob to always goes 8 plus real quik all my ather tank are opposite it thr background mayby yours is the same
Good luck

[ILLUSN]

I'd put money on calcium leaching from your background as well.

as for mixing altums and discus, they are similar fish with similar diseases so they could cross contaminate each other but if they do you'll have to treat the tank anyway and both respond to the same meds with similar tolerances (Discus a little hardier).
if your options are

1) is put with wild discus and watch possible occasional fighting and maybe stress on the discus.
2) leave the Altums in the current tank to die

I'd go with option 1

[Nathan]

I'd put money on calcium leaching from your background as well.

as for mixing altums and discus, they are similar fish with similar diseases so they could cross contaminate each other but if they do you'll have to treat the tank anyway and both respond to the same meds with similar tolerances (Discus a little hardier).
if your options are

1) is put with wild discus and watch possible occasional fighting and maybe stress on the discus.
2) leave the Altums in the current tank to die

I'd go with option 1

i agree. Since its such a large tank you may not have to many problems with bullying, time will tell