First ever Discus Tank!!

[Caesar]

Hello everyone,

I am interested in starting up a discus tank. To date I have 11 ciclids tanks but thought that my 350l corner tank inside would look really cool with something different, thus discus.

As I said I am new to the discus game. SO could someone point me in the right direction. Is there any links that provide you with the A-Z of discus keeping. I plan to scroll thru this site and pickup as much info as possible.

Some simple one's though just to get me started.

Can you confirm

PH
Water Temp
What types of foods
Do they need plants or driftwood
How often do you need to do water changes

Any other info would be great. Anything to get me thru the working day.

Cheers

Jason

aka Caesar :D

[Merrilyn]

Hi Jason and a very warm welcome to the forum. Your corner tank will look fantastic with discus swimming in it. As it's inside, you might like to add some plants and driftwood to make it look more decorative.

Okay, now some simple rules to get you started.

Water - we are so lucky living in Melbourne. Our water is almost perfect for keeping discus without having to do much more than filter it. My water comes out of the tap at a pH of 7 and varies very little. Naturally, you need to know the pH of your tapwater, so fill a kitchen glass with water, let it stand for a few hours, then do your pH test. You might like to do an ammonia and hardness test at the same time. This way you know what you're working with.

Discus prefer fairly soft water, with a pH of anything between 6 to about 7.8. The main thing is to keep it stable, no ups and downs with the pH. They hate that.

Temperature - 29 to 30 is good. These fish come from very warm water. In cases of illness you can even go up to 33 or even 34 for a short time.

Food - most of us feed a mixture of beefheart, either made at home, or purchased from the aquarium shop as 'Discus Dinner' or something similar. Frozen Bloodworms, Brine Shrimp and Mysis Shrimp are all relished by most discus. Balance that out with a good quality dry food, like Tetra Bits or Breeders Premium or one of the other flakes or granules designed for discus.

Plants or Driftwood - both work well in the discus tank. You can either choose to have a planted tank, with things like amazon swords planted in amongst the driftwood pieces, or you can go a bare bottom tank (easier to clean) and have plants like anubias attached to driftwood, or plants in shallow decorative pots with gravel. Have a look through the photo gallery of this site for some ideas. Members are successfully :P keeping discus in both types of tanks.

Water Changes - this is where discus differ from most other fish, especially your cichlids. They need very clean water, and that is the one golden rule that you just can't mess with. Changing the water daily is not too often, and in my opinion, changing the water only once a week is not often enough. So you need to work out how you're going to manage these frequent water changes. All my tanks get a water change of around 30% every second day. Good filtration with a mature filter is very important, but make sure the water flowing back into the tank is diffused somehow. Discus don't like too much current in the water, they come from quiet still pools around the amazon, so try to pass the outflow through a spraybar to diffuse the current.

Airstones - I believe an airstone is just about essential in a discus tank. You can't have too much oxygen in the water, and remember that warm water holds a lot less oxygen than cool water, so pump that air into the tank.

Okay,well I guess that's given you plenty to think about for a while. Anything you're not sure on, ask away. We have lots of wonderful members here who are only too willing to share their experience and knowledge with you.

Welcome to the wonderful world of discus, the king of the aquarium.

[FishLover]

Be ware, you will be hooked forever if you decided to jump in, like most of us here.

I used to have ciclids and switched to Discus about few months back. As long as you follow Ladyred's advices on water and food, you should not have any problems. I which I could have your kind of water in my area! PH 7.3 does not come easy for me since my tap water is about PH 8.3.

Due to the water change schedule, you may want to consider it carefully with your vacations. I had no problems leaving my ciclids for few weeks without water change. Now I have to really think about my next vacation. Discus are not cheap, you really don't want to lose them.

[Caesar]

Thanks guys,

I think I will continue to research this some more before jumping in. As I move alot and go out into the field (army) quite often I don't know If I can give these guys what they need. I may have to watch and learn for awhile before i take the plunge.

Anyway thanks for the tips. I will be storing these for later use.

Cheers

Jason

[Nathan]

im about to invest into a tank for discus and have been doin some research and some sites have said that if you want a planted tank for discus you need a co2 injector, does anyone know if this is true>?

this is my first time to this forum so be nice :)

[Merrilyn]

Check out the Amazon Gardens forum on this site Nathan. I keep discus in planted tanks without using CO2 and it seems to be working so far, but I do have fertilizer tablets in the substrate, and I add Seachem Flourish to the water on a regular basis.

[RichVic]

LR,
Wondering if you could share the brand/supplier of the fertiliser tablets - had no idea they existed! Cheers Richard

[sharn]

i use the 'JBL 7's balls' just push em in at the roots and they last for a year or so!

[Merrilyn]

I'm currently using Seachem products on my planted tanks, and it seems to be working well. The Tablets I'm using are also made by Seachem, and I got them from the new online sponsor Aquarium Products Wholesale.