amazon biotope

[unfamous]

i am thinking of doing an amazon biotope with a 50 gallon tank i found around my house. And i have a list of what fish i was planning on getting:

4 Discus
2 Angelfish
10 Rummynose tetras
10 Marble Hatchetfish
1 Whiptail catfish
4 German Blue rams
and mabe some ottos to keep the tank clean and perhaps some cory cats

so what do you think?

[Larissa]

everything that I have ever read says not to keep discus with anything else.

[unfamous]

well i have heard that to but in several books that i have read like THE COMPLETE AQUARIUM say that discus live with tons of other fish in the wild and that the thought of not keeping discus with other fish is a little over-exaggerated. no offense to what you have read though :D

[Larissa]

oh I'm not offended. Just thought I'd tell you that I've read that countless times. I actually know nothing about discus, although I think they are the most beautiful fish I've ever seen. Hopefully someone who knows more about this can give you some advice.

[unfamous]

well thanks any ways :o

what about the other fish is the compatiblity ok?

[Kissofthegorami]

It is over stocked. Discus need a larger tank. I would do the other species, plus some cory cats of the same variety. Choose cories that can withstand highe temps better than say a panda cory which prefers cooler. All the other fish you have like temps aroun 80-82 degrees. Whip tail cats and rummy nose are delicate fish at first and should be introduced last. Introduce some cories first, then the hatchets and angels. Then try the rummy nose, whip tail, and rams after the tank has been around for a while and ammonia and nitrites are at zero and the temp and PH are stabilized. Four rams may fight, watch them.

[CharlieV]

Just my .02 about Angels and Discus - I am currently cycling my new 100g (fishless and all going well!) and wanted to add discus to my current set up. There is no issue with them living togethr exxcept for the fact the Angels are vicous feeders and might out compete the discuss for food and hence starve them.
I was also told that to keep discus properly you need your own RO unit plumbed in to your mains supply - as i live in rented that was the end of the conversation for me.

[unfamous]

do you think if i reduce the number of hatchets like 6 instead of 10 the Discus in the tank might work?

[CorydorasLover]

I just want to add that, if you want to keep Discus, that they prefer special water conditions: acidic, around a pH of 6.0-6.5; very soft, 0-3 dH, and a temperature of 77-84°F (25-29°C). Depending on how 'true' you want your biotope to be, you might want to focus on those conditions.

[Avenolpey]

Consider doing just 3 pairs of Discus with something passive to clean up the bottom. Pleco, ottos etc...

[unfamous]

i know that discus need special conditions that is why i am doing this biotope i am going to use that black water extract and some peat in the fillter. i also plan to keep the temp at around 80 to 82 deg. i also have a question on thaT should put the black water extract in during the cycle, you know right before the fish, or should i put it in when i put the fish in?

[Kissofthegorami]

Black water extract has to be added every week. You can get the same effect cheaper by putting peat in teh filter and using lots of driftwood. Discus need CLEAN water. in a 50 gallon you could do 2-3 by themselves with maybe some cories. They are huge fish. With all the other fish u mentioned, they will be shy, out competed, and the water wont be good enough quality to keep discus. A 50 gallon tank is in the small range for keeping discus. You don't need RO water if you purchase locally raised discus. My lfs stocks angels and discus that were raised here in Boston area. So they have always known our water. There are discus breeders in this forum who breed their discus in more alkaline and harder water. Trying to mess with the PH all the time will have harmful effects on the discus and rummynose. Discus is a very expensive and difficult fish to keep.

[unfamous]

sorry to have dropped this topic for a while but i think i have found a way to make the tank work becusae the lfs said that most of the fish i chose should be fine with the discus so here is a revised list:
4 Discus
10 rummynose tetras
6 marble hatchet fish
4 german blue rams
4 panda cory cats

i have dropped the angelfish becuase i don't think ihave had a positive comment on angels and discus together but the one in my book. but it is ok becuse i may get some angels for my thirty gallon! so what do you guys think?any more suggetstions on the biotope in general?

[Kasakato]

How about 2 or 3 Discus and 4 Panda Cories. That would be the limit.

[unfamous]

i know you are suggesting that becuase of how big the discus get right? but trust me i have a person to give the Discus to when they reach adulthood untill i get a bigger tank the ones i am going to get are a little older than juveniles. thanx for the suggestion though!

[Holly9937]

Discus need CLEAN water. in a 50 gallon you could do 2-3 by themselves with maybe some cories. They are huge fish. With all the other fish u mentioned, they will be shy, out competed, and the water wont be good enough quality to keep discus. A 50 gallon tank is in the small range for keeping discus. Discus is a very expensive and difficult fish to keep.

I am afraid your discus won't make it to adulthood in order to be traded once they get bigger :confused: !!! Also, have you looked into the maintenance schedule for discus? I think it is something like large water changes every other day. I would think with that many other fish you might be doing large water changes everyday :eek: !! Just something to think about :idea: . I think you are being advised against discus in part b/c of their size and in part b/c they can be very difficult, demanding fish to keep healthy. The water must be kept immaculate for them to do well

[Kasakato]

I think its 50% daily changes.

[unfamous]

well that is the kind of commitement i am willing to make because a biotope wouldn't be a biotope unless there is a diversity of life and discus are high maintenance fish don't get me wrong but i really want to take a stab at this even if it means water changes monthly,weekly, or daily i want to rise to the challenge of keeping discus with other fish. i hope you guys can see where i am comming from and i would like to here how i can make this attempt as smooth as possible :)

[Kasakato]

Sure thing. I can see what you want to do. But for the fish I think that you should only stock with what I said before, and do daily 50-75% water changes. Is that a too much of a challange? Or do you want to take it head on?

[Holly9937]

As long as you are prepared for some hard core tank maintenance (if Kas is right, I would think along the lines of at least 1, possibly 2 50% water changes a day) I would consider revising your stocking list some. I would not get the angels, let the discus be the only bigger fish in the tank, and lower the number of rummynose and hatchetfish. The tank is still overstocked, which I think you will run into problems with, but the less fish the better

[unfamous]

the daily water changes isn't a problem. the fact of only keeping two fish species is what gets me. if it is not a good idea to keep just two more species of fish then why would the book that i have show like 6 discus in a 56 gallon tank with several species of tetras,2 angels, a blue panaque, a emeral catfish, and several hatchetfish and say it is ok?
i am not getting the angels any more look at the revised list i posted earlier

[Kasakato]

The book and picture is wrong. They live in some weird world where there are no limits. But here, there are. And its not like it just applies to you, and we are pikeing on you. Its applies to everyone, and most of use here choose to follow it. (Sorry it that sounds mean, bit I cant think its too late here)

[unfamous]

oh i don't feel picked on i mean i was just following what info i had. that is why i really brought down the number of fish from the first time because everyone here was sayin that is was too much fish. i still fthink that the whole discus thing is a little over exggerated because my grandpa use to keep discus and have many other fish with them in a 55 gallon and he said they were fine and ate well. I know you cant base everything off of one instance but i can do my best. i am trying to use more peaceful fish that aren't that agrressive at eating. no offense to your philosophy. you probably know way more than me anyway but i guess i am just looking for a compromise with you guys.

[Kasakato]

He, thats the problem with fish. Theres a right and a wrong. And sometimes theres a right and wrong. But the problem is that this catogory is a hard thing to come to. Because people want more, but cant really have it. I would like to see what Holly things before I go on. So Holly, on the first page bottom posts. What do you think? I think Im off to bed now, but Il be back tom morning.

[unfamous]

completely true and i agree that i may want more but can't have what i want but i am really trying to compromise but i just can't see a biotope with just one or two species of fish.

[Kissofthegorami]

Basically you have two option... go with a diverse aquarium.. angels, tetras, hatchets, otos, and cories and have an easy maintenance schedule and happy fish, or you can go with discus and just get discus with some cories and otos and have a hell of a maintenance schedule that u wont keep up with. Discus aren't running rampant all over the Amazon... you can have a realistic biotope without discus. Angels are large beautiful fish. If you want something even more beautiful, rare, and harder to keep try Altium angels.

[Emg]

I'm guessing that Unfamous is completely aware of the difficulty in keeping discs and has said that he's up to it....

Unfamous...I say give it a shot. But I would caution that books don't always get it right. A book that I recently got said to put 10 rams together in a medium size tank...and I KNOW that's a BAD idea...because I have rams. They also said to put like a zillion baby oscars in a tank and said NOTHING about how large they get. Some books just don't have a clue..this one was more interested in the "look" of the tank...(and they were beautiful tanks)...than they were interested in the "health" of the tank. But I have never read the book you mentioned.

It's probably a better idea to listen to those who are familiar with the fish and have raised and bred them successfully. I agree that what you hear isn't always so for everyone. I have read and been told how difficult rams are to keep and breed and I haven't found that to be so at all, for me.l..but that just may be the quality and parameters of my water and I just may have gotten lucky in getting some good quality locally raised stock.

Seems you have your heart set on this..it's good you removed the angel. Discus are expensive fish...so I think maybe having another tank ready to go in case it doesn't work out, so that you can put some of the other fish in that if you have to remove any. Four discus are probably the limit for that size tank...even if nothing else is in there with them. I think rams are very good tank mates for discus.....but I don't know how the rams will take to the cories. I tried cories with my rams and they despise them...I had to take the cories out or they would have been harrassed to death. Yet my rams don't bother anyone else. Otos are good too, because nobody ever sees them...lol...including the fish that are in there with em. I'm not sure how the tetras will do, but geesh...try them out...you can always remove them if it doesn't work.

Good luck on your endeavor UnF...and share a pic and tell us about the results when you get it all set up.....and NO...."I told you so" from anyone if it doesn't pan out....that wouldn't be nice ! ;)

[unfamous]

well thank you Emg for your support in my attempt, i really appreciat it and don't worry when the tank is all set up i'll post some pics and let you guys know how it is going. thanx to everyone else as well even though you guys might have told me info that i didn't like it was helpful in some way. well now that is settled should i reduce the number of tetras from 10 to 6? and how should i introduce the fish? which fish should be put in first? should i use any of the fish i plan on getting for the cycling process?

[Kasakato]

You should do a fish less cycle.

[Rylan Z]

hey unfamous I'm not an expert on discus or anything but I think your idea is great I'm just picturing it in my mind You probably no but make sure you have proper ph and all that for the discus and if I were you I would quarentine the other fish just to be safe you don't want to be flushing a 50.00 fish down the drain.
hope it works out great

[Holly9937]

Sorry Kas, I had to go to bed...finally :laugh:

Unfamous~a bit off topic, but a general word of warning... being in a book, an LFS or even advice from people on here doesn't necessarily make it a good situation for the fish. Go to any store that sells kits for tanks and count the number of fish they have in a 5g tank on the box, 20 or so usually :eek:!! You sound dedicated to the tank (and determined!) so good luck.

[Rylan Z]

Hey to answer your question I'd probably use the tetras to cyle the tank they are hardy little fish and to speed up the cyle a bit you had said you had a 30 gallon tank also if it has been running a while take some of the plants or rocks to put in the 50 gallon temporarily to get some bacteria in there oh and you probly no but a little bit of bacteria is good alot is bad.
good luck

[WinterWind]

Cycle fishless! It's the least cruel!

http://badmanstropicalfish.com/articles/article14.html
http://www.tropicalfishcentre.co.uk/Fishlesscycle.htm
http://www.pcpages.com/fish/fishless.html
http://www.aquahobby.com/articles/e_fishless.php

[Holly9937]

If you have another tank running already, run the new filter on the old tank for 2+ weeks and then move it onto the new tank once you have filled it with water and DECHLORINATED IT (if you put the filter on before you do this, the water could run through the filter and the chlorine could kill the bacteria). I cycled a 180g tank by moving the filters off 2 tanks I was shutting down onto it and had no cycle. Just be sure to test the water first and get a few fish that day to keep it going, add a few a week if you can be that patient. Or fishless cycle and add all at once

[unfamous]

the fishless cycle sounds like a good idea and i will probably use that method. i will most likely get fish weekly or so anyways, i am not in a rush. What is your guys thoughts on bacteria additives like cycle and stress enzyme? and once the tank is cycle what fish should put in first,second, third, ect...?

[Kasakato]

I think they are usless. They are really pointless unless its Bio Spira. This stuff has real bacteria which is ready to eat once its out of the bottle. So dont buy them. For stocking, what have you decided? Can we get a list?

[unfamous]

well then i think i will look at that bio-spira. the official stocking list is:
4 Discus
8 rumynose tetras
6 marble hatchetfish
4 german blue rams
4 cory cats
possible ottos not shure yet

[unfamous]

so what fish should i introduce first, second , etc...?

[Kasakato]

Are you sure you want all of those? Its overstocked by a lot.

[unfamous]

i thought that conversation was put to rest? but i already lowered the number of tetras and i could put 2 germans instead of 4.

[Canoe]

Before I even bought my tank, I also looked at The Complete Aquarium -- it has lots of spreads of biotope tanks and sort of "recipes" to create them, right? I got my heart set on the "Asian Backwater" setup. Those authors are more than crazy, they are flat out irresponsible! They had about ten different kinds of gouramis and betta in a 29g. I'll bet there was a bloodbath right after they took the picture.

I know exactly how disappointed you are to hear the harsh truth about that dream tank. Try looking at some more realistic books to find an appealing setup. Good luck!

[Kasakato]

2 Discus
3 rumynose tetras
3 marble hatchetfish
2 german blue rams
2 cory cats

Can we do that at least?

[cyberbeer65]

Are you sure you want all of those? Its overstocked by a lot.

Have you ever done a 50 as an amazon biotope?

[neon7]

discus are verry timid fish and in my experience will tend to withdraw into hiding the angels are somewhat aggressive and will stress the discus. cardinals or simular make the best mates for discus.

[ashdavid]

I have kept 6 angels and 11 discus amoung other smaller fish together in a 400g. There were no agression issues and the only thing I did that I would not do when just keeping angels was having the temp a little higher than usual around 82 to 84 and the angels were fine b/c I had plants to kept oxygen levels and water quality high.

[unfamous]

if i had a bigger tank i would also try to keep angels because the chance of the discus getting food is a little bit better. but i took them out of this set up because i feel the discus may not get there fill.

[Kasakato]

Have you ever done a 50 as an amazon biotope?
And your point...

[unfamous]

well i brought this discussion up at simply discus forum, no offense to this forum i just thought i should get some more advice on this subject and the people saidn that my tank is doable as long as i had some good filtration then it would be fine. so i am going to go through with it. within a month i should have the tank set up in my living room, but i probably wont start the decoration and getting fish till september. thanx for all the info every bit has helped. if there are questions that i asked earlier in the forum please feel free to answer them and any thing someone needs to add please go right ahead. wish me luck! and i will try to post pics and give up dates when the tank is set up! :)

[Kasakato]

I still think they they are crazy.

[ashdavid]

well i brought this discussion up at simply discus forum, no offense to this forum i just thought i should get some more advice on this subject and the people saidn that my tank is doable as long as i had some good filtration then it would be fine. so i am going to go through with it. within a month i should have the tank set up in my living room, but i probably wont start the decoration and getting fish till september. thanx for all the info every bit has helped. if there are questions that i asked earlier in the forum please feel free to answer them and any thing someone needs to add please go right ahead. wish me luck! and i will try to post pics and give up dates when the tank is set up! :)

Unfamous, I think that if you are talking about having dicus and angels in the same tank, I would say that it is very "doable", just make sure you do not put too many other fish in there so that it is overcrowded. And as the other forum has said and people on this forum have said , keep the water clean. This may entail daily water changes and so forth, but by the looks of it you seem to have that area pretty much tied up. All I can say is good luck. ;)

[unfamous]

the angel and discus thing is still a possibility but i know i will keep discus with rummynoses, hatchets,rams and cories! thanx for the support :dance:

[deltabear]

hello, i am having very good luck with an amazon biotope that was inspired by the same book you are talking about. the tank i have is 150 gallons. it has way too many fish- 1 raphael-that i never see, 13 lemon tetras, 10 glolight tetras, 10 blue tetras, 4 bolivian rams, 5 bristlnosed plecos, and 6 brilliant german turk discus- which are beautiful and healthy, in addition to these I have in quarantine 10 marble hatchetfish. from all these fish that i have kept, and looking at your list if i were setting up the 55 gallon I would do 4 rams, 4 discus, 6 hatchetfish, 6 rummynoses. the reason i dont put in cories is that the rams occupy that space for me and they draw all the attention for me, but what i figured out is they are all fish. i knew from reading that if i tried discus they were for some reason not going to survive quaratine, i had read so much and was so scared i didnt want to try, but then my husband said they are just fish honey, and you know what they are. so i took the plunge, and they have also doubled in size since i got them 6 weeks ago, and are doing great. so i wish you luck, there will be mistakes, but have fun and keep trying and keep us all posted.

[deltabear]

oh and the only true reason that i have seen to not keep angels with discus is some kind of parastie that can live undetected on an angelfish will infest a discus. i have read this in more than one place, but dont know how viable the information is. like i said best of luck, and enjoy. nearly everytank i have attempted to set up had something go wrong, but usually it is minor and we all learn. one way or another.

[Kissofthegorami]

Hey to answer your question I'd probably use the tetras to cyle the tank they are hardy little fish and to speed up the cyle a bit you had said you had a 30 gallon tank also if it has been running a while take some of the plants or rocks to put in the 50 gallon temporarily to get some bacteria in there oh and you probly no but a little bit of bacteria is good alot is bad.
good luck

He mentioned rummy nose tetras. Rummynose and cardinal tetras are a horrible choice for cycling. They are very sensitive to minor water fluctuations and ammonia. They should be introduced last.

[unfamous]

well thanx for that string of confidence deltabear i feel that the tank will work too. and don't worry when i set the tank up i will try to post pics. what kind of plants do you keep in your amazon set up?

[unfamous]

oh and deltabear i saw on the forum about the rapheal that i have the same fish in my 30 gallon and i know he is south american so do think i could put him in the 50 as well?