Discus in 55 gall questions.

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reignman40

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Jun 15, 2005
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Spokane, WA, USA
Hello all,

I've read through Tseng's article on Discus already and I've got the bug. So I mainly have some questions regarding my plan.

Now I'd like to go with a 55 gallon planted tank. I'm wondering if anyone has recommendations regarding good plants to keep with Discus? Any certain types of substrate to get? Should I go with the normal 2-3 wpg or are they light sensitive?

Also I plan pretty much on just the Discus, Otos and maybe amano shrimp. What amounts sound good for a 55 or should I possibly upgrade before really getting into this plan.

I know I asked a lot of questions. Thanks in advance to anyone who can help.

Curtis
 

NatakuTseng

I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts
Jan 3, 2004
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Vermont
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Planted Discus tanks are great, but when going with your first try at them, I Really would suggest you do a bare bottom tank with just the Discus. This lets you get acoustomed to them and their habits, and indications if something is off. Now if you are really set on doing a planted tank by all means do it. Discus are not light sensitive, they don't care if there is 1 wpg or 8 wgp. For substrate I would reccomend doing a bottom layer of flourite or shultz aquatic plant soil of 1.5" and then do a 1" layer of play sand on top of that. Evntually it will all mix together, but in the mean while it keeps things from getting too cloudy at first and sand looks better and is really appreciated by the fish. For plants, do what you want and what the lighting, fertilization, co2 will allow, most will tollerate the discus temps just fine. Anubias, most stemmed plants, swords all do fine.

Personally I would wait and upgrade to a 75gal tank before doing this. That will also give you the opportunity to get the discus and have them in a BB 55gal and learn a bit before putting them right into a planted tank. Also you could get young discus and grow them out much more effectively with a BB tank while saving money getting younger fish. Amanos and Otos do great with discus, for the 75 I would say 8 otos, and 10 amanos, or instead of the otos go with a couple SAEs and a bristlenose pleco. Also consider some cories for the bottom, pandas do great and they are small, a shoal of 8 would be great. For Discus I would say 6 of them as adults in the 75. Good filtration, aim for a water turn over rate of 4 times per hour, so that would be a 600gph flow rate. Two smaller heaters, probably 2, 200watt heaters would be reccomended, this is safer and heats more evenly, I reccomend this because if one heater fails and gets stuck on the highest setting it will not heat the tank to a point where it will kill the fish simply because it would be trying to heat the full 75 gal to that temp.

I think I covered most of it, if you have any more questions don't be afraid to PM me, also as always I reccomend visiting http://www.discusasahobby.com they have a forum section dedicated to planted tanks there as well.
 

FishFreak101

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Jul 1, 2005
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hey nat post some picters plz it wood help out alotof ppl to see wht u do and plus ur like every1s fave discus person! well any ways my fave! :)
 
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