Discus keeping question

[FishFanMan]

For now I'm just buying 4 if they look well this Sunday. I'm really hoping they will live beyond 3 months. If they don't, I won't try again.

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[discuspaul]

If your wallet permits, I'd strongly suggest you get 5 rather than 4. Believe it or not, that one extra fish can make a huge difference in lessening pecking order aggression issues as time goes on, and improving compatibility of the group.
And don't worry, they'll live beyond 3 months, IF you stick to a regular routine of large daily water changes, vacuuming uneaten food & fish waste with each wc, and feeding good nutritious food at least 2 or 3 X a day, for the next month or two, up to three, until they reach 3.0"-3.5" in size .

 

[FishFanMan]

I'm a bit hesitant to post these pictures because it may not be the ideal grow out tanks for discus, but I don't have any other tanks at the moment for my shrimps nor my subwassertang, so the discus will be sharing this 20 L. I cleaned this tank really well today in prep for the discus. The shrimps will be my clean up crew or food for the new discus. I plan to vac the sand and do WCs daily. I don't plan on feeding the shrimps at all. They should be fine eating any leftover food. If that's not enough food for the shrimps, they will just have to adjust.

If you think 5 discus is better than 4, no problem. I will buy 5. The 5th will be the snake skin, I think they look really cool.

This is the pic of my shrimp tank before prep for QT of the discus.



This will be their new home.

 

[discuspaul]

One more try on my part to try and help you be successful with young discus - suggest you remove the rest of that green carpet totally, and most if not all, of the floating plants. That carpet in particular can, and will likely, be a harbor for fish waste, uneaten food, decomposing plant matter and other debris which can generate the development of undesirable bacteria. Any amount of vacuuming can't completely do away with that. You should try to give the fish the most pristine water quality & conditions that you can by adopting the best tank cleansing routine you can muster.
Forego any focus on the shrimps - let them get by with the protection provided under the driftwood if you must keep them.

 

[FishFanMan]

Ok, here is the final 20g long setup to QT and grow out my new discus fry which I will get tomorrow.
This tank used to have 10 tetras in it until about a week ago. Since then it's been just my shrimps (maybe 15 of them).
And for the last few days they have not been fed and the water and substrate has been cleaned very well.

I'm sure there is very little organics for my BB to feed on. Anyone know how long BB can survive say in just tap water?
I'm hoping they are still alive. Would hate to see a mini cycle start once I put the discus in here. I have plenty of media
for BB to grow on so hopefully they are ok.

I was thinking of bare bottom discus tanks with just a sponge filter in the tank. With such limited surface area on which
BB can grow on, the capacity to handle an upswing in bioload must be pretty limited in these tanks. Is this a reason
why some folks to very large daily water changes I wonder?

 

[FishFanMan]

Would help if I included the picture!

 

[discuspaul]

That's a much better set-up for young discus. If you decided to go bare-bottom that would even better, certainly for the next couple of months, until they get to over 3".

A week without a any significant ammonia source to feed the beneficial bacteria in the filter media & elsewhere - very iffy that any measurable amount has survived.
If you're getting your discus tomorrow, just do large - over 50% to 75% wcs daily to keep the water free of ammonia & nitrites until a rebuild of the bacterial colony can occur. Doing that for a month wouldn't hurt at all.

 

[FishFanMan]

Paul,

I'm not a fan of air stones but do have them in storage. Does it matter much if I don't have in my setup?

Thanks.

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[discuspaul]

Not really. Don't bother with it if you'd rather not.

 

[FishFanMan]

Got my first ever discus today! Visited a father and son local breeder in Palatine, IL called SomeFin's Fishy. They have about 30 to 40 tanks of various sized tanks in their second garage. Nothing spectacular but still very impressive to see that. I got the last golden sunrise and the last 3 blue snakeskins, so only 4 today. They believe in breeding fish in local water without any adjustments so that's perfect for me. Their breeding pairs where awesome looking. I hope mine looks like those in the future. Our params are very similar except the ammonia and nitrates. His params are KH 5, GH 8, pH 7.6, ammonia 0.25, nitrite 0, nitrate 40, TDS 162. Mine are KH 6, GH 9, pH 7.6, no ammonia, nitrites, nitrate, and TDS of 128.

I was a bit surprised with his ammonia and nitrate being high. He told me they vac daily but only do large WC once a week. So maybe that accounts for the ammonia and nitrates. But this frys looked healthy to me.

Here are some pictures.

















Here's a youtube video of them swimming around:
[video=youtube_share;pVbyT3ljEig]http://youtu.be/pVbyT3ljEig?t=3s[/video]

http://youtu.be/pVbyT3ljEig?t=3s

The fish went into the tank around 3pm, by 8pm my ammonia shot up to 0.25 so I just did a 50% WC. Guess my BB took a hit as I suspected. Keeping my fingers crossed. They are eating and swimming around so that's a good start!