My first discus

[avionics30]

Sure enough. I'm suprised to see my post with 5 pages of comments. I'm doing my research and finding discus strains i want for my tank. Now my aim is to have a low maintenance planted discus tank. I also have a question. Can fast growing plants keep the nitate level low enough to decrease water change interval like once a week? I will keep them in barebottom and once they become adult i will move them into planted tank and i will reduce the feeding so that there will be less maintenance. Can i do that? Thanks for all your comments. Keeping discus is sure a challenge. I'm really excited.

Keep Cabomba in your tank! It's a relatively fast grower and looks great in the tank. It's feathery and busy and my discus love to play in it and pick particles of leftovers out of it all day! I've attached a picture. I do a 50% water change weekly. Prior to starting to fertilize my tank, I was getting zero on ammonia and nitrite wil less than 5 ppm nitrate after 7 days. Not bad!

 

[shawnhu]

Keep Cabomba in your tank! It's a relatively fast grower and looks great in the tank. It's feathery and busy and my discus love to play in it and pick particles of leftovers out of it all day! I've attached a picture. I do a 50% water change weekly. Prior to starting to fertilize my tank, I was getting zero on ammonia and nitrite wil less than 5 ppm nitrate after 7 days. Not bad!

Cacomba would work great! Seeing that they are feathery, any food caught on them would be visable for the Discus to eat later on. They do require good lighting though.

One thing I would mention is that, if you wanted to keep Nitrate(s) at bay, to use floating plants as they are said to absorb most of the ammonia, before they reach the Nitrate stage of the Nitrification cycle.

 

[icemanx23]

What i have in mind after your kind suggestions
1. Rotala
2. Anacharis( Elodea densa)
3. Hygrophila difformis(Wisteria)
4. Hygrophila polysperma (sunset hygro)
5. Hygrophila corybomsa (giant hygro)
6. Echinodorus Amazonicus (Amazon sword)
7. Echindorus Bleheri (?)
8. Duck weed
As ammonia, nitrite and nitrate level are important in discus keeping. Do i have to keep them below 20ppm? i'm thinking of using dry ferts and mix a new formular. I'm currently using Potassium sulpahte, Potassium nitrate and Magnesium sulphate as in PMDD except I separate micro in another bottle. I'm thinking about mixing potassium and magnesium only for my future tank. Nitrate and phosphorus will be abundant in feeds. Any dosing guide for my future 150?
Avionis - very beautiful tank. I wish i had one like u.
shawnhu - cool avatar.

 

[avionics30]

You are doing exactly what I am doing with the dry ferts! Early on in the life of my tank (in the picture) I noticed that the nitrate would barely register during testing. I still add potassium nitrate in my macros to get it up to about 20ppm. The plants consume it so quickly that it has no ill affects on your discus. Just monitor water params closely when you begin to dose so that you don't get too high of a concentration. Once you do a week of dosing/testing/adjusting, you should be good to go and not have to check as frequently. Also make sure that your water changes are about 50% weekly and are consistently 50% every week. This wille nsure that you are removing any built up nutrients and rebasing your tank levels. It's not hard once you get in to the swing of it! Good luck to you!

 

[shawnhu]

I just wanted to post a thread that was related to iceman's initial concerns about starting with the "recommended" amount of discus.

http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showthread.php?t=68363

It's a sad thread, but hopefully, could justify why iceman had his reserves, like many others that are new to Discus keeping.