My first discus

. Mine was, simply, a *simple* statement, to sum up a *complicated* subject, *simply.* Nothing to get snotty about.
 
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Well Iceman hasn't been logged on in a few days, so he'll have a lot to read when he logs back on. We all have different ways of keeping our tanks which are specific to our likes and time constraints and what we think is not enough/just enough/too much. So out of 93,000+ members, some of us are going to disagree. What works for one of us may not necessarily work for all of us.

BS6749 I say this with all sincerity, I believe star_rider is correct. You probably don't have proper filtration on that tank. Your filtration on an established tank should take care of converting all of the ammonia into nitrite then nitrate every hour of the day, every day of the week.

I can tell you in all honesty I never have ammmonia issues in my tank. Even my red rummy noses will tell you that upon first glance. I have a heck of a bioload in my tank too.....11 discus, 9 adults and 2 subadults. I feed FBW (6 cubes at a time), flakes, pellets and they get two feedings of live white worms each week and those feedings consist of literally 100's of white worms. I let them gorge and they can pick some out of the gravel the rest of the day. Last week I was totally unable to do a water change on that tank for 8 days.......yes 8 days! The discus were as perky as ever. Just for the heck of it I tested the water before i did a water change and there was no ammonia, no nitrite and the nitrate was between 30-40. So if toxic tank was going to get me, it sure would have been last week.

While I am in no way encouraging first time discus owners to skip water changes or overfeed their tank, when you do get some experience under your belt and you fully understand how your tank and fish work and you meet with sucess, it's a good thing! Actually it's a great thing! My discus tank is the easiest of my tanks to maintain.
 
pinkertd said:
Well Iceman hasn't been logged on in a few days, so he'll have a lot to read when he logs back on. We all have different ways of keeping our tanks which are specific to our likes and time constraints and what we think is not enough/just enough/too much. So out of 93,000+ members, some of us are going to disagree. What works for one of us may not necessarily work for all of us.

BS6749 I say this with all sincerity, I believe star_rider is correct. You probably don't have proper filtration on that tank. Your filtration on an established tank should take care of converting all of the ammonia into nitrite then nitrate every hour of the day, every day of the week.

I can tell you in all honesty I never have ammmonia issues in my tank. Even my red rummy noses will tell you that upon first glance. I have a heck of a bioload in my tank too.....11 discus, 9 adults and 2 subadults. I feed FBW (6 cubes at a time), flakes, pellets and they get two feedings of live white worms each week and those feedings consist of literally 100's of white worms. I let them gorge and they can pick some out of the gravel the rest of the day. Last week I was totally unable to do a water change on that tank for 8 days.......yes 8 days! The discus were as perky as ever. Just for the heck of it I tested the water before i did a water change and there was no ammonia, no nitrite and the nitrate was between 30-40. So if toxic tank was going to get me, it sure would have been last week.

While I am in no way encouraging first time discus owners to skip water changes or overfeed their tank, when you do get some experience under your belt and you fully understand how your tank and fish work and you meet with sucess, it's a good thing! Actually it's a great thing! My discus tank is the easiest of my tanks to maintain.
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:thm:
 
pinkertd said:
Well Iceman hasn't been logged on in a few days, so he'll have a lot to read when he logs back on. We all have different ways of keeping our tanks which are specific to our likes and time constraints and what we think is not enough/just enough/too much. So out of 93,000+ members, some of us are going to disagree. What works for one of us may not necessarily work for all of us.

BS6749 I say this with all sincerity, I believe star_rider is correct. You probably don't have proper filtration on that tank. Your filtration on an established tank should take care of converting all of the ammonia into nitrite then nitrate every hour of the day, every day of the week.

I can tell you in all honesty I never have ammmonia issues in my tank. Even my red rummy noses will tell you that upon first glance. I have a heck of a bioload in my tank too.....11 discus, 9 adults and 2 subadults. I feed FBW (6 cubes at a time), flakes, pellets and they get two feedings of live white worms each week and those feedings consist of literally 100's of white worms. I let them gorge and they can pick some out of the gravel the rest of the day. Last week I was totally unable to do a water change on that tank for 8 days.......yes 8 days! The discus were as perky as ever. Just for the heck of it I tested the water before i did a water change and there was no ammonia, no nitrite and the nitrate was between 30-40. So if toxic tank was going to get me, it sure would have been last week.

While I am in no way encouraging first time discus owners to skip water changes or overfeed their tank, when you do get some experience under your belt and you fully understand how your tank and fish work and you meet with sucess, it's a good thing! Actually it's a great thing! My discus tank is the easiest of my tanks to maintain.
Click to expand...

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.
 
icemanx23 said:
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.
Click to expand...

yes, you can.. you need to find plants that will grow in discus tanks as temp tends to be an issue.

but heavily planted tanks can support adult discus with a large weekly water change.
 
icemanx23,

If Nitrate is your concern, I can give you an example of the plants that I have in a 10G tank, and my Nitrate level is under 5ppm, even after a week of not changing water. Here's my simple set-up.

10G Planted:

40 Juvi Guppies
2 Adult Female Guppies
12 small ramshorn Snails
1 adult Cherry Red Shrimp

Plants include:
Green Water Algae
Diatoms
Water Sprite
2 Anubias Nana
Rotala stem plants

Filtration is
Whisper Power Filter Jr - Floss only

Air is from 2 RENA MicroBubbler 6" total.

Substrate is
Plain gravel and marbles.

Lighting is 15W GE 9325K T8 18" on stock AGA Hood, 12HR+ Photo Period

I feed 4 times a day, usually more than they can eat. I am feeding mostly Tetra Tropical pellets(the red stuff). Grinded to little pieces for the juvies, and it's messy. Ammonia and Nitrite are alsways 0. Nitrate at the end of the week is under 5ppm.

Hope this information helps.
 
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