a few discus questions

[Bderick67]

thanks guys,I guess I could have specified on the tank a little more.
It will be a bare bottom tank with a black background and only the discus,no tankmates.possibly one peice of driftwood I really like becouse it looks like roots.

as it seems alot of people recommend at least one of the filters be an emperor 400 I was going to buy a new one and switch the biowheels on it for the old biowheels off my african tank.

I was planning on getting 6 but maybe I will get 7 like you said.

when the time comes Im pretty sure I know where Ill get them.

is there a garunteed mortality rate for discus?what I mean is am I definately going to lose one or two along the way no matter what?

First thing don't take both the bio wheels from your african tank, bont want to take all the bio filtation from that tank just change out one bio wheel. or better yet run the new emporer on the african tank also then in two weeks move the new one to the new tank and put one new and one old bio wheel on each tank. also with the new tank I would change and test water every two days for a couple weeks just to make sure of no amonia or nirtite build up.

you can raise all the discus with out any mortality, but you could end up with a fish that is stressed becuause of too many discus or being out competed for food. (I had this happen) also in a year or so depending on age of your fish you will end up with mated pairs, diffrent things can happen so if you are starting with juvinilles I woud go with a couple extra than you would plan to have when grown.

Discus are expensive make sure you buy quality fish don't go for the bargain with these fish. If they get sick they can be hard to get healthy. I would now treat your african tank for parasites(internal and external both) and then treat your discus for parasites once the tank is cycled and balanced, so probably a month after youve had them. As a note you may what to get a heater that can raise your temp to 90 degrees, because if the get internal parasites your will need to raise temp this high.

Good luck and enjoy your discus

 

[señor_pescados_felices]

thanks.
those are awesome discus pics!!!
my african tank has an emp 400 and a AC 70 so I figured I could afford to take the biowheels off of it,no?

one last thing im not sure on is the filtration. what im thinking is:
a single emp 400
2 emp 400's
emp 400 /AC70 combo
magnum 350 pro/ emp 400 combo

of those four dif. combos which would you guys most recommend?

 

[Bderick67]

You maybe taking a chance removing both biowheels from your african tank at most the AC70 is picking up 1/3 of the bioload, it would be a big jump to pick up the other 2/3s

Alot depends on how often you are going to change your water. A single Emporer 400 would be fine you'll have no traces off amonia or nitrites. what you need to get rid of is the nitrates this can only be done with water changes. I would say at least 1 50% change per week or better 2 30-40% changes per week. With all those water changes going on you can vacuum up the debree at the bottom of the tank so having the mechanical filtration is kind of useless and the water is always fresh so having the active charcol does you no good either.

I would run a single Emp 400 with no filter cartridges and do 2 water changes a week.

one other thing to consider is discus do not care much for high current, a 400 on one side of a 55 gallon may keep all your discus to the opposite side of the tank, so you may want to consider using 2 Emp 280s one at each end of tank.

 

[Lanaka]

I've kept 2 discus with 9 angels, 1 ram, 2 marbled cats, and 1 giant oto (hypoptopoma gulare) in a 55 tank.

I've never really paid attention to the water numbers, no test kits except for my god-given natural ones, my eyes, nose and hands. I've only visually checked water qualities (is it clear, no color changes, free of odd particles), sniffed it (smells clean, no odd odors, etc.) and felt it (feels clean, no residues, no ichiness, water not too cold/hot). Only thing I don't do is taste it, I dont like the taste of tank water, even clean one. I also observe the fishes in the tank too and note any atypical behavior. This tank is where I see it everyday. I DO have an adjustable heater set to 78degF then gradually upped to 82degF when I added the discus.

With all this in mind, I only do water changes on average once every 2-3 WEEKS. I don't use water straight from the tap, however. I use water that has been in a bare 20L tank with a powerfilter rated for a 30-50g tank running for at least 2-3 weeks, it has 2 female platies in there to bio-age it (which has grown from 0.75" each to almost 4" each). I use about 50% of the water from this tank to make roughly 20% change in the 55.

After over a year, I've had NO fatalities in this tank setup (with the exception mentioned below). And ALL of the fishes has grown and thrived. I've got the discus when they were only <2" each, the angles when they were babies at 0.5" each, the others at 1" each, with the exception of the giant oto, which started at 2".

Now the angels are mostly 3-4" long, not including the tails, some are as large as 5-6", the 2 discus are 4-5", the bubble ram is about 1.5", the marble cats are 3" each and the giant oto is a huge 4" (it's not supposed to get much bigger than 2-3").

The angels came first, then the ram and marble cats and 6 regular otos came about 4 months later. However the 6 otos mysteriously dropped to 4, then 3 after I observed the largest angel EATING one of the otos. Needless to say, I netted the surviving otos and put them to work in my south american tetra display tank. I've then added the giant oto at month 6. The discus came in at month 9. The bubble ram moved to the tetra tank at month 11 to help control snail problems there.

I realize that I'm probably very unusual (to say the least) with this setup as I've also done some rather unique changes since the beginning. I've added lots of plants, gravel with undergravel filter, a tiny powerhead, 3 small power filters of different sizes. I'll start a thread detailing it's setup later (it's 330am here and I need to get some sleep for a 930am shift at the restaurant).

 

[KindredSpirit]

I would love to see in person, the flash always washes out some color and macks the eyes look bad.

Brian ~ don't use a flash. I never do. Using a flash you don't capture what you really see, IMO.

 

[dean9922]

my discus are in ph of about 7.6 and about 85 degrees. Age and heat water for water changes, and I do about a 50% water change every 2-3 days. Just recently added an external water pump which makes life a whole lot easier.....good luck