Discus question..

[mrquad]

guys, i am planning on setting up a tank for discus community.. and now my question is:

if i want to put plants on it, thus it have to be live? is it ok if i put all fake plants in the tank? will it affects the growth of the fish?

sorry for the questions..

thanks for reading..

 

[Lupin]

Live plants simply help consume nitrates thus helping with the water quality. Fake plants will not affect the growth of the fish in any manner. What size of discus are you starting? If you want to start with juveniles, then consider making your tank barebottom to help with the maintenance as juveniles require several feedings daily with lots of water changes to compensate with the wastes produced and leftovers.

 

[sirdavidofdiscus]

Fake plants are fine with discus. I've never seen plants for sale in a lfs without snails in them. Snails carry many pathogens. For this reason, and the lower light levels I keep discus at, I always keep fake plants in my discus display tanks. I've had discus spawn on the fake plants.

 

[TheFishJunky]

Fake plants are fine with discus. I've never seen plants for sale in a lfs without snails in them. Snails carry many pathogens. For this reason, and the lower light levels I keep discus at, I always keep fake plants in my discus display tanks. I've had discus spawn on the fake plants.

so basically you are saying the snails help the plants grow?

 

[budhigh]

I've never kept discus, although i plan to in the near future.From my experience live plants cause your ph to rise. Plants need CO2 , and if they don't get enough they will take it from the hardening constituents of your carbonate hardness. From what I've read on discus, they prefer soft acidic water so you might want to stick to fake foliage.
I have seen a few discus breeding setups and the breeders keep the discus in bare tanks(no plants or gravel). One guy I know says it's essential to place sticks vertically in the water to mimic roots.He says it makes the discus feel more secure.
The only filtration they use is mechanical(sponge). And they all swear by regular large water changes.

 

[sirdavidofdiscus]

so basically you are saying the snails help the plants grow?

No, snails eat plants and most green algea.

 

[Lupin]

No, snails eat plants and most green algea.

It depends which snails we are talking about. Columbian ramshornsand Pomacea canaliculata though are notorious for consuming plants. The regular ramshorns, pond snails and MTS don't. They consume only the dying tissues of the plants, not the live plants themselves.

 

[Lupin]

I've never kept discus, although i plan to in the near future.From my experience live plants cause your ph to rise. Plants need CO2 , and if they don't get enough they will take it from the hardening constituents of your carbonate hardness. From what I've read on discus, they prefer soft acidic water so you might want to stick to fake foliage.

I've never heard of live plants causing the pH to rise. Can you please elaborate this one further? There is no reason to stop using plants for the sake for the discus. Many of us who have kept discus keep plants in the same tank with no results. The only downside is most plants lack tolerance for the warm temperature the discus requires. Discus can handle high pH just as well since captive-bred ones are adapted to such conditions. You don't have to believe every word of the book what they require. Your best source for discus is your local breeders for excellent health conditions.

I have seen a few discus breeding setups and the breeders keep the discus in bare tanks(no plants or gravel). One guy I know says it's essential to place sticks vertically in the water to mimic roots.He says it makes the discus feel more secure. The only filtration they use is mechanical(sponge). And they all swear by regular large water changes.

Barebottom tanks are often used to make maintenance much easier especially as juvenile discus require plenty of feedings which means more water changes are needed to compensate the amount of wastes produced by the fish. Adult discus are often the ones seen in planted show tanks.