First time with discus

[Fish Tank Travis]

So I’m planning to cancel the order. Say I have six four inch discus then I could do weekly regular water changes?

I do think that will work out well, but try to make them larger water changes in the 75-90% range. Over on Simply Discus, they don’t consider it a real water change unless you can look your fish in the eye from above (because they are laying on their sides, lol).
Here are some pictures of the water change I do to my 220 every weekend. It’s a 90% plus water change.

 

[jacobfata]

So now I’m being told my tank is a ticking time bomb because I have sand over gravel?

 

[Fish Tank Travis]

So you’re saying my tank is trash because I have a three to four inch substrate?

It looks fantastic, but it just functions as a detritus trap/toxic gas producer. It’s rarely a good idea to go over .5-1” in depth.

 

[jacobfata]

So my rank is a waste and I should start over? Couldn’t heavy weekly water changes combat whatever builds up in the sand? My ammonia and nitrates are at 0.

 

[jacobfata]

I constantly monitor my water, my substrate has been like this for a month or so and my ammonia and nitrates never have risen yet. If this is so bad why are my test results so good? Because it hasn’t had time to build up or what? This is devastating to me. I worked so hard on this with my boyfriend and you guys are telling me my tank is ruined because my substrate is too deep?

So my tank isn’t discus ready like I thought? After eight months of maturing?

 

[Fish Tank Travis]

I constantly monitor my water, my substrate has been like this for a month or so and my ammonia and nitrates never have risen yet. If this is so bad why are my test results so good? Because it hasn’t had time to build up or what? This is devastating to me. I worked so hard on this with my boyfriend and you guys are telling me my tank is ruined because my substrate is too deep?

So my tank isn’t discus ready like I thought? After eight months of maturing?

Unfortunately, no amount of water changes will get rid of the toxic gas buildup. It’s actually poisons the fish. Having a deep substrate, especially with sand over gravel, is the perfect environment for this toxic gas to form.

Take a deep breath though because you’re not nearly as bad off as it may seem. You still have a tank that’s cycled and it’s not a huge size that you can’t easily work with.

Start by removing the fish and putting them into a temporary container. Then drain the tank down as far as you can. Remove the plants and driftwood. It will be best to buy some planted tank soil and put the plants in pots with that. Next, use a small plastic shovel to scoop out the substrate. It will get mixed up during this process so it’s youre choice if you want to reuse some of it or get new. Once you have everything out, put some new substrate it at about a half inch thick. Then place your driftwood and potted plants back in. Fill the tank back up and restart the filters. Lastly, add the fish back in minus the ones that aren’t going back into the tank. At this point, the tank should be fine for some 4” discus. You can probably get all of this done in about two hours if you and your boyfriend work together on it.

Once you add the discus, it’s probably not a bad idea to do a few extra water changes over the next week or two to give the beneficial bacteria a chance to catch up to the bioload.

If you did this tomorrow, you could still have discus in the tank this week.

On a side note, if you’re not already running a heater controller, you should get an Inkbird 308 off of Amazon and run your heater through it. I’ve had a heater get stuck on and I found all of the fish dead with the temp at 102. Many others have had heaters get stuck on as well. The Inkbird will act as a failsafe to cut power to the heater if the tank gets a few degrees above normal.

 

[jacobfata]

There is no way I’m restarting this aquarium after eight months of it maturing. You’re telling me my fish will die because I have a deep substrate yet my arowana lived like this for months. I see tanks all the time with deep substrate...

 

[jacobfata]

I would rather sell everything than go through all of that.

 

[Fish Tank Travis]

There is no way I’m restarting this aquarium after eight months of it maturing. You’re telling me my fish will die because I have a deep substrate yet my arowana lived like this for months. I see tanks all the time with deep substrate...

I would rather sell everything than go through all of that.

It’s truly not that big of an effort. It’s not like you have to redo a 1000 gallon tank. I’ve had trouble with my 29 before, because of too deep of a substrate I might add, and I had it completely torn down, bare bottom, no decor, and then back up and running in less than two hours on my own. It may seem like a big task, but it’s really not. To say that you see other people with this deep substrate all the time is like that old saying, if everyone were jumping off a bridge, would you do it too?”

Your arowana was a much hardier fish than discus are. It will be fine as long as nitrates aren’t sky high, and even then it will probably be ok for quite a while. Discus start to have issues anywhere between 10-20 ppm of nitrates. It’s a whole different ball game and you can’t compare the two.

In addition, the anaerobic bacteria that creates the toxic gas thrives in deep undisturbed substrate. You will not know it’s there until it’s released and then it poisons the water killing all of the fish in a very short time. Even after that happens, you will probably still wonder what happened to your fish because you will not have seen it happen.

I’ve given you a very clear step by step set of instructions that you can use to easily and effectively get your tank setup to handle discus. Right now you’re sounding exactly like the people over on Simply Discus that don’t believe all of the experienced discus keepers when tell them what kind of setup and maintenance these fish require. I’ve seen the end result of that many times.

If this small effort to get your tank ready is too much for you to go through then you are probably better off skipping discus altogether because they will require a lot more effort than that over their lifetime.

 

[jacobfata]

It’s truly not that big of an effort. It’s not like you have to redo a 1000 gallon tank. I’ve had trouble with my 29 before, because of too deep of a substrate I might add, and I had it completely torn down, bare bottom, no decor, and then back up and running in less than two hours on my own. It may seem like a big task, but it’s really not. To say that you see other people with this deep substrate all the time is like that old saying, if everyone were jumping off a bridge, would you do it too?”

Your arowana was a much hardier fish than discus are. It will be fine as long as nitrates aren’t sky high, and even then it will probably be ok for quite a while. Discus start to have issues anywhere between 10-20 ppm of nitrates. It’s a whole different ball game and you can’t compare the two.

In addition, the anaerobic bacteria that creates the toxic gas thrives in deep undisturbed substrate. You will not know it’s there until it’s released and then it poisons the water killing all of the fish in a very short time. Even after that happens, you will probably still wonder what happened to your fish because you will not have seen it happen.

I’ve given you a very clear step by step set of instructions that you can use to easily and effectively get your tank setup to handle discus. Right now you’re sounding exactly like the people over on Simply Discus that don’t believe all of the experienced discus keepers when tell them what kind of setup and maintenance these fish require. I’ve seen the end result of that many times.

If this small effort to get your tank ready is too much for you to go through then you are probably better off skipping discus altogether because they will require a lot more effort than that over their lifetime.

It’s just hard to understand when everyone here and people on simply discus are telling me I’m just fine??