6.0 should be fine no matter if they are wild or domestic.
How many tanks do you have available for QT? Ideally, I would recommend QT each species in its own tank, but that isn't really necessary. If you at least two tanks to QT, I would QT discus separate from the others and everyone else can be QTed together. Keep an eye on the festivum when they reach the 5-6" size range. Many festivum owners report increased aggression at those sizes and beyond that doesn't go away.
Black sand will do just fine, but if you want to really show the colors of the discus, focus on red colors. Reds show up better on the black sand, but a white sand will show better blues. So if you know what color discus you are getting, you may want to adjust the sand color to better show the primary discus colors.
I consider myself a person who keeps a close eye on all the parameters of my tanks, but I can't keep live plants to save my life. I can keep pretty much any animal alive (I do it for a living), but I have a black thumb where plants are concerned. The only plants I can keep without issue that do thrive are crypts. My java ferns are doing okay, but I wouldn't say thriving. All the other plants (swords, wisteria and many others) have just slowly died. It may have something to do with my water, but I have tried many things without success. Your experience may be different. I would recommend trying it. Get a small 20 or even a 10 and try to raise a plant tank to see if its something you are interested in trying. Live plants are beneficial to discus care because they help to remove nitrates (something discus are very sensitive to) even faster from the system and also lower the pH a bit (only by a small and rather insignificant amount). Fake plants don't add these benefits, but as long as you keep up with good water changes, it won't matter. For me, live plants have been a lot of work, but is mostly because I don't understand plants as well as animals and figuring out their needs has been more of a challenge to me. So I have been scrambling to figure out the proper care for them with little luck. However, I know some hobbyists who keep live plants with great success and minimal effort because they found what works for their plants needs.
There are some people who will boil their driftwood for an hour to speed the release of tannins, but tannins are not toxic to fish. In fact, many SA fish enjoy having them in their tank. Since I keep SA fish, I soak my driftwood in a bucket (fully submerged) for about a week and then add it right to the tank. There are some people who just add it straight to their tanks without a soak or boil period. The choice it up to you. I do recommend at least a boil or soak period rather than just adding it to a tank as some wood can pick up harmful chemicals, fungi or parasites that exposure to water will cause to be released (this is rare, but does happen). If you notice a clear slimy growth on the wood, this is common and not harmful in small amounts, but can cause sickness in large amounts (it will spread to other wood and ceramics). I have never been able to get rid of it and simply exchanged the driftwood for new wood. Some people report it disappearing after a week or two (didn't happen for me), some fish eating it (happened for me, but the fish couldn't counter the growth rate of this fungus), or it going away after boiling it for 30-60 minutes (did an hour and it was back in 2 days).
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