My Flooded Forest Discus Tank...Up-Date!
- Thread starter The Amazonian
- Start date
Amazon,
What are the tetras in your tank? Neons, or Cardinals. I have tried both with no success. I originally bought 24 neons for my 75 gal discus, none made it. From then I have bought a mix of neons and cardinals and of the 30 or so I have one that made it. Water is 85 with a ph in the range of 6.5. Other parameters are as close to 0 as possible. My water is aged for 48 hrs in peet and carbon. I am running a Rena XP 3 with additional peet, and no carbon. Discus Essentials is added weekly to the tank. Any suggestions I would love to have a school of neons or cardinals but at this point im at a loss.
What are the tetras in your tank? Neons, or Cardinals. I have tried both with no success. I originally bought 24 neons for my 75 gal discus, none made it. From then I have bought a mix of neons and cardinals and of the 30 or so I have one that made it. Water is 85 with a ph in the range of 6.5. Other parameters are as close to 0 as possible. My water is aged for 48 hrs in peet and carbon. I am running a Rena XP 3 with additional peet, and no carbon. Discus Essentials is added weekly to the tank. Any suggestions I would love to have a school of neons or cardinals but at this point im at a loss.
Bderick67;973996; said:
I find the Cardinals do better than the Neons, The Cardinals I have are wild Caught, just a thought!
upaquariest;973761; said:
Are you adding them with the lights off and leaving the lights off for at least 8 hours? This is a method used by a few people I know to add a small schooling species to a discus tank. By the time the lights are on the tetra's have had time to settle. This will only help if the Discus are killing the tetra's either actively or through stressing them. Your water parameters sound fine, so maybe it is the large (you don't say what size) discus. Or maybe your water is so far from the local fish store water that you need to give them more time to aclimate to your water. Maybe setup a drip line into their bag or something similar. At fish stores they may be kept in very hard alkaline water, and while they (especially neons) can survive in both, sharp changes in PH can't be good for them.
Just my 2c.
no i havent tried the acclimating with lights off, as far as the discus size, ive tried when the discus were new 2.5" 8 months ago, now they are 5" to 6" the last ones i put in were about 6 weeks ago and none made it. i have tried all of the local stores as well as i have brought some from detroit on one of my trips there. I always drip method the fish into a new tank. usually takes me about 35 to 40 min to acclimate a new fish before they are realesed from the bag. I would really like to see a nice school of them in my tank.
Don't try to get Neons to live in the same temps you keep discus in they just can't take the heat. Cardinals do better. I don't keep them but I have noticed that everyone who does try to keep cardinals is always buying replacements.
It isn't the discus bothering them. I suspect they are also much happier at 78F to 80F and sort of burn out at 84F-86F. I don't know why but two Tetras that do better over time are Rummy Nose and Bleeding Hearts. Rummy Noses are also very good water quality indicators. Once they have made it through acclimation they will glow cherry red noses when the water is good and dim or die if the water is out of spec as it were. Getting healthy Rummy Noses can be a bit difficult at times and many shops lose a lot of them. Bleeding Hearts are a nice Tetra because they are showy and too large for other fish to eat them.
I did have my Dwarf Pike Cichlids with my Heckels but have set them up in their own tanks. I have C. regani. Leaf fish don't usually do well in large tanks with discus. It is difficult to get the food to them. Who wants a million guppies in their discus tanks just to feed leaf fish?
It isn't the discus bothering them. I suspect they are also much happier at 78F to 80F and sort of burn out at 84F-86F. I don't know why but two Tetras that do better over time are Rummy Nose and Bleeding Hearts. Rummy Noses are also very good water quality indicators. Once they have made it through acclimation they will glow cherry red noses when the water is good and dim or die if the water is out of spec as it were. Getting healthy Rummy Noses can be a bit difficult at times and many shops lose a lot of them. Bleeding Hearts are a nice Tetra because they are showy and too large for other fish to eat them.
I did have my Dwarf Pike Cichlids with my Heckels but have set them up in their own tanks. I have C. regani. Leaf fish don't usually do well in large tanks with discus. It is difficult to get the food to them. Who wants a million guppies in their discus tanks just to feed leaf fish?
Apistomaster, cardinals are indeed a better choice than the neons in terms of keeping tetras with discus.
I've tried the neons and they seem to wither when I raised the temperature for the discus.
I've tried the neons and they seem to wither when I raised the temperature for the discus.