Starting 180 G Discus Tank

[Wayels]

I have raised South American Cichlid for 10 years and I ma giving my fishes a new home. I am thinking of converting my 180 gallon tank to Discus tank. However, I am bit concerned about these issues:

1. I can only do 40% water change per week. Would that be sufficient for Discus to be healthy?
2. I do not have access to Discus breeders even through DHL/UPS and all LFS bring their stock from Asia. So, finding good healthy fish will take time and may not be available to purchase at the same time. Would buying separate Discus overtime jeopardize the tank? or if I quarantine and have tetras, corys and German Blue Ram upon Discus introduction in the main tank, this would not be an issue?
3. I do not have live fish food or good variety of Discus food at LFS. Making my own beef heart recipe would that be sufficient for healthy Discus?

Look forward to hear your comments.

 

[Adamrhh]

1. That will be fine, you may have to do that twice a week for awhile when they are small to help them grow.
2. Buying Discus overtime will not jeopardize anything. It is better to get at least 3-4 at first though since they might fight with only 2. Make sure you quarantine.
3. Beef heart, black worms, and quality flake is good.

 

[Briggadane]

I am assuming you are keeping your cycle going and have a very healthy tank. If that is correct, your current intentions should be fine. I'm also assuming your current tank is planted and has Mopani or such type of driftwood? I find discus prefer a tank with tall thin vegetation to hide within. Val's and grasses seem to work great. Short or bushy plants like anubias, no so much.

Do you intend to get young discus under 3" or larger, more mature fish? Pros and cons to this. Smaller younger fish tend to get along better when new fish are introduced. Larger/older fish sometimes get stressed. They may stress or chase the new fish. Also, smaller fish would not be as much burden on the tank cycle, but larger fish might. If you keep the tanks cycle and want to get larger size fish, try to do so before the cycle adjusts to fewer fish. I lost more discus with mature fish coming into an established tank with water parameters drastically different than what they were accustomed to than I did younger fish.

I'm not sure about the blue ram. They can be territorial if I remember right. I chose not to get them for LM tank I kept. If your tetras didn't bother their other tank mates that were slow movers, then they and the Corries should be fine. I did notice that in one of my discus tanks, the Corries would sometimes feed off discus slime coat. It didn't seem to both the discus, but it did bother me. I went with fancy Plecos for bottom cleaning after that.

Please forgive any spelling errors. Using my ipad and auto correct was kicking in.