hillbilly;3183485; said:
Actually, if it were me, I would probably forget about testing for the moment and get some BioSpira instead, to quickly build that filter, and hope it's not too late to save my fish.
I agree on the biospira. I knocked that stuff for years and insisted on slow cycling but after seeing it used in the field I've been very impressed. I use it on my sponge filters in the holding system at ADG from time to time as well. I would dose the biospira into your filter intakes for a good "stick" and move on as far as cycling concerns go.
Do all the water tests you want but more than anything I'd get a carbon bottle and start doing some real water changes. Its hard for spanking new water to be jacked up
. If I remember correctly he said a while back he was doing water changes in a 135 with buckets. I can't imagine keeping up with discus w/c regiment in a decently sized discus aquarium using buckets.
Let's all be honest if its a pain in the *** it doesn't get done as much as it should or as well it should. Good old 2 hose method works fine and takes very little physical effort. Bad water out one big fat ehiem hose. Then good water in from the carbon bottle. On hardier species this can be done at the same time creating a flush effect allowing one to accomplish a 100%+ water change when needed without removing or overly stressing (flop flop) the fish. I pull off flushes on discus very rarely and have only done so very gently with a slow temp. matched fill as well as the inline heaters running.
A vat and a pump would occupy too much space and cost too much for alot of people. Carbon bottles work quite well if maintained just a couple times a year (on a little 2ft pony bottle) and are reasonably wee. I think it holds around 20-30lbs of carbon. We've been trying to find a way to package and sell them in a kit lol. I try to change it every 3-4 months due to heavy use and the fact that we have giant trash cans full of carbon at ADG so why not
. Besides that I am using it all day on O.P.D. (Other Peoples Discus) so safety first. We have a couple of big 5ft carbon bottles in the shop we use on our own tanks (even on Jeff's wild discus) that haven't been changed for several years and still work fine. Although I don't reccomend that and have been b*tching about someone fixing that lol.
I still recomend adding Seachem Prime or Amquel+ or similar products during fills as a precaution as well as to enjoy the other benefits of those fine products.
