Uaru and angelfish in 75 gallon? Other ideas?

[Pudmuppy]

Have you considered biotadoma cupido?
They would be good in a group, they are pretty fish especially with a bit of age on them. They are also peaceful and would go well if you went down the discus route.

If you decide you want one of the thorichthys species, then the finer the sand the better. They are substrate sifting cichlids, much like the geophagines.
However I would not recommend any thorichthys as tank mates for discus. Conflicting temperature and water chemistry requirements.
Thorichthys would be great with livebearing fishes like swords or mollies or fish preferring cooler and harder more alkaline conditions.
If your really torn between what to keep and its just on a coin toss, I would let your water chemistry help influence your decision. Most fish look sharper in thier preferred conditions.

I have indeed been looking at Cupid Cichlids - I really like them too. That's very interesting that you say they could potentially be good with Discus!

I had been wondering about going with the finer sand in the main tank for any eartheaters etc, so that's an easy change. I figured the Thorichthys may be too personable for Discus - if I went that route, they would be the "stars" of the tank for sure.

I think at this point I need to sit down and make an outline of the requirements of my favourite species with temp, ph etc and see what good/bad combinations would be. I naturally want to create the most suitable environment for my chosen species, so that's a good idea - I am having issues at the moment with the chloramine level in my tap water so I am testing to see how easy it is to break it down in an ageing barrel before using for water changes - hoping an established filter in the barrel will work. I have been doing tests in a small empty tank which aren't looking so positive, however tonight am going to be setting up a larger empty tank with larger filter to see if the results are more conclusive in a couple of weeks. Basically, I don't want to go the RO route if I can absolutely help it, and therefore need to kill the ammonia on a scale that I can still achieve large regular waterchanges without simply topping the tank up with more ammonia!

That is the main hurdle with my Discus idea, if it seems like it's going to be banging my head against the wall to keep them healthy, then it makes decisions a lot easier. Whatever way I go, I will still be ageing the water before use, it just may not need to be on such an epic scale.

 

[Pudmuppy]

Yes, you can link other peoples' youtube videos.

Planning is fun, but it can be stressful too ... I still haven't decided on stocking for my new setup.

It's an impossible task, there are too many interesting fish! What sort of direction are you going in?

So, this is my ideal tank! I am actually going to try to contact the owner and ask a few questions. Especially as interestingly, over time there are fewer and fewer discus in there, and more angels! I will be asking him if it's because the discus were moved to a different/more suitable tank, or if his interests changed. I absolutely adore those guianacara! They are bulldogs!
EDIT - I am aware this is a bigger tank than I will have initially

 

[adamsfishes]

It's an impossible task, there are too many interesting fish! What sort of direction are you going in?

So, this is my ideal tank! I am actually going to try to contact the owner and ask a few questions. Especially as interestingly, over time there are fewer and fewer discus in there, and more angels! I will be asking him if it's because the discus were moved to a different/more suitable tank, or if his interests changed. I absolutely adore those guianacara! They are bulldogs!
EDIT - I am aware this is a bigger tank than I will have initially

I like both CA and SA cichlids, but I'm probably going with CA for this setup. I have fairly hard water, so that kind of breaks the tie and pushes me more toward CA. I do really like SA cichlids and previously kept discus for a long time in my water with no issues.

Guianacara are cute fish. The tank you linked has the kind of sand I'd recommend for any bottom feeding fish. I'm not sure how I feel about the mix of fish in that tank. For one thing, I'd never run a solo discus. They are social fish. Those owroewefi also seem a bit on the active/aggressive side for mixing with discus and angels. All the fish looked healthy though.

 

[neutrino]

The pictures of his adult fish are stolen. I know this because he stole peathenster’s pictures of Uaru that he got from me and was using them to peddle fish. Aquabid told us they couldn’t do anything about it.

Presents an interesting dilemma, since he has a ton of feedback, nearly all positive, often including high praise. Haven't dealt with him myself, but I've seen him on AB for years.

 

[neutrino]

Basically, I don't want to go the RO route if I can absolutely help it, and therefore need to kill the ammonia on a scale that I can still achieve large regular waterchanges without simply topping the tank up with more ammonia!

That is the main hurdle with my Discus idea, if it seems like it's going to be banging my head against the wall to keep them healthy, then it makes decisions a lot easier. Whatever way I go, I will still be ageing the water before use, it just may not need to be on such an epic scale.

I've known a lot of people to use and swear by Seachem Prime over the years-- by 'a lot' I mean on what was once a prominent Cyphotilapia forum, so a lot means a lot.

Not intending to bring up a debate over discus keeping-- not hard to do-- but I kept discus for years with great success. With experience and confidence I kept simplifying how I cared for them with continued success and essentially never did find them as difficult as they're often made out to be. I strongly believe some of that is in the route you go in care and feeding. That said, I wonder whether there are some weaker strains these days compared to those I had.

I'm occasionally tempted to do discus again, but a couple of things keep me from going there. One is the frequent power issues we have in my area, though I have a generator, so it would still be feasible. The other is I've been a severum (to use the vernacular for Heros species) and geo fan for years and haven't exhausted that interest yet... and with that I prefer to run slightly cooler tanks than I would with discus.

--My guianacara experience is they'd be a little too pushy for discus, wouldn't put them together except maybe in a large enough tank. The angels I had with guianacara were large, wild, Peru scalare, which the guianacara didn't bother.

 

[Hendre]

Discus need 3 things:
-Good food
-Good water
-No bacteria flying around

If your water is naturally soft RO is not needed, people here keep them at 100-200 TDS. They require good quality pellets, frozen foods etc and quite often when small. Skip all non-fish meat (Although Ostrich is used to good success here, very very lean) and keep the tank clean! Keepers here skip most substrate, especially for smaller fish, as uneaten food + substrate = Bacteria which discus generally don't like as the lower-pH waters they hail from have low bacterial counts. Just do your water changes and feed them well

 

[Pudmuppy]

Thanks again everyone for their help! I am still not sure what I want to do Too many interesting fish. I have asked my LFS what Guianacara and Geophagus species they can get, if any, and that might help my decision making.
Thanks for all the stories about Discus - I am pretty confident that I would be able to keep up with the water changes, my issue is that in the summer, if not year round (I haven't tested in the winter), we get chloramines in the water which results in .5 ammonia from the tap... if that wasn't the case, I would be set on Discus. Trying to decide if I am able to set up an ageing barrel with a good filter, and if that filter can break down the ammonia fast enough (along with Prime) to be suitable. I am probably going to set up the barrel anyway, as my ph drop is so extreme ( I end up with 6.4ph, GH5 and KH 2-3) so its pretty decent for Discus otherwise)

I'm still at least two weeks away from setting the tank up - walls are being painted next week - and just found out we may have to cover the cost of a new fence after a huge storm here, so it may be even longer.... however, I am not going to make a decision until the tank is here and I can look at it and get a feeling I am also doing a test to see how fast an ageing barrel will break down ammonia as that will be a huge factor. Thanks everyone, I am sure I will be back with more questions soon!

 

[ryansmith83]

I don’t know why you’re singling out discus when it comes to chloramine. Chloramine is ammonia + chlorine and it’s used as a disinfectant. It’s poisonous to all fish, not just discus, and must be removed either way. You neutralize it with Prime or Safe and then your filter processes it and breaks it down. You just add it before each water change. I have chloramines in my water and I keep discus as well as about fifteen other species of SA cichlid.

 

[neutrino]

True, chlorine/chloramine is toxic to all fish, but I understand singling discus out for special concern due to the perception of them as generally more sensitive than most fish. But, yes, clearly this doesn't mean other fish can handle it.

Chloramine does complicate things somewhat compared to simple chlorine-- the Seachem page on Prime is helpful on that if you read their supplementary information, including FAQ.

Discus need 3 things:
-Good food
-Good water
-No bacteria flying around

If your water is naturally soft RO is not needed, people here keep them at 100-200 TDS. They require good quality pellets, frozen foods etc and quite often when small. Skip all non-fish meat (Although Ostrich is used to good success here, very very lean) and keep the tank clean! Keepers here skip most substrate, especially for smaller fish, as uneaten food + substrate = Bacteria which discus generally don't like as the lower-pH waters they hail from have low bacterial counts. Just do your water changes and feed them well

Agree with most of this, but...

Substrate or not is one of the areas where opinions differ, but people do both, including some "dirted" discus tanks. It's the same with plants, tankmates vs. discus only, etc. There are areas of discus keeping where one opinion will never convince the other, but I never kept my discus (nor any other fish) in bare tanks, including fry. In some of these areas, it's generally a matter of different approaches involve different requirements and different perceived advantages and some of it's just personal preference. In feeding, particularly, I can confidently say do what you want and debate as long as you want, discus clearly do not require the terrestrial meats some people insist on-- I have years of successful discus keeping behind that confidence-- on that it appears we mostly agree.

Not all discus come from low pH water. Heckel and green discus do, blue/brown discus not necessarily, coming from varying habitat and water reportedly of 6.0-7.8 pH. Not everyone agrees with Heiko on every thing, but if he knows anything it's discus habitat-- Heiko Bleher on discus habitat

 

[neutrino]

...double post somehow-- edited to delete