Starting A 125 Discus Tank.

Well the meter gives 2 reading. First is tds and that’s 71 and the second ppm at 810. I will put up a pic if I can

 

Well the meter gives 2 reading. First is tds and that’s 71 and the second ppm at 810. I will put up a pic if I can

Most TDS pens also give a temp reading at the same time so perhaps that's what's going on here?

 

Then that would be one wonky meter since his tank is in the 80's.

Most TDS pens also give a temp reading at the same time so perhaps that's what's going on here?

 

Got some new additions for the new tank. In qt now and they do look great!




THANKS CORALBANDIT!!!

 

That electric blue looks stunning. Is it part gold or is that how they normally look ?

 

No that’s just the pic they are all blue.

 

Got everybody together for a pic

and some pics of my new discus

 

Good 'ol family photo; something to show their grand kids

Got everybody together for a picView attachment 733837View attachment 733838and some pics of my new discusView attachment 733839View attachment 733840

 

Forgot these guys. These are the Hans from July .

 

Is it safe to mix them with non-hans or do you keep them separated ?

 

As of now they’re separated. I’m working on a larger tank for them.
I will add one of the Hans to their tank and see what happens. I did this with my other group with no problem. I’m hoping the month+ time in qt makes this work. Yes there’s a lot of horror stories about mixing German and Asian. Stendker just released a warning not to do it.

 

Well I’ve been away from this thread for a bit but want to keep it running. Started this thread 1 and a half years ago! For me wow! I’ve done what some discus pros say shouldn’t be done. Grow out discus in a planted tank. I did it pretty much with just the help of the people on this thread and I thank you all.

My first discus were these 2 sad discus I rescued from my lps. I’d been watching them for almost a month and they were just fading away. Unforunatly I only saved these 2 there were about 20 in the tank.
these guys were about the size of a quarter. Here they are now .
they both grew but not as big as they would have if I got them a month earlier. But I’m still amazed at how they’ve come out. Next were a pair of creamsicle discus.
These 2 turned into these.

I’ve yet to see any other discus this color. And the last store bought was this guy who always had the stress bars showing
these five were bought at the quarter size. The red behind the SS was 5” when I bought it. 4 of 5 of these have outgrown the red. The red and the brown are now 2 of the small discus in the tank.
As to the planted tank. It started like this
and grew to this.

I am enjoying these fish ! So much so I’ve got a second tank going now with discus from July. Waiting to see how big these guys will grow.
so thank you all for following this thread.

 

I’ve done what some discus pros say shouldn’t be done. Grow out discus in a planted tank.

Bravo!
You did have "Great" success, not following the norm. I may give them a go again. But next time definitely start with a larger tank.

Continued "Success" to you.

 

Moved around some plants and removed most of the rocks.
Still changing water 3x a week but have a pair acting up a bit. The brown is eating much less and one of the dirty guys has stopped eating. Everything is the same but something is bothering these 2. Set up a 30g just in case I need it. Have another in the other tank which seems to only eat enough to survive. When I got these guys it was one of the strongest fish. No idea what changes these fish.

 

Yes I have also experienced this many times. Mostly I have not acted on it and it has in all cases eventually lead to dead of the fish. I would move them right away for treatment before they get too weak to handle the treatment. Sometimes I think mine have happened due to a drop in pegging order.....

 

Hey fa4960 good to here from you . How’s your tank doing? Got to say I’m not sure what’s up. The 2 originals don’t seem to be in any stress. Or acting strange. Both are still interacting with the other fish. Just not as much. Will be keeping an eye on them. The one in the new tank is also really strange. It’s just eating enough to live but again it’s right there with all the others. Will attack the bw cube eat a bit and than just stop. Eat will eat frozen brime shrimp continuously. Just strange! And I do plan on moving it. Probably tomorrow.

 

Still around and quietly going about with my weekly water change as before. Still regularly losing fish and now down to only 5 left. The more healthy ones I guess. Turned it into a community tank. Added 4 rummy nose and my 6 L333 plecos from another tank and bought two wild L173 Titanic also. Lot's of wood and artificial caves where the plecos can hide so all behaving nicely. This can't be said of the remaining discus. There are two pairs in the 5 left and the dominant male is keeping the other pairs male confined to a very small part of the large tank, backed up in a corner and fighting him endlessly. Not sure how this is going to end but I am reluctant to buy more discus which would be the obvious solution to minimise individuals being picked on. Also not keen on moving a pair as I basically don't want to run more than the big tank.

 

FEED US!!!!

 

Well it’s been awhile and I had a major problem. Now I quarantine any new fish I get. But discus seem to be much more susceptible to diseases. I bought 2 new guys from the same place I bought my first ones from. They just came in and were marked super red. How could I not buy them!
Well there fine but they had something on them that crossed into both my tanks. These 2 were in qt inthere own tank in another room. So whatever it was moved on my hands to the other tanks. 2 weeks lots of salt and buying all the rid-ich plus the store had. I’ve turned it around and things are improving. Tanks went from this

 

Just discovered this existed! Been dealing with some disease myself. Btw do you have any discus where their faces are a peach color and the rest are red. Those are my favorite!

 

To this

first pic is my planted tank. Notice no plants . Had to remove because of the amount of salt added. At the peak 6tbs per 10g. But most plants are ok and in a 50g I had. Because of this I won’t be going as planted as before. What will go back will be in planters. I also removed 2/3s of the gravel. It hit this tank first and salt was all I had and what was advised. 2 days later it made its way to my other tank. At this time I’d been given advice to use rid-ich plus. So I went with a study to see which worked best. Both tanks went solo for the first 7 days. But the rid-ich tank was doing much better. Fish even though in the beginning they were black in color were still eating. Andthey were improving faster than the first tank. 2 days after introducing the rid-ich to the salt tank it turned the tank completely around. It was now in better shape than the rid-ich tank. So I added 1tbs of salt pre 20 gal to the rid ich tank and it got better in 2 days. So the rid-ich with the salt was the best approach.
Hoping this will be gone by next week. Still a little side effects on some of the blue fish but they are improving .

Just discovered this existed! Been dealing with some disease myself. Btw do you have any discus where their faces are a peach color and the rest are red. Those are my favorite!

If you can put up pictures of the sick fish. Anything new added to the tank.
This guy is my red discus. It’s face was lighter when I got it a year or so ago. But it’s went all red now

 

Well the main tank had a relapse. Went back on the rid-ich and salt and had greatly improved. All but one discus. My brown discus who was never hit that bad by the first go around and was the first to fully recover. Can me down a day after last post and it was laying at the bottom of the tank. It’s eyes looked like pop eye. All the discus were showing cloudy eyes. No clue as to what happened. So did another big water change and retreated with salt and rid-ich. Move the brown to a 5g to med by itself. All good now with the tank and brown. Hoping to get him back in main tank by next week.
Tanks as of today. Notice not many plants in main tank anymore! Also a note the tank with the rid-ich the plants were fine with no losses at all. Almost want to say plants thrived with the treatment.

 

Just some pics of my discus

 

Well most of the plants are gone and the pleco’s kind of reminding me of the seagulls in finding Nemo. Mine! Mine! Mine!

 

That is one feisty Pleco....

 

Wow! What a difference. It appears your the last of the original "Discus" gang. Since moving on from my "Discus" dream. I am enjoying your updates.

Maybe I'll try again someday.

 

Lol yeah that thread got lonely . Just bought 4 discus from Dennis Discus. 3 raffleisa and a yellow Marlboro.

 

Lol yeah that thread got lonely . Just bought 4 discus from Dennis Discus. 3 raffleisa and a yellow Marlboro.View attachment 786849View attachment 786850View attachment 786851View attachment 786852

Beautiful coloring

 

I really enjoy your Discus posts, they are beautiful fish. I especially like the original blue ones. Do you still have them in the Clear for Life 125 gallon and are you happy with it? I'm looking to purchase one of their 180 gallons for SA Cichlids.

 

Wow been awhile!! So here’s some pics from both tanks.

 

Yes I’ve got 2 a 90 and a 125. Mine are 3/8” thick acrylic. Not sure what size they use for a 180 but I’d say it should be 1/2”. Do you have acrylic now? I’ve also got a 50 clear for life and an older quality plus 125. I’m happy with all! The

 

Lost one of my discus about 2 weeks ago. Not sure why. But thinking it’s got something to do with the earlier cross contamination. That’s the second I’ve lost since the cc. I do believe the cc and meds have something to do with the deaths. Another is a little off and is now in the qt tank. Asked on the discus site but not much help. Here’s some pics. This discus went gray in color and it’s lips got swollen. The lips were also the problem with the last one. Did medicate this guy so will see how he does. He is already going back to blue.


.everything else is going good. These 2 fish are from my originals and are 3 yrs old.

 

Yes I’ve got 2 a 90 and a 125. Mine are 3/8” thick acrylic. Not sure what size they use for a 180 but I’d say it should be 1/2”. Do you have acrylic now? I’ve also got a 50 clear for life and an older quality plus 125. I’m happy with all! The

No, I only have glass tanks right now. A 55 and a 13. This will be my first acrylic, that's why I was wanting feedback from someone who has had a larger one for a while. And you are correct, it will be 1/2" thick acrylic. It's still several months away, but I'm trying to collect all the info on the tank, equipment, and fish I can beforehand. I've got plants quarantining and growing out in my 13, and am getting ready to start seeding filters in my 55. Thank you so much for your feedback.

 

If the Qt is bare bottom try doing some potassium permanganate treatments to the tank .

 

If the Qt is bare bottom try doing some potassium permanganate treatments to the tank .

That will be my next move. Just did a kanamycin treatment. It’s color is coming back. Will give it a few weeks and see how it goes. How much pp for a 36g tank?

 

Again it’s been a long time . I’ve got a new thread going on a 180 I started earlier this year. Now the main tank from this thread had many problems after the cross contamination. This tank had lots of salt and later the rid-ich. I’ve lost most of these fish over the last year. I believe it was the salt that did them in. Only ones left are 1 Hans the brown and 2 of the first 6. So 4. Nothing I was able to do helped. The other tank did fine and I’ve still have that group. They’ve moved into the new 180.

Now I’ve redone that first tank. 3 of the originals are still in there.

still playing with the look.

 

Again it’s been a long time . I’ve got a new thread going on a 180 I started earlier this year. Now the main tank from this thread had many problems after the cross contamination. This tank had lots of salt and later the rid-ich. I’ve lost most of these fish over the last year. I believe it was the salt that did them in. Only ones left are 1 Hans the brown and 2 of the first 6. So 4. Nothing I was able to do helped. The other tank did fine and I’ve still have that group. They’ve moved into the new 180. View attachment 854544View attachment 854546Now I’ve redone that first tank. 3 of the originals are still in there.View attachment 854547View attachment 854545still playing with the look.

View attachment 855325View attachment 855326View attachment 855327View attachment 855328View attachment 855329

This reminds me - on another forum there was a long discussion about discus diet after someone suggested feeding them beef heart; so one of the more scientific person on the forum who was explaining that beef heart is not healthy for the fishes dug out a scientific article that discuss that the majority of food found in wild discus stomach is actually plant matter. The conclusion was that it is quite healthy to have plant matter in discus tanks for them to nibble on... The issue with beef heart is that generally speaking meat contain too much fat matter as well as protein that fishes find difficult to properly digest.
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As for salt killing fishes; i recently had an ick break out and for various reasons I decided to treat with 2 tablespoon of salt per gallon. The good news was that the ick was gone in 5 or 6 days; the bad news is it killed off 2 of my cory (which did not have ick) and all my pangio semicincta; oddly it did not seem to impact the pangio shelfordii (closely related to pangio semicincta). I'm unsure if the salt actually killed them or the change in tds. I added the salt too fast but removed it very slowly.
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With discus I am curious why you used salt since I would think they would be extremely tolerant of high temperature.

 

It wasn’t ich. It was what we call a cross contamination in discus. Discus like all fish carry diseases. Some breeders breed out some of these diseases but none can remove them all. So sometimes when mixing discus from different breeders disease spread and can wipe out your tanks. Just another discus problem . So what my fish had was a bacterial disease that rid-ich cured. It’s not just for ich but many bacterial diseases. Discus rarely get ich.

Salt also does help them as it helps many other fish. But to much salt also isn’t good. I usually add 1tb of salt per 5g. In one of the tanks from advice given I gave about 7tbs per 10g. In the long term I think that much salt gave them long term problems on there internal organs.

Thing with beef heart is it fattens discus up when young. Also breeders have been feeding beef heart to discus since the 80s. So is it good for them have they adapted to it? I don’t know and I don’t feed it a lot. But it’s a mainstay with all breeders. It’s always funny when someone who really has no clue about something and hasn’t researched it makes statement’s. I’ve never seen any of my discus eat any of my plants. Also never heard on any of the discus sites anyone stating their discus are eating plants. Main reason is these aren’t wild discus! So don’t believe everything you here . So much that was learned from wild fish can just be thrown out. The fish we keep are so far from wild that wild results are just useless.

 

It wasn’t ich. It was what we call a cross contamination in discus. Discus like all fish carry diseases. Some breeders breed out some of these diseases but none can remove them all. So sometimes when mixing discus from different breeders disease spread and can wipe out your tanks. Just another discus problem . So what my fish had was a bacterial disease that rid-ich cured. It’s not just for ich but many bacterial diseases. Discus rarely get ich.

I had a similar problem where some new cherry barbs carried some sort of bacteria disease. It did not effect them so qt didn't help and they are still alive but they killed off my angels and several of my clown loaches. I was able to save two of the clown loaches via bacteria treatment and salt dips (can't know for sure what helped but they managed to recover); I lost 6 angel fishes; 3 large clown loaches; all my cardinal tetras and a couple of smaller odd and ends. However the cherry barbs are still doing fine.

 

Also breeders have been feeding beef heart to discus since the 80s. So is it good for them have they adapted to it?

I know beef heart is commonly fed to discus, and it seems to be a major ingredient in prepared foods for discus as well. But have often wondered who first thought of this and why. It cannot be similar to anything they would normally eat in the wild, surely?

 

Yes that’s the way it goes. The 2 new discus never showed a problem we’re in there own tank in another room. But whatever they had moved on my hands into both my main tanks. Those 2 never were ill and are doing great. What you can do is when qting add a fish from main tank to the new guys a see if anything happens.

The rid-ich plus med I mentioned is for bacterial problems. It’s from kordon. Will work for these types of problems. Being I had 2 tanks with the problem. One tank I started with just the heavy salt. This brought the discus out of the worst part of the infection but never cured them. The second tank got it a week later and I’d been given other advice so I tried the rid-ich. Results were almost instant.

I know beef heart is commonly fed to discus, and it seems to be a major ingredient in prepared foods for discus as well. But have often wondered who first thought of this and why. It cannot be similar to anything they would normally eat in the wild, surely?

Yeah this was German and American breeders in the 80s. They were feeding a shrimp/fish meal to them but the price of both got to expensive and somehow they came up with beefheart. I think there’s a lot of protein in beefheart. Seems discus have adapted to digesting beefheart. But not all and if you don’t feed it and start it can be a problem. I lost one to beefheart. It just couldn’t digest it. Many other dither fish also have problems with it. Especially corys. I feed it once maybe twice a week after water changes. But I thaw it out in water first and feed it slowly so what hits the bottom is just tiny left overs.

Foods can be a problem for discus. Since there’s no regulations on foods some are worse than others. I dont feed beef heart much so I don’t make my own. For the last month I’ve stopped feeding it. Was having short term problems with some fish. Which seems to have stopped. Im now wondering if it was the brand of food I was using. I just bought another brand and I’m going to try it for this coming month and see what happens.
Foods like live black worms were used back in the 80s. It was expensive but it bulked up the discus. Thing is there was so much bad stuff in the worms that it was the main reason for losing fish. Trying to get discus to go from worms to flake foods or beefheart was next to impossible.

 

According to one study of discus in the wild they feed predominantly on algal periphyton, fine organic detritus, plant matter, and small aquatic invertebrates.

So why do tank bred discus need to be fed such a high protein diet I wonder? Worms, shrimps and some plant material would seem to be more appropriate than beef heart, but it seems that there are problems with costs and logistics, or that breeders are trying to grow them artificially fast?

Have you ever tried giving them anything plant based as an addition to their diet? My Mesonauta don't eat aquarium plants, but when I give them a lettuce leaf they go straight for it! As do the Uarus and severum. When my big tank was first set up I was getting some filamentous algae in the roots of the water lettuce, these three species used to pull it off and eat it, there isn't any now, but I give them (among other things) some foods containing Spirulina and Chlorella. The Bug Bites Spirulina flakes (which also contain insect larvae) are the favorite dried food of the Mesonauta and Uaru, the severum prefers more chunky food but will eat the flakes as well. Even the blue acara, which is presumably more carnivorous, perhaps more like discus, but also eats some algae and detritus in the wild, likes the Spirulina flakes.

 

I do feed flake food daily to my discus. I mix 3 different brands and most eat it regularly. I feed 5 different foods to my discus with beef heart being the least used. Freeze dried black worms are the most used and one of the flakes is a black worm mix.
Some have eaten algae even pick at bba but not many.
Yes breeders fatten and grow out their fish with beef heart. Some are moving away from it and I’d predict in 10-20yrs they’ll all be using pellets or flake. Thing is the results are there for beef heart. 7” huge discus within a year. These fish sell for hundreds. So hard to stop breeders. It’s just an industry!