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My discus fish aquarium
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That is a very nice looking tank! I used to have discus but had to get rid of them during my move ~5yrs ago. I am seriously considering them again, but would like to try and get them in a planted tank, so can I get some numbers/stats from you?
What is your:
pH
kH
GH
What is your substrate, lighting (watts), do you use CO2...if so, how do you buffer it to keep the kH/GH low so that your pH does not spike and dip? Do you use RO or dionized water or just tap?
What other fish do you have? I think I noticed some cardinals, black neons, and algae eaters...
Do you use any plant supplements like Flourish, Excel, or any Discus supplements like Discus buffer or Amazon "peat". What do you typically feed them?
What is your:
pH
kH
GH
What is your substrate, lighting (watts), do you use CO2...if so, how do you buffer it to keep the kH/GH low so that your pH does not spike and dip? Do you use RO or dionized water or just tap?
What other fish do you have? I think I noticed some cardinals, black neons, and algae eaters...
Do you use any plant supplements like Flourish, Excel, or any Discus supplements like Discus buffer or Amazon "peat". What do you typically feed them?
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Thank you very much.Wow! Those are some beautiful fish! Very nice looking tank!
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Dear friend,
When I started with discus fish I had all sorts of advice about softening the water and using a number of gadgets to monitor everything or sterilize the water etc.
After three years with my new discus fish I can say that I have these results only with tap water.
These dicsus fish are hybrids and they don't need soft water like the wild discus or when you want to reproduce them which calls for different approaches.
Soft water didn't help my young discus fish to grow well and the same problem had a friend of mine who used to change the water of his tank with R.O.
My tap water has a Ph around 7 and the Gh,Kh are not of the lowest.
The same goes with my gravel an plants.The simpler the better.You can have a look at my threads here and see the advice I gave to a lady asking about the substrate she was going to use.
I usually feed them Tetra bits,some red mosquito larvae (frozen and sterilized) and flakes.
Whenever you feel like I will be happy to answer your questions in more detail or discuss anything you are interested in.
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I wish discus weren't so expensive....... very beautiful!
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Thank you,
Discus are not so expensive compared to other fish if you think that they can live up to ten years or more..
Also,you can choose and buy cheap hybrids which can turn into great fish.Pay attention to the shape,the eyes and less to the colour of the body.
The bad shape of a young discus fish will not improve,neither any etched eyes.
My rainbow discus fish was bought from an assortment tank of little ones at the mere price of 17 euros.
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He he,this is really good luck.I hope the poor guy wasn't fired after that!
Yes it is true that some times such mistakes happen so keep an eye for good prices and "mistakes"! I have bought a couple of times fish at incredibly low prices because they didn't know what they sold.I think this is a bit of justice since we usually buy fish and aquarium products at incredibly high prices.
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i remember one time whene we got a grouper worth $69.99 for $6.99 at petco, as well as a puffer worth $39.99 for $8.99!
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Wow - those fish are amazing! Absolutely gorgeous.
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Thank you very much.
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Thank you,yours is wonderful too!!
It's great to read of someone else keeping discus this way!
I bred mine in tap water, despite my fearing that the osmotic pressure would be too great for the eggs. I also keep crushed coral in my fry tanks to ensure calcium for their little spines to form correctly.
I did. I thought my water would be too hard for the eggs to survive, but they did fine. I had a few pair that refused to stop eating their eggs(nearly all my fish would for the first few batches then just quite eating them....weird), so I spoke with another breeder about it. I tried to raise the fry artificially but they do far better feeding on the parents mucus. Finally, after speaking with him, I learned to use pvc instead of cones, and place a cylinder of coated hardware cloth over it once the eggs were laid. With this, the parents can still observe the eggs and fan them but are unable to gobble them up. Once they hatch, the parents take care in spitting them back toward the tube without swallowing them.
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