169 replies to this topic

[Juls]

Agree with Brett on the algae thing, heavy doses of liquid carbon supplements do not always work, particularily on new tanks.

I've always found when the tank hits the 6-9 months mark that everything tends to suddenly sort itself out as the tank reaches biological maturity.

But generally you should be able to gain control within the 6 to 8 week mark, adding more livestock upsets the balance and you go through the motions again.

It's actually the trace amounts of ammonia and nitrite that are nearly undetectable that trigger these algae woes, it's just nature reacting to the imbalance.

Juls

Edited by Juls, 22 March 2011 - 08:26 AM.

[waruna]

You may have already noticed the bleeding hearts are aggressive feeders, If ANY of your discus show "Any" Signs of weekness
don't be surprised if your pack of bleeding hearts all go into kamakazi attack mode and finish it off.

Hi Juls, you mean kill it????? Are you serious?? They did pick on the Discus when i first put them in, now the Discus chase them away!

we went with bleeding hearts so they would be big and robust enough for the altums, but now we have the incredible discus and considering not getting the altums and the bleeding hearts might now be a bit "overkill".

can you see more clearly now what i was trying to get at with the angels and discus thing? I've only seen it work on "temporary" displays, like tanks heiko and others have setup for certain shows, but are only a temporary display.

Lol, i'm not sure if i'm really considering NOT to get Altums yet. I want to see some "real proof" that this can't be done. So everyone who opposes please show me some evidence (no offense) I can't seem to find any info/tank jouranals, apart from advice on forums..

Hi Brett, thanks for posting the link Vallis surely looks dead, looks similar to the grass patches we have in our back yard, puppy pee does a good job killing it.

All my plants seem to be doing ok so far, i have been dosing a little bit over, daily. I can't see any signs of distress from the plants or the fish.

Surface agitation increase the oxygen levels in your tank, are you suggesting that your fish were suffering from lack of oxygen, as if this was the case increasing the fish load is likely to be a problem. The beauty of pH controlled CO2, is that increasing surface agitation just means that you pump more CO2 into the water to keep up with the increased loss.

This is the only reason i could think of, lack of O2.. I think a few things may have contributed to the lack of O2 levels in the tank, every time my substrate heating system comes on my water goes murky and a white film covers the surface pretty thick. We had a few days of cooler weather and the substrate heating system was on, i've programmed it at 28.5, i know this is a bit high but i wanted to condition the Discus at this level Comments welcome. Since then i have pointed the Tunze circulation pump towards the top, i added another pump today. Circulation at the top seems much better now, i can clearly see it in the fish. I'm waiting for a mate to bring a O2 meter, will do a test.

Ok, i googled pearling, would be awesome to see it in my tank one day.

Algae is under control now, no new growth for the past two days, it's all the dead stuff hanging around, wont p@#$ off. I'm hoping the worst has passed. I'm dosing Flourish daily.

I've always found when the tank hits the 6-9 months mark that everything tends to suddenly sort itself out as the tank reaches biological maturity.

But generally you should be able to gain control within the 6 to 8 week mark, adding more livestock upsets the balance and you go through the motions again.

It's actually the trace amounts of ammonia and nitrite that are nearly undetectable that trigger these algae woes, it's just nature reacting to the imbalance.

6 to 9 months?! Jees! I agree, it definitely looks like it's trying to find it's balance. Plants seem to love the ferts, lights and the Co2, almost every single plant has a few new leaves now, all the ferns are still struggling, i've been told they don't like to be touched, oops!

A Diatom would be sweeeet!

[Kieran]

Finally took the time to read this one, looks like a schmick setup

6-9 months isn't that long given that we're talking a basic ecosystem Reef tanks take 12-24+ months to 'mature'. I think another pump to agitate the surface is a good idea at these temperatures. I know my discus tank keeps hitting the 32deg + mark on these hot days.

Was nice to meet you in the shop the other day, I'm the bloke with the long hair.

[waruna]

It was nice to meet you too Kieran

Update, algae problem has stopped, all the dead algae is coming off by itself from the leaves. I still dose 50ml of Flourish each day. Plants are doing very well, ferns are still the same, not much change in growth at all.

My water is very dirty compared with all the previuos tanks i've had. I think one of the mistakes i've made is i didn't add any white filter wool in my filters to polish the water, i'm adding some this evening. I also hooked up a Diatom last night, it's a bugger to set up but does an amazing job. If these two doesn't give me the water quality i'm expecting i'm going to rethink about my filtration for this tank. Instead of all these power heads i'm using i wish i bought another filter. I kind of left room to hook up another filter when i did the plumbing but this is the last option, i'd hate to shut the system off for a day or two. Initially i was going to go with pressurized sand filters, if i ever set up another tank i'm definitely going to research more in to them.

Since Sunday this is how i've been running my light system:

Set 1: 2 x units 1W each white globes 6500k, total 80W (the other 32 globes are blue and i'm not using them until algae is completely gone).
Round 1: On at 2.20pm-off at 2.31pm. Round 2: On at 4pm-Off at 8pm. Round 3: On at 9.29pm-Off at 9.45

Set 2: 2 x units x 1W each 112 white globes, total 112W. 2 x units 2W each 56 White globes 9500k total 112W
Comes on at 2.30pm and goes off at 9.30pm


The Discus that came in without much water (about 50ml) is still pretty weak, not sure if I mentioned this before. He is doing ok, but I'd like to see him a bit fatter, he was the weakest looking from the lot too. I'm keeping a close eye on him. He has recovered a lot but still the skinniest, has a hard time pushing everyone off to get to the food. In general they are the slowest feeders of all the fish species i've kept.

[werdna]

Can you post a pic of the lights? I am intrigued by them!

[Juls]

Any fish will have a nip at a dying fish, just bleeding hearts and other similar charachins are just very aggressive in groups when it comes to a dying fish.

Fear not they won't touch your discus unless one is dying. Hopefully you will see the struggling discus if it happens and remove it earlier rather than later.

as for the filtering, fine wool is a must, but you may find thats still not enough. consider adding a couple of 100ml seachem Purigen satchels to your tank, these will polish out any colouring in the water. There is a few other brands of similar products around, but none are quite the same as purigen in terms of removal of organics and the way in which they recharge. I find purigen excellent for large tanks, but difficult to use in small tanks after regeneration. (100ml treats 400L.)

When i kept discus as display, i found I needed to feed various foods all at once, the discus tend to prefer worm type foods (blood worms/black worms) and premade discus dinners, i tried to use things like brine shrimp, daphnia and some dry foods to keep the other fish busy, you'll find the discus will prefer the largest food items. You should be able to get them to eat blocks of food from your hands, they will also nip at your fingers but do no damage.

You might also notice they are particularily clumsy when it comes to feeding, often missing the mark, this explains why some people have luck keeping cherry shrimps with discus, because the cherry shrimp has a 50/50 chance of being missed and getting away. (although your bleeding hearts won't miss)

I'd keep a close eye on the struggling discus, sounds like your not having any heirachy issues yet, you may not since you have a decent sized group, I know when i had a group of 8 things could get very heated at times, I learned the hard way that you can't add new discus unless they are either bigger, or much more fiesty, although i still come across picking the top dog from one tank, and dropping it in my tank at home the new discus couldn't hold it's own and i ended up removing it, generally though things settle down in a few weeks.

You have saved yourself a huge headache by just getting the whole school in one hit, chances are the heirachy is set, as long and none of them try to contest their position things will remain calm. But keep a close eye on the discus that is struggling, if it starts to hide and doesn't come out for food, bare bottom tank on it's own for 4-6 weeks at least so you can fatten it up and get it nice and strong to be able to cope with it's tankmates, keep a eye out for any health problems.

Still very jealous of your discus, i always wanted that particular strain, but didn't have the cash for a group and could never find a few separate at a affordable price. Makes me want to setup a discus display again.. sigh..

Juls

Edited by Juls, 25 March 2011 - 06:41 PM.

[waruna]

Hi Juls,

Still very jealous of your discus, i always wanted that particular strain, but didn't have the cash for a group and could never find a few separate at a affordable price. Makes me want to setup a discus display again.. sigh..

If they ever breed i'll give you enough to start a decent colony, i know it's not the same since these wont be WC but they should still look pretty good. Not teasing, keep your fingers crossed With your knowledge i'm sure they'll do quite well.

as for the filtering, fine wool is a must, but you may find thats still not enough. consider adding a couple of 100ml seachem Purigen satchels to your tank, these will polish out any colouring in the water. There is a few other brands of similar products around, but none are quite the same as purigen in terms of removal of organics and the way in which they recharge. I find purigen excellent for large tanks, but difficult to use in small tanks after regeneration. (100ml treats 400L.)

You must be a mind reader, i was at Malaga yesterday and this is what Kevin suggested to me, i wanted to come home and do a bit of reading on it first. Will definitely get some. Do you combine this with Flourish Nitrogen? A few on some forums have suggested this...

When i kept discus as display, i found I needed to feed various foods all at once, the discus tend to prefer worm type foods (blood worms/black worms) and premade discus dinners, i tried to use things like brine shrimp, daphnia and some dry foods to keep the other fish busy, you'll find the discus will prefer the largest food items. You should be able to get them to eat blocks of food from your hands, they will also nip at your fingers but do no damage.

I'm only feeding frozen foods till they start eating pellets, once they start eating pellets i'm going to feed NLS Thera A exclusively. You can't compare the nutritional value of Thera A to pretty much anything else out there, my personal opinion. I made a mix of (1/3) pellets/ Prawns (smashed in) and fed them, it clouds the tank too much. If they were in a bare bottom/quarantine type tank i would feed them this formula until they start eating pellets by it self, this is how i got almost every single SW fish to eat pellets. To me It's pointless feeding all those home made type foods, the digestibility is so poor and to compensate this daily 60%-80% water changes are sometimes recommended. What kind of fish keeping husbandry is this?!
Lately i have been making a mix with blood worms and pellets. Basically i put a few cubes of blood worms in to a small saucer and cover it with pellets, no smashing it in. And then put it back in the fridge without a cover so the pellets absorb all the blood and juices from the worms and dry out in the fridge. Once they are dry i feed it to them, so far only a couple seem to eat the pellets, the rest end up in Bleeding hearts fat tummys . I'm going to fast them once a week from next Saturday.

There's definitely one dominant one, looks absolutely stunning, he/she is in very good condition. No aggression among them though, bit of bumping that's all. They follow me around now, if i put my hand in the tank they are there in seconds, very curious. The struggling one is a bit worrying, doesn't eat much at all, eats early morning and seem to not eat much in the evenings
Thanks mate, will keep an eye on him, if it comes to it i'll set up a small tank to nurse him!

The plants are doing very well, even the ferns have started to grow, new leaves on every single one. It's cleared heaps too. I've been recharging the Diatom 3 times a day, i've got it worked out now. Algae problem is definitely gone, it's all the dead stuff hanging around, still!

Here's the lighting system





I'm reading a fair bit on Altums and WC Discus compatibility, here's an interesting thread i read a couple of days back..

JeffreyRichard01-26-2011, 10:19 AM
So is everyone recommending wild discus with Altums? Or can you mix them with all discus? Thanks.

Wild TRUE Altums come from the Orinoco River system in Columbia and Venezuela ... there are no native discus found in this region. A truer companion from a biotope perspective would be scalare or leopoldi. In Peru, RSGs and Peruvian Scalare (sometimes SOLD erroneously as Peruvian Altums) cohabitate. Certainly Rio Negro Scalare (Santa Isabella, for instance) can be found with certain discus.

That said, Altums can make perfectly good companions with discus. However, you should be aware that wild Altums are "china dolls" compared with a wild discus ... they are extremely intolerant of anything less than pristine water conditions, and will break down quickly. The going advice is to keep altums at 84-85 degrees, use RO (minimal hardness) and a pH below 6.

I have purchased 4 groups of altums over the past 3 years, and I have 3 remaining to show for it ... out of 50. I've bred angelfish commercially for over 10 years, and kept angels and discus since 1985, so I'm somewhat knowledgable about the subject. I suggest if you are looking to keep altums, you spend some time at The Angelfish Study Group forum (http://www.finarama.com/forum/) as there are several experts on Altums there with some excellent recommendations on acclimating altums.

And whoever posted the nonsense about the mysterious "angelfish parasite" that kills discus doesn't know what they are talking about ... any un-quarantined wild fish is capable of spreading disease to established fish in an aquarium, not just angelfish.

http://forum.simplyd...hp/t-83121.html

I'll keep reading

[Juls]

Looks like a interesting article, i was reading something by Jack Wattely regarding the Angelfish parasite, I also read similar from heiko as well, both also confirmed the hormone that stops other discus growing (which is the real reason to change 90% water daily on young discus) as well as the parasite issue, No ideas who is right, but Jack and Heiko are up there, particularily Jack since he's been breeding discus and travelling to South America wild catching for over 50 Years. I will see if I can find the article for you, it was a Q&A on TFH a few years back.

My problems with Angels and discus is more the "heirachy" based compatibility, one tank it could be sweet as, the other it could be world war 3, in my case I experienced world war three, when your discus are hitting the lids and permanently trying to hide from the angelfish, every time the discus come out, they get chased mercilessly around the tank you know at this point something isn't right. It might work, it might not.

As for the feeding, Good luck with the pellets, it's a long slow process to ween discus onto pellets, i found flake "Alot" easier, but still after months could not get them to only take flake only. each group is different with some luck you'll get them onto it, I agree that commercial pellets are by far the best diet if the fish will take them, but if you gave your kids a choice of ice cream or broad beans and brussel sprouts each day what are they going to take? More to the point if they think the ice cream is available why bother with the broad beans and brussel sprouts?

I have kept Dario Dario, no chance in hell getting them to take dead food, so if you like to take up a "taking commercial foods" challenge try Dario Dario.. if it's not moving it's not food with these guys! (meaning you need suitably sized live foods at all times to keep em fed and alive.)

Discus are piece of cake because they usually will take frozen fair without any problems but still challenging to get onto commercial formula,
some go onto it quite easily, others will turn up there noses forever, the fact they are taking frozen and not insisting on live foods makes life easier but no gaurantees. I'm not saying it won't happen, but I would not put all your money on the idea that it's definatly going to happen, i would expect a considerable challenge in your hands.

I'm glad you got a big group in one go, they definatly where a bargain, it always pays to know someone who knows the right person who is connected to the right people.

Love the lighting, very much needed and worthwhile on such a deep tank, i think this is where LED's come into there own, they are kinda pointless on shallow tanks where in my mind cheapy T5HO is more economical in both the short and long term.

I will be surprised if you don't get at least one pair within 6-12 months, I ended up with 3 pairs out of 7 discus, but that was what stopped me keeping discus because it was a logistical nightmare keeping 3 pairs spawning together in a 5ft tank. (trying to kill each other since they could not make a big enough safe zone for there spawn, having to feed more regular because 3 out of the 7 discus would not come and feed, since they had to swap with there partners gaurding there eggs.) the eggs never got past 1-2 days free swimming as other tankmates go them, but of course the next day they had laid again! this went on for months and months until i gave up. I only fed frozen foods, 70% water change every 7-10 days, (depending when i could time it, had to wait for the fry to be free swimming then all eaten, then i had 24-48hrs to do a water change before they laid eggs again.)

Highly doubt you will have that problem though.

Juls

Edited by Juls, 26 March 2011 - 07:54 PM.

[Angelo]

I'm only feeding frozen foods till they start eating pellets, once they start eating pellets i'm going to feed NLS Thera A exclusively. You can't compare the nutritional value of Thera A to pretty much anything else out there, my personal opinion. I made a mix of (1/3) pellets/ Prawns (smashed in) and fed them, it clouds the tank too much. If they were in a bare bottom/quarantine type tank i would feed them this formula until they start eating pellets by it self, this is how i got almost every single SW fish to eat pellets. To me It's pointless feeding all those home made type foods, the digestibility is so poor and to compensate this daily 60%-80% water changes are sometimes recommended. What kind of fish keeping husbandry is this?!
Lately i have been making a mix with blood worms and pellets. Basically i put a few cubes of blood worms in to a small saucer and cover it with pellets, no smashing it in. And then put it back in the fridge without a cover so the pellets absorb all the blood and juices from the worms and dry out in the fridge. Once they are dry i feed it to them, so far only a couple seem to eat the pellets, the rest end up in Bleeding hearts fat tummys . I'm going to fast them once a week from next Saturday.

as juls mentioned, good luck with getting them to eat pellets. my discus refuse to eats pellets even though i've been trying for months, i just gave up. but then again the place i bought them from were also feeding only frozen food so they were already used to this. have u found out what they were feed before u got them? if it was a certain type of pellet food, u can start feeding them that instead of the frozen food.

anyway just like to add that you have a very impressive tank and the discus are awesome! very jealous!!

[waruna]

Hi Juls,

Sounds good, would love to read it. So your tank is 5ft, what are the exact dimensions? Was it heavily planted with lots of hiding places? The reason i'm asking is i'm trying to work out by having a larger tank with lots of hiding places and bigger colonies (both Altums and Discus) would allow the less dominant fish a better chance of getting away. I purposely set mine up with lots of hiding places, also by having 12 each you'd hope they'll be distracted easily?! Anyway i'd love to see your tank

I don't mind waiting a year for them to start eating pellets by it self, not much i can do, but i wont give up, i'll keep experimenting till they are converted. I wish they were in a quarantine type tank. I did think a lot about this but i couldn't decide. In my head i was thinking how it is almost impossible to set up another tank with the water quality i was hoping to have in this tank. Too late now, unless i try and catch them..

I agree that commercial pellets are by far the best diet if the fish will take them, but if you gave your kids a choice of ice cream or broad beans and brussel sprouts each day what are they going to take? More to the point if they think the ice cream is available why bother with the broad beans and brussel sprouts?

I'm not really following your point, what if fish are like kids and they do not know what is best for them? I mean yeah most kids would love to eat ice cream every day instead of veges, where would that take them tho? I'm aware this is not a walk in the park, but i'm going to give it a good shot, they will one day.

It's still early days in regards toLEDs, so far they are doing a good job, i think.

Do you think the Bleeding hearts will eat all the fry if they ever breed in my tank? If not rest of the gang might still hey?! Still would love to see your old setup, have you got a journal some where here?

as juls mentioned, good luck with getting them to eat pellets. my discus refuse to eats pellets even though i've been trying for months, i just gave up. but then again the place i bought them from were also feeding only frozen food so they were already used to this. have u found out what they were feed before u got them? if it was a certain type of pellet food, u can start feeding them that instead of the frozen food.

anyway just like to add that you have a very impressive tank and the discus are awesome! very jealous!!

Hi Angelo, some of the clan already picks on the pellets, eats a little of it... The trick i found was to smash a few bloodworms and get all the juices out, then put the pellets on top of it and leave over night in the fridge, i have about 4 saucers going at the same time now lol. From what i can see they don't seem to like the hard texture of the pellets, once it's moist it must be a bit better. Few picks up the pellets that are covered with worms and throw some of it out, but i can clearly see they are trying, it must smell like food but not taste like food. This is a start.

I did contact the importer, they were fed on BH mix.

[waruna]

I noticed cloudy eyes on almost every Discus and another one stopped eating. Tested the water and had a reading of Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0.5, 80ppm-160ppm Nitrate, this was two days ago. Did a 30% water change and overdosed prime five times per instructions. Cleaned one of the canisters (the one with sponges) and i've never seen anything dirty as that one, full of Mud, black water rinse after rinse. I put white filter wool between each layer and after 24hrs the tank was spotless, i've been recharging the Diaton only once a day since . I think i may have stocked the tank too soon..?! I have no other way to explain this.

In 24hrs Nitrite went down to .25 and Nitrate is at 20ppm now. I stopped using KNO3. Discus are much more active, the weakest one joined the colony but he gets a bit hassled, the other one is getting chased away too, both still doesn't eat. The weakest one is clearly trying tho, the other one who is in good condition runs and hides every time i feed the colony, he also tried to cough up on Monday, have not seen this yesterday or today (since i've treated).

I decided to treat them with Blagdon Anti Ulcer and Prazi. The weakest one is definitely a lot happier since. Poor water quality is a nightmare, gutted. The rest are doing very well. Plants are doing well, new leaves on few Crypts are turning yellow, i read this is a sign of insufficient Potassium. I decided to use Seachem Potassium today. I definitely recommend Flourish, i'm going to continue using this every other day. Corys and AS is a hard one, definitely complicated things for me.

[scarab]

Hi waruna. IMHO, you should stop dosing so much ferts. Looking at your plants, they are either slow growing ( the java ferns and anubias) or heavy root feeders (swords, crypt and crinum). Dosing KNO3 will be the main culprit that caused your no3 to shoot sky high as no plants are consuming the ferts fast enough. Please consider using root tabs for the swords, crypts, crinum and blyxa. At the rate the ferns and anubias grow, whatever there is in the water will be enough for them. In addition, i think dosing excel is a little unnecessaary considering as you have co2, but if it is to control algae, may i suggest cutting down on ferts due to reasons mentioned about.

About the crypts, crypts will almost always die back when planted in a new environment before coming back. some how thats how they adapt so dont have to be too worried about that. and as mentioned, considering they are heavy root feeders, try root tabs, they contain everything needed, last longer, and will be more readily taken up, and doesnt mess with the tank parameters

Just my 2 cents.
cheers

Edited by scarab, 30 March 2011 - 11:16 PM.

[Juls]

I kept my discus in a 5x2x2, around the 500L mark, I did not end up keeping alot of plants as most struggled in the high temps and acidic water (around 5.8-6), and i wasn't prepared to pay for 300-500W of lighting, also as I wanted to keep my hood on the tank (closed hood) which helped reduce heating costs, since even in summer the heater is constantly on/off with the temps at 29-30. (my house is A/C)

Below is a picture of my tank shortly after it was setup, I switched to some Amazon Swords later on, and the discus all got to the 5-7" marks just before i shut it down about a year later.

I kept 7 Discus, 30ish Large Rummy Nose Tetras, and a mix of Corys 12 in total (a peppermint bristlenose was in there too, but had to be lucky to ever see it, when i took the tank down she was a nice large specimen so must have been eating.) At this stocking level I could keep nitrates between 5-10ppm with a 50-70% water change every 7-10 days (if the nitrates hit 20ppm i did 2 successive 70% changes over 2 days to get back in control). As the tank was not horribly big, and I wasn't trying to keep alot of plants I used Seachems Discus Buffer to treat my water with great success, although if your trying to keep a planted tank, investing in RO system and using expensive remineralization solutions would be a better idea as Seachems discus buffer pushes the Phosphates off the scale. (only seachems Alkaline or Acid Buffer don't contain or create phosphates.) (instead of remineralization products you could just mix RO with tap water, but you might be shy on minerals/buffers required)

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 DSCF1875.JPG   105.88KB   117 downloads

As for your discus spawning and the eggs,

The other discus in the tank will eat any eggs they find unattended, most likely for several spawns the parents will eat there own eggs, it usually takes 10 or more attempts for discus to work out the whole parenting thing. The Tetras will destroy any eggs they find, if the juveniles get to free swimming they have no chance the tetras will wipe them out, even the other discus in the tank.

Corys don't tend to pose a thread to discus, there eggs or juveniles, However the breeding discus do pose some threat to your corys if they happen to wander too close to a batch of eggs, I lost one cory to being beaten up by my discus because he happend to wander too close, i was very sad as I'd had that particular cory since i first started keeping fish and had raised it from barely a few cm to 6cm and it's group had spawned for me many a time too, it was only worth $3 but thats not the point when you have had a fish for a long time!

Your discus will also eat any cory eggs, fast as they can lay em, my discus would follow the poor mum around trying to eat the eggs straight off her underneath as she tried to get away, the moment they are left of the glass the discus would eat them, you could see the discus work out the corys doing there little sexy dances and all get ready for the feast to come.

Plecos, including plain old bristlenoses would be the biggest threat to any eggs left anywhere.

As for your nitrate problem, I think it might be worthwhile taking stock of your stocking levels, discus are big messy fish that filthy water very quickly, from memory you got 12 Discus right? to keep good water quality without excessive maintainence you would need about 50L per fish in a bare bottom, in a planted tank i would push that out to 75L per fish, or 100L per fish if your not planning to do 50% water changes 1-2 times per week.

a 1000L display would be ideal for 12 Adult discus with Mild stocking of small tetras, and corys, you can put more fish in, it just equals more nitrates, more water changes.

10ppm nitrates is a good mark to aim for, less if possible, I never ever let my tank get above 20ppm with discus, with regular africans they can cope with 40ppm without too much trouble, small fish i find tend to drop off once things get above 20ppm.

If your dosing Nitrogen though, keep in mind that your test reading would be up to 50% under reading, as Nitrogen contains both Ammonia and Nitrates, but the Ammonia is bound so it will not read on your test kit. If your using Flourish Nitrogen, it says quite clearly on the bottle that your Nitrate test reading will be up to 50% lower than what the actual Nitrogen level is.

Alot of ferts should not be neccessary unless your growing heaps of hungry stem plants with heaps of lighting, you need to balance the fertilization with what the plants are actually using, slow growing mosses, anubias and fern type plants don't grow quickly and won't utilize nutrients any quicker than neccessary, I've had far better luck with ferns and anubias in tanks where i didn't try to grow them than those that i kept "high tech" Mosses seemed to do better without the high tech approach as well, but they can become overrun with hair algae if phosphates are allowed to wander particularily under high light.

as for that article i thought it was TFH but i couldn't find it in my huge stack, i will have to go back through the 50+ practical fishkeeping mags i have now... lol

Juls

Edited by Juls, 31 March 2011 - 06:41 PM.

[waruna]

Hi Scarab, i dosed 8g of KNO3 after a 15% water change, i have marked a line so each time exaclty 15% of the tank water is drained. I never added any KNO3 before. I never thought 8g of KNO3 would have had such a huge impact. I'm not sure if this is the reason, i think this has to do with my tank being very new. I'm still searching for answers. I did a 30% water change and Nitrite is at 0ppm and Nitrate is at 15ppm. Thanks for the advice on root tabs, but this is going to be very messy since AS is turning in to mud quickly. If the substrate heating system is working properly it should transport nutrients to the substrate, one of the reasons I decided on one.

In addition, i think dosing excel is a little unnecessaary considering as you have co2, but if it is to control algae, may i suggest cutting down on ferts due to reasons mentioned about.

I disagree, it says on the bottle you can combine this with Co2 for better results.. I'm new to this and my knowledge is minimum. But have a look at the links below, these guys seem to know what they are doing and they combine Excel with C02 injection. I'm still learning about ferts and chemicals, not sure if Excel alone or through combining with other changes ive made, my algae problem is almost completely gone now, plants are looking very good. This is common sense to me, why change things now?! I'm ONLY dosing 5ml per 200l every other day, which is the minimum recommended dose.

http://www.aquaticpl....com/?p=vB65206

http://www.aquaticpl....com/?p=vB55926

About the crypts, crypts will almost always die back when planted in a new environment before coming back

That phase has passed, the new leaves are yellowish, again my knowledge is minimum so i am experimenting..

Thank you for taking the time to explain these to me, i appreciate it



Hi Juls, tank looks good, 3 x Eheim filters, what's the total turn over volume? The water system i have now is a basic water filter, i do have a RO system, for us, drinking water. With the rate it's pumping it could take two days to fill half the tank ha. Yesterday i timed my tank, took 35mins to fill 10%, that pressure is much stronger than the RO water we have. Will think about a RO unit for the tank. Degassed my PH is at 7.4 and the KH is at 2. Will do another tap water test since i cant remember what it was.

Oook, so no chance of seeing a nice school of baby Discus swimming with the parents then! What type of Cory was it? I think mine are too small to spawn yet.

Yup 12 Discus, it's really messy because of the crap i have to feed them lol, otherwise there wouldn't be any problems. I'm in the process of getting a 3'x 18"x 18" tank. I'm thinking of setting this up as a quarantine type tank. Not sure if this is a good idea but i'd like to move all the discus there and get them on to pellets and put them back? I'll keep researching on this, may stress them out too much.

I decided to get Ferts separately, so i can have better control over it. I'm getting some very good test kits today or Monday latest, LaMotte, i should be able to read exactly what is going on.

The fish seem a lot happier after the big water change yesterday. Fins up and nice color. Two still not eating, the weakest one seem to have picked up and comes up when it's feeding time but i've only seen it eat once. The other one runs off. The dom male is definitely showing who's the boss to everyone, very impressed with his colours.

I managed to upgrade the Eheim canister pumps that it came with, original pumps were rated at 2400l/hr, i increased it to 3400l/hr. The difference is amazing. It's a shame they don't sell these in AUS, in US and EU this is an option

Away for 2 tonights from today, hopefully they will survive.

[Juls]

I had 2 x classic 2215 on the tank and a 2213 running skimmer duties,

By eheim specs thats 2 x 600lph and 1 x 400lph, so 1600lph all up, but i highly doubt it was that high, Maybe 1000lph between the 3 of em maximum, it was a 500L tank so not very high turnover really.

Corys I had a group of 3 Peppereds, 6 Trilineatus, and a group of not sure how many regular and albino bronze. All spawned at one stage or another.

When I did my water changes i had my hang on changer setup so it took out the water to 70% and then the air lock would break (end of the pipe in the tank) so while it was draining i didn't have to worry about it, i used those 1 inch or slightly bigger laundry hoses out onto the garden/lawn ect. I then used the same hose onto the kitchen tap, set the temp with the mixer and let it flow, mix up a suitable batch of buffer in a bucket and add it to the tank, since i was using seachem discus buffer, it cannot buffer below 5.8 or above 6.8, so regardless of how much i put in, i knew it was going to be roughly right, without too much change for the fish to deal with. Probably not the most safe or careful way of doing things, but it worked fine and everyone constantly bred, never got sick it all just worked.

but for a tank thats double what i had i can see it's a bit more complicated, also keeping wild greens, possibly wild caught, not so tough.

Domestic Adult discus really, if kept at 29deg, in acidic water are almost bullet proof, i would not expect the same with your discus however.

I would keep a eye on the poop of your struggling discus if they start having white poop, or stringy clear poop, time to get it out of the tank.

Don't think i would cram 12 adult discus into a 3x18x18 all at once, not unless you plan to change all the water every day.

I would like to say that if you got a few to eat pellets the rest would follow, but i did not experience that, i had a few that would take almost anything, but the rest, well frozen or live only no matter how hard I tried. (i have to admit though i just gave up in the end and just fed posaqua discus deluxe, Blood worms, Mysis Shrimp and Enriched Brine either regular enriched or spiriluna enriched, this feeding method cost me about $50 a month though, hence people DIY.)

Juls

[Brett]

Tested the water and had a reading of Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0.5, 80ppm-160ppm Nitrate,

I am afraid that I know nothing about discus.
These results suggest that your tank is overstocked for your current filtering capacity, either your filter has yet to cycle adequately or its capacity is insufficient.
I would reduce your feeding, increase your water changes, add some rapidly growing plants and stop fertilising your tank until it has stabilised.
To try and "power through", by continuing to feed your plants in the hope that they will pick up the extra filtration load is a high risk strategy that could result in illness/death of your fish. Your plants will survive a month or two without ferts.

Good luck
Brett

[waruna]

Hi Juls,

but for a tank thats double what i had i can see it's a bit more complicated, also keeping wild greens, possibly wild caught, not so tough.

They are Wild caught, collected from the Amazon I have an email from the supplier confirming this.

I would keep a eye on the poop of your struggling discus if they start having white poop, or stringy clear poop, time to get it out of the tank.

No stringy white poo, did see a digested worm, white, last Thursday or Friday, a day after i saw the weakest one eat.

When i returned on Sunday eve all were in a much better condition than when i saw them last, may be the big water changes and the med really helped. No Ammonia and Nitrite present. I'm starting to think that these two are really picky eaters. I fed FBW last night and they all ate it, the weakest one had a bit too, the other one that didn't eat definitely had a bit. This particular one is very territorial, chases everyone away from his spot. It's in pretty good condition, somehow avoids coming to one side of the tank. I'm going to try and feed near his spot to see if this would make a difference. I'm looking for live BW and Tubiflex to feed them, see if that would do the trick.

BTW i started a thread on the American Discus forum asking people about tricks they may know of on converting to dry foods, this was before we had our conversation, some of the replies i got..

"Buy Hudson-discus from Discus-Hans. They are allready used to all kind of foods when they leave Hudson."

"I would not feed the fish for a couple of days (assuming they are in good health and aclimated to your tank), and then feed small amounts of pellets in the morning, when they are the hungriest, then again in the evening...small amounts so they have to be agressive and go for the food. Nothing else during the day untill they take the pellets. Patience is key here! If you get nervous that yor fish are not eating right away and feed them something else they will nerver get used to eat what you want.

Rodrigo"

"Yup.. the wild I got from Hans ate Tetra Colorbits the 2nd day in the tank. That's actually their favorite food so far. "

There are LOTS of people with Wild Discus who feed dry foods, it's pretty common. As you can see some sellers put them on to dry foods even before they are sold. These fish comes with a certificate of proof that they are wild caught. The main thing is to not give up, keep trying. Anyway there's lots of info out there if anyone is interested.
After reading these comments i am more determined now, i brought home a small jar each of NLS Flakes, Finicky formula and Reef Micro Formula. About six of them ate the flakes with no probs, the rest took the time but got on to it later, the not eating two couldn't care less. I soaked the Reef Macro Formula and a few ate it straight away, some just spat it out, this is a good start.

Plants are doing really well. Got my Lamotte test kits on Friday but didn't get a chance to do any tests till now, it's a walk in the park compared to the red sea kits, i'm pumped!!

Need advice, is it ok to fill up the tank and drain it at the same time? I timed it the other day and it took about 35mins to fill 10% so i had it running for an hour today. What i did was to fill the tank with the filter system and use the back flush on the Eheim to drain it, i worked out the exchange ratio so the tank level stayed the same, this way it's less stress to the fish and the plants. The PH (change ) dropped only .03 and the temp dropped .3, awesome. But i'd like to hear everyones opinions on this, is this a waste of water and time?

Hi Brett,

Mate i think the problem was i stocked it too soon, now i'm testing the water regularly to see if there are any changes. To be honest i stopped testing for Ammonia and Nitrite after it kept reading 0 for a week or so. Lesson learn t. Well i don't think my filtration is insufficient, i should have given a bit more time for it to adjust to the bio load. A few pointed out to me that i was not doing enough water changes, now i'm researching on this.

Thanks for the input

[Brett]

Need advice, is it ok to fill up the tank and drain it at the same time?

If your aim is to reduce nitrates by 30% or less, then it is almost as efficient as doing them seperately.
The higher you aim for above this the less efficient it becomes, but I still think its an option provided other parameters remain relatively stable.

Cheers
Brett

[waruna]

Thanks Brett. AS is still altering the water hardness, tricky trying to find out where it exactly is, the KH changes from 3 to 4 while i change the water too, and the next morning it's gone back to 3, is this a big concern?

[Brett]

I would have thought not, but I really do know nothing about discus

Brett