He Who Caught The Bug

[cheesemaker]

Hello every one.
Caught the fish keeping bug for the best part of the year now. Prognosis - incurable.

Got a Juwel Rio 180,, planted, Ecco complete substrate, DIY CO2, 2.6 WPG of light. Bog standard Juwel internal filter and an External filter.

Recently fallen in love with Discus. AND I WANT THEM IN MY TANK!!!!

I know some people has succesfully kept discus in planted tank, i wonder if anyone has any good advice regarding discus in planted tank?

Water chem as follows - pH 6.6 (with peat granules in filter), KH - 4', GH 7', PO4 - 1 ppm, NO3 - 5 (i know, i know, just ran out of dry fert)

Soft(ish) tap water - pH 7.6, GH 8', PO4 2.5 ppm, NO3 5ppm

Current stock - 7 Cories - julli, 2 ottos, 6 glowlight tetras, 2 Pearl gouramis, 1 flying fox, 1 zebras danios (the only survivor since the very first cycling of the tank)

I'm thinking of keeping the cories, ottos and tetras, say goodbye to the rest and get maybe 3-4 discus. What do you guys think?

 

[NAL]

Hi

I kept 4 discus in a Rio 180, a very similar set-up to you. It is do-able, but you just need to make sure your filter is well run in and the tank mature. A decent volume external to back-up the Juwel internal is a must. I added an extra T8 tube and the discus were not too bothered about relatively bright lights. What I would say is that you wouldn't really want to go for more than 4, as when they grow they will outgrow a tank like that pretty quickly. Also, you may have trouble if they pair off-discus are cichlids after all, and will get very aggressive toward other tank mates. Dispersing the aggression is quite difficult when there are only 4 discus in the tank. Mine paired off and I did have some issues. That said, they laid eggs, suggesting they were happy with the set-up. The other thing is that discus are pretty big fish, and they will uproot stuff, and they do make a mess eating and with the large amount of waste they generate (although you do save on dosing some of your macros!). They are also quite skittish fish and don't always appreciate us sticking our hands into the tank, which we obviously do a fair bit of in our planted tanks. Other than that, your water params look pretty fine. Tank mates sound fine-a good school of tetras are good to act as dither fish to make hte discus feel safe. Hope that helps

Nick

 

[cheesemaker]

that sounds encouraging. thanks Harlequin. time to shop around for some new fish. so looking forward to it.

 

[Themuleous]

Interesting post harlequin, will no doubt get some myself at some stage, what you posted is well worth knowing, cheers

Sam