My Discus

[pinkdolphin_113]

these fish will be tank bred and won't be the first generation... probably like the 30th or something. this means that the fish are probably used to slightly fluctuating (like 7.4 - 7.8 for example) or higher than natural pH levels anyway as most fish are in the hobby these days.
and i don't think 7.8 is bad for discus anyway. natural pH levels is a discus habitat would be something like 6.5 which means pH 7.8 would be just over 10 times weaker than that. unless you're dealing with wild fish... or chocolate gouramis lol ... i wouldn't bother getting the pH exactly right. as mentioned before, a stable pH is much better than trying to reach a specific pH level. your fish look nice and happy so why risk that?

as for the fish... i love the look of the nice healthy discus you're going with here
and what pleco's are in your tank?

also, i agree with the person talking about the background... black would bring out the colour in the discus a lot more than when they're surrounded with bright colours like blue etc.

 

[petertr]

these fish will be tank bred and won't be the first generation... probably like the 30th or something. this means that the fish are probably used to slightly fluctuating (like 7.4 - 7.8 for example) or higher than natural pH levels anyway as most fish are in the hobby these days.
and i don't think 7.8 is bad for discus anyway. natural pH levels is a discus habitat would be something like 6.5 which means pH 7.8 would be just over 10 times weaker than that. unless you're dealing with wild fish... or chocolate gouramis lol ... i wouldn't bother getting the pH exactly right. as mentioned before, a stable pH is much better than trying to reach a specific pH level. your fish look nice and happy so why risk that?

as for the fish... i love the look of the nice healthy discus you're going with here
and what pleco's are in your tank?

also, i agree with the person talking about the background... black would bring out the colour in the discus a lot more than when they're surrounded with bright colours like blue etc.

Im going to start with the RO water soon - again, as a 50/50 mix with tap water. That means around 40L of RO water per water change - that shouldn't change the pH too quickly.

I'm going to have to test the idea of the 50/50 mix, as the hardness here is stupidly high it might have enough buffer to remain unaffected by the RO. Ill play around with it in buckets before I know exactly what to do. I don't want to change the pH too much too soon, of course.


I'm soon adding an external filter as well, and Im turning the tank around, as I have a nasty scratch on the front of the tank, which annoys me - so that's a good time for a new background. I don't like plain backgrounds, but I might get something less changable.

Thanks for the tips


Edit: as for the plec - there's 2 BN, 1 common and 1 that I don't know - I've just put a thread on the main board to ask for help. But when I move the tank, I'm actually removing the common and the unknown as I don't think I need them, and Im worried that they might attack the discus as they get bigger.

 

[RadaR]

these fish will be tank bred and won't be the first generation... probably like the 30th or something. this means that the fish are probably used to slightly fluctuating (like 7.4 - 7.8 for example) or higher than natural pH levels anyway as most fish are in the hobby these days.
and i don't think 7.8 is bad for discus anyway. natural pH levels is a discus habitat would be something like 6.5 which means pH 7.8 would be just over 10 times weaker than that. unless you're dealing with wild fish... or chocolate gouramis lol ... i wouldn't bother getting the pH exactly right. as mentioned before, a stable pH is much better than trying to reach a specific pH level. your fish look nice and happy so why risk that?

as for the fish... i love the look of the nice healthy discus you're going with here
and what pleco's are in your tank?

also, i agree with the person talking about the background... black would bring out the colour in the discus a lot more than when they're surrounded with bright colours like blue etc.

Im going to start with the RO water soon - again, as a 50/50 mix with tap water. That means around 40L of RO water per water change - that shouldn't change the pH too quickly.

I'm going to have to test the idea of the 50/50 mix, as the hardness here is stupidly high it might have enough buffer to remain unaffected by the RO.

Not to worry, that wont happen. Cutting your tap water with half RO will effectively mean you should half the KH and GH value of the tap water. This is going to have to be a very slow, careful switch to the RO. For example, if you did a water change of 100litres tomorrow and with the water you put back in was made up from 50%tap, 50% RO, then I garuntee you that the next day you would have dead fishies. A huge change in water chemistry will stress the fish far too much, especially Discus. Best thing to do is continue your usual water changes, but after each time you do one, add 10% more RO than the previous time.

e.g.
Monday take out 100litres. Fill up with 90litre of tap and 10litre of RO.
Thursday take out 100litres. Fill up with 80litre of tap and 20litre of RO.
Sunday take out 100litres. Fill up with 70litre of tap and 30litre of RO.
etc etc

Keep doing that until you end up adding 50litre of tap and 50litre of RO during a water change.
Then, any water you add back to the tank you can use half tap and half RO.

 

[Jim Curtis]

Any new pics of the fish? They should be looking quite different after two months.

 

[petertr]

these fish will be tank bred and won't be the first generation... probably like the 30th or something. this means that the fish are probably used to slightly fluctuating (like 7.4 - 7.8 for example) or higher than natural pH levels anyway as most fish are in the hobby these days.
and i don't think 7.8 is bad for discus anyway. natural pH levels is a discus habitat would be something like 6.5 which means pH 7.8 would be just over 10 times weaker than that. unless you're dealing with wild fish... or chocolate gouramis lol ... i wouldn't bother getting the pH exactly right. as mentioned before, a stable pH is much better than trying to reach a specific pH level. your fish look nice and happy so why risk that?

as for the fish... i love the look of the nice healthy discus you're going with here
and what pleco's are in your tank?

also, i agree with the person talking about the background... black would bring out the colour in the discus a lot more than when they're surrounded with bright colours like blue etc.

Im going to start with the RO water soon - again, as a 50/50 mix with tap water. That means around 40L of RO water per water change - that shouldn't change the pH too quickly.

I'm going to have to test the idea of the 50/50 mix, as the hardness here is stupidly high it might have enough buffer to remain unaffected by the RO.

Not to worry, that wont happen. Cutting your tap water with half RO will effectively mean you should half the KH and GH value of the tap water. This is going to have to be a very slow, careful switch to the RO. For example, if you did a water change of 100litres tomorrow and with the water you put back in was made up from 50%tap, 50% RO, then I garuntee you that the next day you would have dead fishies. A huge change in water chemistry will stress the fish far too much, especially Discus. Best thing to do is continue your usual water changes, but after each time you do one, add 10% more RO than the previous time.

e.g.
Monday take out 100litres. Fill up with 90litre of tap and 10litre of RO.
Thursday take out 100litres. Fill up with 80litre of tap and 20litre of RO.
Sunday take out 100litres. Fill up with 70litre of tap and 30litre of RO.
etc etc

Keep doing that until you end up adding 50litre of tap and 50litre of RO during a water change.
Then, any water you add back to the tank you can use half tap and half RO.

That's possibly the best advise I've had from this forum - thanks very much for that, and I will certainly take it onboard.

I have a good pH, KH and GH test kit - and I'll be being very very careful not to change the water chemistry too quickly. I didn't realise what I'd planned would have such an effect.

Any new pics of the fish? They should be looking quite different after two months.

I'm going to change the tank round quite a bit in the next few weeks - I'll put some new pics up when it is done.


The colours are starting from bleed from the fins into the bodies now - they're going to look amazing.

 

[chesterscot]

really nice m8 tanks gleaming
scot

 

[SMAUG]

Nice looking Discus, and i i like that stonehenge idea.

The stable pH thing was a surprise to me.
mine sits naturally at 7.5, and i was worried that this may be detrimental to discus.

Always worth a read through these forums- i pick up something new every time!

 

[ikongoni]

I always remeber the old adage "if it ain't broke, don't fix it..!!"

Your Discus are healthy and happy, so why tamper with anything?

As someone previously mentioned, these are tank bred Discus and many, many generations removed from those found in the wild.
Chances are, that yours were born locally to you, and have spent their entire lives in local water conditions.

Infact, they probably wouldn't be very happy to be placed in so called "ideal" Discus water conditions...

 

[RadaR]

I always remeber the old adage "if it ain't broke, don't fix it..!!"

Your Discus are healthy and happy, so why tamper with anything?

As someone previously mentioned, these are tank bred Discus and many, many generations removed from those found in the wild.
Chances are, that yours were born locally to you, and have spent their entire lives in local water conditions.

Infact, they probably wouldn't be very happy to be placed in so called "ideal" Discus water conditions...

Discus are fine to live in liquid concrete then? Gh of 24>? The effects of very hard water isn't apparent yet therefore the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" saying doesn't apply.
And the pH discussion is over everyone, he knows a stable one is fine. What you're all missing is the GH part of the water chemistry. Sure, when they're young they like it slightly less soft but by no means does that mean liquid concrete 24GH.

Once again, good luck petertr.

 

[ikongoni]

Discus are fine to live in liquid concrete then? Gh of 24>?

Don't be so daft.

The fact of the matter is that if many successive generations of fish are living in the water parameters of a specific locality, then they will not require those parameters to be drastically altered for their well being.

 

[petertr]

I always remeber the old adage "if it ain't broke, don't fix it..!!"

Your Discus are healthy and happy, so why tamper with anything?

As someone previously mentioned, these are tank bred Discus and many, many generations removed from those found in the wild.
Chances are, that yours were born locally to you, and have spent their entire lives in local water conditions.

Infact, they probably wouldn't be very happy to be placed in so called "ideal" Discus water conditions...

I think that leaving a working setup alone is a good idea, but there's also the worry that I wouldn't be able to tell if they were slightly stressed - and so they could pick up illnesses, or die young because of it.

My water hardness is exceptionally high. Its one of the highest in the world beleive it or not!

The place where I bought the fish has a different water supply - I've known much more experienced keepers than me in my area have a lot of trouble with discuss.



I'm very impressed with the progress the fish have made so far - I thought it was going to be much tougher. Maybe I've been lucky, or maybe I've got some hardy discus - I'm not complaining either way!!



But I really do want to look to slowely (very slowely) improve the conditions of the water - so I'll be introducing some RO water to the setup.

Also, I want to remove the unsightly box filters, and replace them with an external - the other advantage being that the external will probably filter the water better and should be easier for me maintenance-wise.

 

[RadaR]

Discus are fine to live in liquid concrete then? Gh of 24>?

Don't be so daft.

The fact of the matter is that if many successive generations of fish are living in the water parameters of a specific locality, then they will not require those parameters to be drastically altered for their well being.

Yet there is no proof of them being bred let alone raised in water similar to his own. You have just assumed that.

I always remeber the old adage "if it ain't broke, don't fix it..!!"

Your Discus are healthy and happy, so why tamper with anything?

As someone previously mentioned, these are tank bred Discus and many, many generations removed from those found in the wild.
Chances are, that yours were born locally to you, and have spent their entire lives in local water conditions.

Infact, they probably wouldn't be very happy to be placed in so called "ideal" Discus water conditions...

The place where I bought the fish has a different water supply

 

[petertr]

Lets not get into a fight eh folks?

This is just a journal type thread for my discus, with some very kindly offered advise.

 

[RadaR]

Apologies mate.

 

[petertr]

Apologies mate.

Not required buddy - just being pre-emptive and all that ;-)