90 Gallon S.A. Discus/Pleco Tank Journal

[mgarrido]

Nice Discus and tank, i saw them in person and the setup looks really good. Maybe replace the driftwods (at least one) with pieces of manzanita wood and attach anubias on it would be a suggestion, also discus love laying eggs in anuabias leaves.

[Matt in Houston]

I love the rocks in the corner...thats great stuff!

Very nice tank. Will be interesting to see it grow out.

[jeebus]

Hmmmm.... perhaps its lack of co2 that caused it to grow out and not up then? I ask only because when we planted this stuff it went to the top of the tank and slowly the long stalks died off as the short runners grew out.

[Darbex]

Low lighting will cause plants to grow up and not out because they will focus their energy on getting closer to the light source first. Nice discus though

[jeebus]

Updated pics..











The new setup under the hood..



Full Tank Shot..



As you can see the lack of lighting and co2 has caused the Sagittarius (sp?) out and not up. If the co2 and new lighting works as planned I'm going to have to pull it from the area on the left between the log and the rock bed. I would like to do some sort of thick mat like grass in that area, some sort of bushy type plant in the middle between the two pieces of wood, and around the tall stump piece to the right some tall plants.

I'm open to suggestions.

[jeebus]

Fish are sleeping.. Never wake sleeping fish.


...or is it never wake sleep-walkers?

[newb]

well if your gonna talk about the tank to us....we need updated pics.

[jeebus]

You are on the right track on getting what your plants need. Be selective on plants as it's a balancing act with discus. They like warmer temp and plants don't. One of the reason why your moss is browning out.

The moss in the pictures at the beginning of this thread are from the spring when I had just added them. At the time the water was at 90 degrees, I had no co2, did not use fert, and did not have adequate lighting.

that is what Dan used to always preach to me...decide if you want gorgeous discus and decent plants...or if you want gorgeous plants and decent discus. Also, you definately need to use the spray bar on the 2262 and might even want to slightly turn down the flow coming out of that filter. Discus do not do well in heavy flow aquariums.

ALWAYS Discus first. The plants are just to fill the tank out. We're using the spray-bar and its the perfect amount of flow. There's circulation in the tank now, but the flow is still light.

I would make an inline CO2 diffuser its easy to make and dissolves the CO2 into the water column much better than a glass diffuser. You also get the added benefit of slower water movement as this will reduce the flow a little.

I agree completely, but will not do so for the same reason you don't fert. :)


I did lower the temp to 88. I don't think I will go any lower just for the sake of the plants. I'm going to post some pics tomorrow (ended up not being home today) to show what the "starting point" of the co2 tank is.

[Kiovo]

The 2262 is working great, the water has never been more clear. We are using the spray bar, and the discus seem to like the flow. We don't plan on doing anything fancy with the plants since the discus are the main attraction. The goal with any of our tanks is to make them look as natural as possible.

I'm really excited about just focusing on one tank. Found out, I think the plecos are what killed our sterbais. I think we will be rehoming the plecos soon since I really like the serbais.

[Darbex]

I would make an inline CO2 diffuser its easy to make and dissolves the CO2 into the water column much better than a glass diffuser. You also get the added benefit of slower water movement as this will reduce the flow a little.

[newb]

that is what Dan used to always preach to me...decide if you want gorgeous discus and decent plants...or if you want gorgeous plants and decent discus. Also, you definately need to use the spray bar on the 2262 and might even want to slightly turn down the flow coming out of that filter. Discus do not do well in heavy flow aquariums.

[Darbex]

+1 on plants I am doing anubias and Amazon swords with success. The swords are a little yellow but I also do not fert or use CO2 too lazy. A hint on tetra additions that I have experienced add more than 10 at a time. Dont ask me why but when I would get 10 and add them I would loose about 8 but when I added 20+ I would loose 1. Go figure.

[tnguyen]

You are on the right track on getting what your plants need. Be selective on plants as it's a balancing act with discus. They like warmer temp and plants don't. One of the reason why your moss is browning out.

[jeebus]

Tank update. The 90g is again our only tank. I think its location in the house, the foyer, has been what has always kept off the chopping block.

I'm using Quoc's theory of quality over quantity and using some of the money from the sale of our 135g to "finish" this tank off. We already have the stand and canopy, we just needed to upgrade some of the equipment.

I've taken the wet/dry and the Eheim 2217 out, and have replaced them with the Eheim 2262 that was on the Troph's 135g. I've also added a 10lb pressurized co2 setup with a glass diffuser. Last, but not least, I'll be putting a new 4x54 T5 fixture on as soon as it comes in the mail.

The Discus are doing good. We still have 9 "Tiger" Turquoise which have all grown to be six to eight inches in diameter! We've somehow lost 9 of our 10 cories though, at the rate of about one dying each month. We still have 3 plecos: green phantom, galaxy, and a bristlenose. We had four, but the gold nugget committed suicide one night when he jumped out the back. Maybe he was pushed? Finally, we have 10 rummy-nose tetras. We had tried on two different occasions to add 10 more to the original count of 20, but for some weird reason 10 ALWAYS died off.

Anyway, now we're looking to add some plants, more tetras, a few more cories, and eventually some rams. I'll post pictures once they come on today to show where we're at and hopefully be able to get some plant advice.

[myjohnson]

Glen,

I got some free plants that I'm taking out the lufubu tank. PM me if you want them.