Experience with Planted Discus Tanks?
- Thread starter ggrillo
- Start date
RogueAgent94
New member
Personally I would stay away from a large variety of plants. Amazon Swords get quite large and are huge nutrient hogs, in my experience. They grow best under high light with fertilized soil around their roots. I used to pot them and sink the pots in my substrate. They also appreciated large amounts of CO2. I wouldn't say they are a good choice for a Discus tank. Instead I'd look into Crypts, Aponogetons, Anubias, Java Ferns, and various types of moss. Avoid Christmas moss as it seems to prefer cooler water. I had the same experience with Taiwanese moss but I could be wrong. I kept Java Moss and Flame Moss in my Discus tank. I eventually removed them because bits of food kept getting stuck in the plant and that wasn't so helpful to my water quality. Anubias are a great choice though. There are several varieties of floating plants which you could try. My Discus loved floating plants. They are good at taking out the nutrients and they block some light from reaching the bottom of the tank. I tied mine off to one side of the tank so the Discus could move in between areas of dim lighting and higher lighting at will. Fry and such from other fish were often hid in the roots of the floating plants. I used Water Lettuce because that's what I saw most common when I was down in SA. Course you could also use Water Hyacinth and Frogbit.
+1 Kenny is the best place to get Discus from. Hans is also a really good source. Try to stick with 6 or more since they prefer to be in groups. Here's a link to Kenny's new shipments: http://forum.simplydiscus.com/forum...-s-Discus-(Kenny-Cheung)-Daly-City-California
He also has his own website: http://www.kennysdiscus.net/
+1 Kenny is the best place to get Discus from. Hans is also a really good source. Try to stick with 6 or more since they prefer to be in groups. Here's a link to Kenny's new shipments: http://forum.simplydiscus.com/forum...-s-Discus-(Kenny-Cheung)-Daly-City-California
He also has his own website: http://www.kennysdiscus.net/
wineman
New member
Here are a couple pictures of my planted/Discus 75gl..had it set up for 8 yrs. Had about a 3" - 4" layer of Seachem's Flourite as substrate. I had 2 large Eheim canister filters running, with Co2 injection and dosing every other day with both Seachem's Flourish & Flourish Iron. Lighting was provided by 8 - 48" t8 "over-powered" fluorescent. I had to do 50% water changes weekly with RODI. Plants had to be cleaned up and pruned weekly as well. Trimmings were all sold/traded to LFS or other fresh water folks in the area.
Let me tell you it looked great, but was a tremendous amount of work. My 90gl mix reef tank is a walk in the park in comparison.
Dennis
Let me tell you it looked great, but was a tremendous amount of work. My 90gl mix reef tank is a walk in the park in comparison.
Dennis
Megatrev62
New member
Have kept a 125 planted discus tank in the past and loved it at first. Problem for me was that I found the tank-BORING- very quickly. Was very excited when a friend and I bought our first bunch of discus.(red turks at a very good price.) A big box store brought them in for $16.88 each and we both bought all of them. Price was the contributing factor for sure. UNHEARD OF PRICE.
I got rid of them after about six months( in with rummy nose and cardinal tetras), because I found the fish just didn't do it for me. My friend kept his for 4 years before switching to saltwater again after many years out of it.
IMO, keeping discus with plants can be tricky. The fish love high temps and most plants do not. Substantial water changes must be done for their overall health and growth. Cannot stress that enough. Quality foods as well( bloodworms, beef heart). Do some research to see what plants to choose. Keeping plants is another hobby in itself. In the meantime, good luck if you decide to give it a go!!! Cheers
I got rid of them after about six months( in with rummy nose and cardinal tetras), because I found the fish just didn't do it for me. My friend kept his for 4 years before switching to saltwater again after many years out of it.
IMO, keeping discus with plants can be tricky. The fish love high temps and most plants do not. Substantial water changes must be done for their overall health and growth. Cannot stress that enough. Quality foods as well( bloodworms, beef heart). Do some research to see what plants to choose. Keeping plants is another hobby in itself. In the meantime, good luck if you decide to give it a go!!! Cheers
Megatrev62
New member
Have kept a 125 planted discus tank in the past and loved it at first. Problem for me was that I found the tank-BORING- very quickly. Was very excited when a friend and I bought our first bunch of discus.(red turks at a very good price.) A big box store brought them in for $16.88 each and we both bought all of them. Price was the contributing factor for sure. UNHEARD OF PRICE.
I got rid of them after about six months( in with rummy nose and cardinal tetras), because I found the fish just didn't do it for me. My friend kept his for 4 years before switching to saltwater again after many years out of it.
IMO, keeping discus with plants can be tricky. The fish love high temps and most plants do not. Substantial water changes must be done for their overall health and growth. Cannot stress that enough. Quality foods as well( bloodworms, beef heart). Do some research to see what plants to choose. Keeping plants is another hobby in itself. In the meantime, good luck if you decide to give it a go!!! Don't forget lots of driftwood!!!!! Cheers
I got rid of them after about six months( in with rummy nose and cardinal tetras), because I found the fish just didn't do it for me. My friend kept his for 4 years before switching to saltwater again after many years out of it.
IMO, keeping discus with plants can be tricky. The fish love high temps and most plants do not. Substantial water changes must be done for their overall health and growth. Cannot stress that enough. Quality foods as well( bloodworms, beef heart). Do some research to see what plants to choose. Keeping plants is another hobby in itself. In the meantime, good luck if you decide to give it a go!!! Don't forget lots of driftwood!!!!! Cheers
Megatrev62
New member
Don't forget lots of driftwood!!!!!
GroktheCube
New member
TBH in large planted tanks I have generally preferred a LARGE school of brightly colored schooling fish to be the dominant fish. Keeping Discus and plants can be a little tricky, and a lot of work. With sensitive New World Cichlids like Discus and Altums, I've generally had the best results with heavy filtration (Eheim canister or two though a fluidized bed of sand), a thin substrate, and a healthy cover of floating plants, along with a handful of low light ones that were perfectly happy just sitting around and not collecting detritus. Shrimp can help keep detritus off of the plants in my experience. A lot of people prefer bare bottom for Discus, but I hate the way it looks.
When cycling such tanks, I've always preferred to cycle by dosing heavily with ammonia (just plain ole cleaning ammonia, provided it's just ammonia and water. The tank cycles quickly and you end up with a very strong biological filter.
If you want to try SA Cichlids in a planted tank, I'd recommend looking into Apistos, Rams, and P. scalare (not altum) Angels. Honestly I've always preferred Angels to Discus, personally.
Chocolate Gouramis have been my all time favorite "sensitive" freshwater fish, but I honestly think their sensitivity is kinda exaggerated by many. The same could really be said of Discus. They don't die for no reason. Large established adults are actually pretty hardy, but they still demand fairly clean water. If you keep the water clean and feed them a good diet, they tend to be pretty easy to keep happy IMHO.
When cycling such tanks, I've always preferred to cycle by dosing heavily with ammonia (just plain ole cleaning ammonia, provided it's just ammonia and water. The tank cycles quickly and you end up with a very strong biological filter.
If you want to try SA Cichlids in a planted tank, I'd recommend looking into Apistos, Rams, and P. scalare (not altum) Angels. Honestly I've always preferred Angels to Discus, personally.
Chocolate Gouramis have been my all time favorite "sensitive" freshwater fish, but I honestly think their sensitivity is kinda exaggerated by many. The same could really be said of Discus. They don't die for no reason. Large established adults are actually pretty hardy, but they still demand fairly clean water. If you keep the water clean and feed them a good diet, they tend to be pretty easy to keep happy IMHO.
ggrillo
New member
I agree about the large school of small fish like cardinal and rummynose tetras. I may end up doing that with some angels. Again I definitely don't want a fully planted tank but I would like a good amount of green. I originally started the hobby keeping African chiclids (mbuna to be exact) and really didn't have any trouble except they destroyed any plant in the tank.
GroktheCube
New member
One of my favorite tanks of all time was a pretty heavily planted 180G with 150 Harlequin Rasboras, 50 Sterbai Corys, 2 pairs of Angelfish, and a bunch of clean up fish and shrimp.. It's just really cool to see large groups of schooling fish in a big tank, the difference in behavior vs a group of 2 dozen is striking.
I've kept both cardinals and rummynose with angels and never had any trouble, though it's probably wise to get juvenile angels. They'll learn that smaller tank mates are not food if they're introduced young.
Rainbows are another great candidate for a schooling fish in a planted tank. Especially with a good sized tank, you can keep a good sized school of even the larger species of rainbowfish.
