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I currently have a 45 gallon (170L) tank that is 48"L x 12"W x 18"H sitting empty. Will this be sufficient to set up as a discus tank?

If so, how many discus would be best and what other fish would make a good addition to this tank?

I plan on a natural gravel substrate (or I can go with Eco Complete or Flourite) with driftwood and plants. I have yet to purchase the lighting for this tank so I can get whatever is best for both the fish & plants. I will not be using CO2 on this set up so will need to plant accordingly and I'm leaning towards java moss, java ferns, crypts and swords. Also, from what little knowledge I have in this area that discus do not like a very bright light, so what lighting would work for all involved?

Filtration has yet to be purchased also, but because of the stand that the tank is sitting on (really no place to put a canister filter) I'm leaning towards a HOB. I plan on doing 2 or 3 50% water changes per week (I really don't have time for daily water changes). I have no desire or plans to breed the discus and as my water tends to be on the hard side probably would not be practical at this point without an RO unit, which I don't really want to mess with at this point.

I will probably purchase the fish from an on-line supplier/breeder as my choice locally is little to none.

So what are your recommendations.

Jim

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Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody. -- Mark Twain

I think that tank is only really big enough for 2 discus, and as such is only suitable as a breeding tank. Discus like to be in a nice sized group (at least 4, preferably 6) and you need a bigger tank than that to have that many discus (they do get to a decent size after all)

Old Timer,

Your 45 will be fine for discus. Recommended stocking rate for adult fish is 10 gallons per fish. You can push that recommendation with great maintenance, filtration and water changes. I raised 5 discus to 6 inch size in a planted 30 gallon.

Given the cost of the fish, I use two filters and two heaters on my discus tank. The heaters are "undersized". That is, if the tank size calls for 300W of heater, I use two 150W heaters. I do this as one broken heater should not freeze or fry the tank.

For filtration, I use an Eheim cannister and an AquaClear. Each unit is sized to filter the tank volume. I like backups... must have been the Navy experience.

My tank is a medium to high light tank with EcoComplete as a substrate. I like the black color and I didn't have to rinse the substrate. It was a bit more expensive than gravel or sand but I liked the write-up on the product. Would I buy it again? Sure, just to avoid rinsing the gravel.

Crypts and swords will do fine, do check out www.tropica.com. Click the Advanced Search button on the top right to plug in your tank prameters in metric to get a list of compatible plants. Type Discus into the search field to find a great article on planted discus tanks.

Don't worry about too much light for discus, I have 3+ watts per gallon and they could care less as long as I feed them. At a minimum, I would shoot for 2 to 3 watts per gallon of light for the plants. You might be able to find that in a fluorescent fixture and you will be able to find that in a compact fluorescent fixture.

The next great lie about discus is that they
demand soft water. Domestic discus could care less. In fact, juvenile discus develop pbetter in hard, alkaline water. They do demand great water conditions. Great maintenance on the tank and equipment with two or three water changes per week should work well.

The caution is what you will be feeding the fish. Do not feed beef heart or similar products. Although it is an excellent food, it can quickly foul the water. It is best fed to fish in bare bottom tanks that receive high water changes.

Do feed a varied diet of Hikari or Tetra products with treats of frozen bloodworms and live blackworms. You can also provide live redworms or dice earthworms.

Bonny is right in terms of discus number. IMHO, you should have a minimum of five discus in any tank. Less than five fish and the natural cichlid aggression seems to create problems and therefore fewer fish as they fight. My recommendation would be to start with seven 3 inch fish from a breeder or a quality importer. Please feel free to contact me as to a source for stock.

Welcome to the dark side!



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__________
"To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research."
researched from Steven Wright

Thanks for the replies. I was hoping you would pop in here Bob, as I really respect your experience in this area. I figured I would be able to go with 5 or possibly 6 discus in this tank, just wanted to hear it from someone else though.

I will definitely go with a higher light level with your recommendation as I was only looking at lower levels as to what I had heard elsewheres. I had already been checking out the lighting just wasn't sure on the intensity level.

I think I'll give the Eco Complete a try as I've just set up another tank with flourite and boy was that a chore to clean that stuff out. I ended up devising a large screen that I could just spread it out on and rinse with a hose, but it sure is dirty stuff.

I'll check out the plant recommendations and look at that discus article.

Thanks again.

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Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody. -- Mark Twain

Bob Wesolowski has already mentioned that water quality is the dominant factor with Discus. I cannot stress this enough, that success with these sensitive fishes depends VERY HEAVILY on maintaining water cleanliness. Plus, Bob isn't the only one to believe in backups, by the way - if I were planning a Discus aquarium, I'd want excess capacity by a large margin from my filter system, so that a failure in one component of the total system didn't result in a catastrophe.

As for soft, acidic water, this becomes an issue if you're thinking of breeding them. For maintenance, Discus will tolerate wider water chemistry parameters than some people give them credit for, but ONLY if the water is abolutely top quality.

Given the expense involved in simply purchasing Discus, it is not overdoing it to plan considerably in advance, and devote as large a budget as you can sustain to the filtration technology. Don't skimp even a tiny amount in this area, if anything, if someone thinks you're overdoing it in this arena, pat yourself on the back for a job well done, because your Discus will reward your generosity and foresight if you do!

As for furnishing, I'd try and lay your hands upon some intricate bogwood. Pieces that consist of twig like root tangles that the fishes can slip between. Avoid heavy solid lumps of bogwood as these will reduce your tank volume beyond the critical level. Once you have some nice intricate bogwood tangles to hand, arrange them in such a manner that 'lines of sight' are broken up. While Discus aren't hardcore criminals among the Cichlids, they are Cichlids nonetheless, so giving them an environment in which they aren't seeing each other constantly is probably a good idea. Intersperse the bogwood root tangles with Crypts or Swords. I would also try and arrange for some floating plants to be present in one part of the aquarium (possibly some Amazon Frogbit that's partly attached to one of the bogwood tangles) so that there is some shade in the aquarium too. Remember that they are in the wild dwellers of forest streams with a good deal of shading, and replicating this kind of environment will also contribute considerably to your success.

If you ARE thinking ahead to the possibility of breeding, then peat filtration is definitely an area to research, along with the use of blackwater tonic. However, if your tap water is fairly hard, breeding will require some measures to deal with that. Leave that aside for the moment, however, and return to it when breeding becomes a more imminent issue.

Be advised that Discus keeping is, for some, a kind of religion (and I'm only PARTLY joking here!) with strange initiation rites and all kinds of weird and wonderful topics discussed such as trace element management. If you want to delve into that side, by all means do, but don't let it frighten you off if it seems like too much hard work, because if that kind of intensive management was NEEDED for Discus, they wouldn't be turned out on an industrial scale for the hobby in Singapore and elsewhere!

Finally, when you've set this up, enjoy your Discus!


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Thanks for your input Cali.

I have ordered in the EcoComplete (100 pounds) which sould give me 3" or so in depth. I've got some driftwood on hand, but I agree with you Cali on the use of more of a tangled root mass then larger bulky pieces so I'm on the look out for some additional pieces.

Haven't decided on my filtration yet, but I'm planning on multiple filters (I do this on most of my tanks) as I'm a big proponent of more is better in this area. I figure two filters rated at around 250 gph each should do the trick.

Lighting is still undecided at this point, I've been looking at 1 rated at 130 total watts or 1 that is rated at 260 watts (which might be overkill).

Jim

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Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody. -- Mark Twain