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I've had planted aquariums for about 2 years now and I've noticed that the parameters of my tanks have always been pretty close to ideal for Discus. This being said I decided to start a Discus tank.

My tank will be here Friday and this is the equipment that I have now or is on the way:

125 gallon tank
8 bags of Flourite
2 300w Hydor external heaters
Eheim 2227 Wet/Dry canister
Odyssea CSF4 canister filter
UV sterilizer
192w CF lighting 6700K (1.5w/gallon)
Compressed CO2 system
Lot's of plants and driftwood

Now to my questions....

I maintain my PH with CO2 injection...other than my CO2 running out is there every a problem with maintaing my PH this way for Discus?

PH out of tap is 7.6
With CO2 injection it stays between 6.6 and 6.8
Water hardness is 3dh

I was thinking of getting 6 or 7 discus. Is that a good # for the 125 gallon tank?
Other livestock will be 35-40 Cardinal Tetras, 25-30 Japonica shrimp, and 2 or 3 rubber lip plecos.

Don't worry...I won't be adding livestock until my tank cycles.

Thanks for any help and/or advice!
Dan

I do see a few problems with your set-up. Firstly, not really a problem just more of a back to you question, but why are you using the CO2? If for the plants, they will not use it enough to worry about. Because your lighting is low for them. Increasing the CO2 levels does not mean that the plants will definitely use it. As they will require higher lighting and increased ferts to make use of the additional CO2. If for keeping the ph lower, well your tap ph levels are fine for keeping discus. They may or may not breed at those levels, but my thoughts are that they probably will. 7.6 ph will not harm your discus in any way.

If you use the CO2 for maintaining your ph levels, and you run out of CO2, yes it could do some harm to your fish if the ph suddenly and quickly goes up. And, with the softness of your water, it could very well jump back and forth up and down, until you get it under control again. This can be an extremely harmful environment for your fish, with the ph jumping all over the place.

Your fish selection and amount sound very sound. With one exception. You might want to check, but if I am not mistaken, the rubber nose/lip plecos prefer cooler temps than the discus prefer. You may want to look into some other type algae eating pleco. A nice BN would do good, and would not bother your shrimps.

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There is always a bigger fish...

Thanks for the reply...and I do realize that 1.5wpg is low as I run 4.5wpg on my 42g Hex. I could increase the light with no problem, but I don't want to over do the light intensity because of what I have read about the Discus's sensitivty to bright light. Do you think increasing to 2-2.5wpg would be ok?

I understand that a PH in the mid 7's would be ok, but I like to try and create a habitat as close as possible to the natural habitat of the main fish that I keep in any of my tanks...for the 125 gallon it will be Discus. I monitor my CO2 tank daily, and I have a backup CO2 bottle for a quick change out...I would change my CO2 long before it would run out though...so unless I have a tank or regulator failure then I'm not worried about a massive PH swing. I don't like to use chemicals to buffer the water, so I feel like the CO2 works best for me. I hope I don't regret it someday!

Bottom line is that I want the maximum amount of light that will not disturb the Discus and to be able to use the CO2 as it is intended for the plants and the carbonic acid is just a benefit for PH adjustment in place of chemicals like Seachem Discus buffer.

I like the bristlenose plecos...I'll check to see if any of my LFS carry them. I'd like to hear anymore suggestion or advice that you might have!

Thanks!
Dan

The discus should be fine under 2.5 wpg.

You might also look into a big piece of driftwood to help to buffer down the ph. With the low level of hardness you have, it would probably work very well. It might create a yellow tint to the water, but the tannis released will not harm your fish in any way. Peat moss is another easy way to help buffer the ph down. Just a few alternate ideas.

You might also look into what the ph levels are where you get your discus from. As these days, many of them are being bred and raised in neutral ph, give or take a bit. Unless you are getting wild discus.

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There is always a bigger fish...

Dan,

I like your selection of dither fish. You may want to get them established then add discus particularly if the tetras are small. The discus will be less likely to view them as food. The same is true with the shrimp. My discus got along famously with shrimp - like crocodiles and zebra!

My experience has been that the fish really don't care about pH or light if they are not wild discus. I have hard, alkaline water and ran 384w on a 125 planted discus tank without problems or CO2. However, the plants and hardscape provided areas that the fish could use as retreats.

Like most fish, discus need safe havens to relate to in the tank. Do add some large pieces of wood that they can use. If you don't want to use real wood then consider the pseudo-wood from Petsmart. The Top Fin® Grey Tree Root Ornaments may look slightly tacky in the store but actually look pretty good in the tank. If you opt for real wood, mopani is well worth the price.

Go with an odd number of discus, 7 is great, to minimize cichlid bickering. If you get them at about the same size it will also reduce the aggression.

Do consider a pH controller to prevent the CO2 swings.
Do consider a minimum of 3 inches of base for your substrate with plants.
Do moisten the fluorite, plant the tank and then fill it with water to reduce stirring up the clay. (I went with EcoComplete to avoid the headache of fluorite.)
Do replace the head gasket on the Eheim every year as preventive maintenance. Over time it will become compressed then if you lose power, it will drain your tank as the head rises ever so slightly from the body...



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

Acidrain/Bob thanks for your replys!

I have 3 very nice pieces of driftwood that I am going to add to the tank already. One of them has a very nice Anubia Barteri, another one is encrusted with java moss and pretty much looks like a "Chia Pet" the 3rd is bare but large. I do get the "tea" colored water, although I prefer the water to be clear and that is taken care of with regular water changes.

According to the breeder that I am going to get the discus from...he raises the Discus in 6.7-6.8 PH.

I can add additional lights to the custom canopy that I am building to get it to 2.3-3.0 watts/gallon. I am sure that will help out my plants! I added a pic of the unfinished lid to my canopy...it is with the 192w from AH supply (I know i haven't taken the protective film off the reflectors yet)

I believe the 8 bags of flourite will give me 3+ inches of substrate when I am done with my layout. Here is a pic of my 42hex that I am breaking down.

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Wrong pic...this one is more recent.
And it looked a lot better before I had to reduce the size down to 100kb.

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Lights so far
192w CF

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