My Discus Tank

2 posts

Member introductions and random (non-aquarist) topics.


fishwoman05
 
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue Oct 09, 2007 8:57 pm

My Discus Tank

by fishwoman05

I was wondering if my 55 gallon tank has enough plants in it? I just love to spoil all of my fish!!


Peterkarig3210
 
Posts: 1980
Joined: Wed Oct 24, 2007 3:04 am

Re: My Discus Tank

by Peterkarig3210

Why not use live plants? I don't think you have enough shelter, personally. I've had diskus, and I do a lot of looking at the aquariums in aquarium stores in my area, and I usually see diskus in tanks where there are lots of plants with large leaves, like anacharis(large leaf)(I think that is the name), along with that nice peice of wood you have. This plant can have beautiful roots and is commonly tied to wood like yours whereby the roots will grow down around in sort of a mangrove kind of look. The leaves are round to football shaped, are several inches in diameter, and grow from stems a few inches long. I don't like the background in your tank. It's too light for diskus IMO. I would say to get a backdrop of Plain dark(or light)blue and line most or all of the back of the tank with large plants along with the wood so the fish don't feel too exposed. That looks nice in my opinion. Buy plants that don't require much light so they stay alive and actually grow. The plant I mentioned does ok with less light than most, say the amount a 3ft double 40 watt shop light from a hardware store, or maybe two reg aquarium lights together, or honesly, it might do fine with what you have. More light is better, but most people don't want to spend on VHO flourescents. I would go ahead and buy the plants and see how they do with your light. At the very least I would put hiding places big enough for all your diskus to run to. They will be a lot happier I've found, and it's generally held to be true, that you need at least three diskus for them to get comfortable, come out and display themselves, and be healthy. These fish are very expensive, require exceptionally clean water, warm tropical conditions(heater), you'll have to do partial water changes frequently, you need a really good biological filter, and I've always fed them live blood worms avaliable at most aquarium stores. These worms need to be kept in the fridge and rinsed daily so they don't die and get nasty. Also, most people with diskus seem to like to house them with a school of neon tetras. I just noticed the angel fish you have. I had an angelfish that got largish and was very aggressive, so I'd wonder about keeping diskus with them, and if it's going to be a large angelfish and you have tetras you won't for long, but mainly, you don't want to agitate the easily perterbd diskus. Good luck! I also wanted to suggest that the winning 'planted' tanks on this site are much more the kind of environment diskus like, though most of them are too overgrown. The fish need some room, and anyway most of these people use CO2 which is overkill for you IMO. With the plants I mentioned you can easily create a tank that looks 90% of what these look like without much work on your part at all. Diskus are beautiful fish and I'm not exaggerating their needs. You should probably get some literature on raising them and spend the time it takes to do it right. Long story short; I would get these plants first, do some research, and get 3 diskus. Good luck! P

My Discus Tank

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