Dolphins 4Ft Planted Discus Aquarium

needed to give my discus a new tank and had a few odds and ends so I set this one up...

still busy adding plants...

pics 2 days after setup

 

Tank looks great.... and the fish look awesome but I thought it was not a good Idea to put your angels and discus together but I see your seem to be doing ok.

 

thanks!

the angel - discus combination is really an experiment... I've seen many many tanks with this kind of combo and they all do fine.

my discus are extremely agro with each and I'm hoping the school of angels will keep them occupied so they stop harassing each other. the leopards just dont like the others and there's a pair of checkerboards/red maps... feeding time is hectic as they actively fight with each other no matter how much I put in. I tried them with a school of rummies and they didnt bother with them so lets see how this goes...

 

Discus are beautifull fish but they never appealed to me that much. I must say though that those white/red/yellow and white/red discuss you have are stunning.

 

thanks man! they're my favourite fish

...the most yellow discus is the male

 

Yeah I must be honest, they didn't appeal to me either... but that was only because my 160litre tank was too small for them. Now that I have a bigger tank, I often stop at the discus section in the LFS and have a look... But I believe they are rather difficult fish to keep... so I'll give it a few more years before venturing into discuss.

Dolphin that tank looks stunning. I like the scaping you have done. Is this the tank you wanting to put a canister on? Are you doing CO2 into this tank?

 

Tank looks awesome as well a the discuss

 

thanks guys!

I've actually neglected these discus quite badly over the past few months and I must say that they're still doing well - abit thin and color loss but fine. Only major issue is agression to the point where one of them is hurt after being attacked by the male...They've now been through 2 weeks of QT to clean them out of any flagellates and other nasties - I'm really concerned about this after loosing some of my apistos due to feeding LFS live brine shrimp and the local brand of blood worms which I gave to the discus as well... I've noticed a remarkable change in them since they've come off their special diet. They're now going onto high quality flakes (vipan) enriched with Sera Fishtamin for another 2 weeks and hopefully by then I'll have recieved my shipment of frozen foods I'm importing from europe, this especially for my discus and apistos. Overall, I dont think discus are difficult to keep. As an importer and keeper of discus I can tell you that they're quite hardy. Water quality is imperative, but then thats for all types of fish. Biggest challenge is getting them high quality live or frozen food as this is what usually results in health issues and the fish eventually dieing. The fish in this tank I've had since September 2009, the red maps spawned last year in their holding tank at the shop. In December '09 I imported 6 XL red turquoise discus for one the forum members, 2 weeks ago they spawned in his community tank

ok enough about discus, the aquascape is based on some rocks I had - tigers eye - and I thought the look of pool filter sand will compliment it nicely. I've laid them flat and planted hair grass in between to try and give it a natural look - need more hairgrass to finish this bit... I'm still busy with the plants, dont have all I want for this scape yet so will be importing a few special plants next month for this tank.

CO2 being added this week, just waiting for a replacement regulator...

I'll also be taking out the large internal filter as it takes up to much space and replacing it with an external cannister, most likely Eheim.

aquarium specs:

tank - standard 4ft. 120cm L x 45cm H x 45cm W
lighting - presently 2 36w t5 6500K on 12 hour cycle. lighting to be increased with 54W t5's
substrate - sera floradepot with sera florenat A. nails and capped with pool filter sand.
filter - atman 902 internal bio filter. changing to eheim external cannister
filter media - hydroton for biological and sponges for mechanical. no carbon.
heater - viaaqua 300w. chaning to jaeger

column dosing the plant with seachem excel and flourish as well sera flore day drops. i'm busy testing a new fertiliser and will soon be dosing this tank exclusively with it.


Fish
5 Red Map Discus
3 Leopard Discus
1 Brilliant Blue Discus
1 Pigeon Blood Discus
5 Male Sunburst cacu Apistos
2 Male Steel blue Viejita Apistos
7 Sterbai corys
15 Metallic Transparent Angels
10 Blushing Golden Angels
8 Paraguay Tetras
5 Rathburn Tetras
80 Rummies (adding in a day or 2)

Plants
will list once all are in...

 

Dolphin... do you not struggle with male agression amongst the 5 Male apisto cacu's?

 

nope, they've grown up together and seem fine... there's sometimes the usual flaring but no chasing or nipping with no territory squabbles... that said, I'm not so sure about introducing any others of these to their tank because I think they'll gang up and annihilate the newbie’s. This is making it quite difficult to introduce the 2 females I have waiting for them. I introduced a group of mixed males and females to their tank and they chased and bit them...so

pic of some the apistos...

 

edit: the filter brand is ViaAqua not Atman

 

Surely this is grossly over stocked?? Is the Eheim gonna be as big as the tank?

I'd have thought that the 80 Rummy's alone would be more than the tanks capacity?

Anyhow, nice fishees!!

Cheers
G!

Ooo, and any chance of a pic of the Rathbun Tetras?? Are they expensive??

Cheers
G!

 

i know its overstocked you should have seen them in the tank they (all the above fish and a few more) were in last week which only had 2 corner airfilters for filtration...

I plan on moving the angels into their own cube once they grow abit bigger but the rest will remain in this tank.

 

looks great ,i really love discus and they are definetly my number one fish ,but i am going to have a few years before i get them.
whats the price on that canister you getting i am getting one for my 1,2m aswell

 

Very nice dude!! Where have you set this one up? In your Flat?

The discus are looking good. Nice tank!

 

thanks! I'll check the price on my notebook and post later...

thanks! yep, in the "fish room"

 

I hope the "fish room" and the babies room are 2 different rooms. Heehee

 

well that depends on what babies you're talking about

my orange chromides spawned today (in an overstocked community tank) and one of my panaque maccus females is in the 'cave' they carved out under the plants... so looks like lots of fish babies in that room

seriously, the baby sleeps in her cot next to the bed...

 

I've considered all filters locally available and finally settled on the eheim pro 3E 2074 rated for 1500L/h... but the local price is CRAZY!!! so I'm going to import a few of these for my tanks.

if you're looking for a good value for money filter, then consider the Eheim classic 2217 which should retail for about R2050 with the media set. This filter does 1000L/h and the only real hassle (compared to other newer eheims - not compared to other makes of filters) with it is the priming.

 

Tank looks good Dolphin! Discus really are beautiful fish! Wish I had a large enough tank for them ^^,