Plants and Discus community tank

So, I have moved my hobby over to revolve 100% around my Discus. They are now in the Nautilus (I will updates pics soon). I was wondering what plants you guys use in your Discus tanks? I know most people do bare bottom but I like to have my show tank a bit decorated.

At the moment I am sporting many rocks with big wood features (mopani and vineyard) with only plastic plants. I would love to get some ground cover going over my river bed gravel and maybe some real plants as well.

The problem I had in the past is that:
1. the heat of my water tends to kill the plants - I run at 29 to 30 degrees C.
2. my discus does not like the soup I add for the plants (like iron, fertz etc.)

I would like to get plants, starting with ground cover, that needs as little possible feed and that is able to handle the high temps. Is there anything that you guys know works?

Cheers,
Chris

 

Plants

This is my tank and the plants in it:



The lower growing plants do not get enough light so they do not flourish.

1. Java fern
2. Anubias
3. Valisneria
4. Hygrophila
5. Tropical water lily
6. Moss/algae

7. Bacopa

8. Spanish moss
9. Micro Swords?
10. Cryptocoryne?
11. Hemianthus micranthemoides (Babies tears)

12. Broad leaved Amazon Sword?
13. Smaller Cryptocoryne?
14. Salvinia natans - Floating watermoss
15. Anachris

 

@Reedfish, I know, and it's not that I am lazy, I have tried and things did not work out so I am asking personal experience
@lennard, you are a star! Do you dose the tank with anything or just CO2?

 

I did a compost/soil layer when I started this tank, but by now all original organics disintegrated.

The plants are growing only on the nutrients that the fish and snails are producing.

I have bought some aquarium fertilizer, but I am not going to use it in my display tank.

Simplicity again is the answer here - give the tank a chance to "create" a balance by what is in it, don't disturb the balance too much, and a tank like this can go for years without cleaning it out totally again.

The algae and other moss will definitely not be acceptable to most people, but I am a plant person and do love any greens! The moss I have posted, have created a carpet on the rocks and do look very beautiful moving in the water current.

The tropical lily is allowed to form surface leaves to strengthen the tuber, but it creates a lot of shade not good for the other plants, so I remove the surface leaves every now and again.

The same tank in 2011 as a goldfish planted tank:

New member from Rustenburg.

 

Thanks dude, this was really what I was looking for. The tank changed quite a lot since the small plants I also enjoy greenery and would probably start by adding moss to my rocks if I could.

 

There was a very nice (at least to me) discus biotope featured in pfk in the last year, sand substrate, wood and a few large Amazon swords. I'll have a look she back home next week and post a link if possible.

 

That would be awesome thanks!

 

Hi Chris

ive tried to combine plants and discus ,it's possible but there's a price.

Maybe I've dosed to much firtz for a low/medium tec tank but my light wasn't sufficient for my depth tank so I struggled with my medium tec plants but any case the biggest thing is water change for discus and planted tank. Each time you do WC you need to redose the tank and it cost me to much. So I gave my discus away.

Only advice I can give is stay with low tec plants swords/java/Anubias/Vallis. And don't try to keep to many Discus fish. I don't know how big your tank is but my ratio where 1 discus to 125liter water. Maybe buy alittle bigger discus as they don't need to eat as much as the younger ones. If you need advice on discus ask Marco he knows a lot and will help you out. Or go on the Discus forums there is a lot of advice around Discus.

another thing is don't add Seachem Excel if you have Vallis they will just all die back and only recover at a later stage.

keep posting pics.

good luck
Mr G.

 

I will post pics later, but my five Discus are in my 1500L tank atm :tongue:

What you say is true, Discus needs big water changes, if I have to re-dose 700L a week then I will be broke soon!

 

Hehe, I meant lazy to search the forums

 

Hi Lennard the "moss" is black beard algae. Most guys with planted tank hate that stuff.