Discus fever

Hi Sabrina;
I am glad that you are excited about your tank but trust me you need to slowdown your enthusiasm ,in my opinion you don't need to bring yet another factor ( seachem purigen ) in to the equation , your test shows that you are in the middle of your cycling ,you filter is already converting SOME ammonia to nitrite but still have some time to go ,do your self a favor and read one of the stickies on fishless cycling . As Steve said all you need is little bit of ammonia to keep your good bacteria happy .
Good luck.

Hi Sayid,
Thank you again for your reply, I am remaining clam now, I jumped the gun with adding the Cories I know. The reason I ordered the Seachem Purigen is I had got advice it was the best stuff to use in your filter, I can hold off adding it at this stage though. I added 2 capfuls of the Ammonia last night, I think that was way too much, I am about to test the tank now so I will report back with my results shortly.

EDIT:

KH 71.6
GH 107.4
PH 7.6
Ammonia 2.0
Nitrite 2.0
Nitrate 10

Hi Sabrina;
The reason behind fishless cycling is that when you are cycling and have no fish in the tank you can add ammonia to feed your beneficial bacteria (BB) now if you add alittle too much it's not a big deal but you have made your life more difficult by adding the cories ,they make their own ammonia which perhaps not enough to keep your cycling happen fast enough and you adding ammonia on top that will make your ammonia level above the comfort level of your fish (or cories ) that is the reason behind fishless cycling .
o.k you have a few option.
1. remove your cories to a smaller tank like hospital tank e.g 20 liter which is easy to wc and do 50% wc every day and do that till your display tank cycles, in the mean time do a fishless cycling on your display tank
2. continue what you are doing but reduce your ammonia dosing but keep it to minimum like o.5 ppm and be prepared that you might lose some cories as the result .
Remember that the you need some ammonia to keep BB alive and happy but you need ideally zero ammonia for the health of your cories so if you test and ammonia is high like 2 ppm you need to do wc .
You can help the situation buy keeping your ph less than 7 which we are lucky because our water is soft , i don't know why your water is 7.6 but i advise you to put a dritwood in the tank .
Also go and get as much reading as you have time .
Good luck

One other thing ,your KH and GH values are high for our water ,are you sure you are not adding any other chemicals to your water also your ph should be around 6.8 perhaps 6.9

Hi Sayid,

I removed the Cories days ago as Steve advised me too... So they are happy now :)

I havnt added any other chemicals to change PH GH KH levels, that's just what they are at the moment. The GH and KH were much higher where I used to live, so I thought the current test was quiet good actually.. And the PH took months to come down in the 6s at my old address..

Today I decorated the tank! I am so so excited at how it turned out. I think it looks amazing :D
Thoughts?
Attachment 21431

The Swords and Blue Strictas are live plants :D
Here is a video guys!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DG_XxAh906k

I would not have believed if you hadn't told me ,they are very colourful and look artificial , at least they will help your tank reducing nitrate ,BTW i know that you like helmets and things but you need some space for your discus ha.ha.ha......

lol Sayid I know, I went over board with decorations!

I have made a decision not to get Discus right now, I'm going to get them in the future, I would really prefer to have a 6 foot tank rather than my 4 foot as such. So for now I will just have some small fish to keep me occupied :)

I will be keeping an eye out for a good 6 foot tank from now, I want a really nice looking tank not those standard looking ones.. So for now I'm pretty sure this project is on hold..

Thank you both for all the help so far, I will see you around the forums :D

Sabrina, you can still discuss your tank and fish here, the rules are about the same for most fish, it's just that Discus 'are' the Kings of the Aquarium, there are no other fish to beat them imo. But good luck whatever you choose.

Hollowman, thank you :)
The main reason for putting my discus project off besides the tank size was the cost of 5 discus in one hit, I just don't have the money right now to fork out for 5 at once, we know how expensive they are :'(
It cost me more to start back up than I thought it would, to get the tank to where it is now cost $1000.. I'm not working so its hard for me to find the money right now.
So for the moment, I have small fish in the tank, 0.25 ammonia 0.25 nitrite and 20 nitrate..

Hi Sabrina, so glad you decided to try again. I’ve been following your post and are keen to know how you went with your new tank. Have you got Discus in there now? Your plants looked absolutely amazing. Be great to see some updated pics. Hope all is going well ��

Hi Krissy!
Lovely to see you here :)
Well a lot has happened since I posted this thread back then. I didn't end up getting discus at that stage, I ended up doing a community tank with neon's, rams and cories. Which didn't end up going well, the tank turned into the bermuda triangle for a few weeks, my rams went missing. I finally found the culprit, it was the diving helmet ornament they were getting stuck in, which was fatal for the fish. So i ended up giving up fish keeping after that for awhile. But I'm now back keeping discus, i started the tank up again from scratch exactly 1 month ago now. Used Fluval Cycle and Prime to cycle the tank, it took 2 weeks. I had been visiting the local pet stores for weeks before, and at one of them there was this poor little discus all alone, i had to save him. So i brought him home, popped him in the tank with my 6 corydoras and that was that. As the weeks have gone on i have by chance been contacted by the woman that brought my old discus off me over 12 months ago, Red was a new father of 90 odd babies she tells me. So then the plans to buy some of the babies happened, 4 days ago i brought 2 of them, they are still white with no real colour except a tint on their fins. So i currently have 3 discus with plans to buy 2 more babies next week, that will make 5 for that tank. I was also offered by one of my friends her discus, there is 5 of them left now, some as big as my hand. She had a second hand 4 foot tank, so i brought that off her a couple of weeks ago, its currently having some repairs done to it but should be up and running in the next week. So i will be buying her discus in the next 2 weeks once the tank is cycled and ready to go. So as you can see alot is going down here in this little house hold in regards to fish, i might have chosen the hard road again but life is unpredictable. As much as i would have loved to buy the perfect discus from the perfect store or breeder costing me hundreds of dollars, it just didn't work out that way this time round again. Lets just hope i have better luck the second time around! Thank you for asking after me Krissy and sorry its such a long winded post! :)
Following are some recent photos of the tank and my current discus..
Attachment 21439
Attachment 21440
Attachment 21441
Attachment 21442

looks great Sabrina

Hi Sabrina ;
Nice to see you back again ,by the look of it you are going to be a busy lady .

Hello Hollowman and Sayid!!

Thank you both for the replies. Yes very busy raising these babies, lots of water changes and feeding. Everything is going great so far, fingers crossed it stays that way!

Question: I have a HOB filter, how often do I need to change the Carbon cartridge please? Every 2-3 months?

Hi Sabrina,

I never had the need to use carbon so cant say for sure. Is there no information from the manufacturer?

Hi Sabrina;
As Steve mentioned you only use carbon if you want to get rid of some thing in the tank e.g medication ,antibiotic ,but in reality you don't need it ,also there is a danger with carbon if you don't replace it after 3 weeks ,if you forget the carbon will release all the toxin back in to the tank.
My suggestion is to replace carbon with sponge or polyester floss and clean it once a day ,some time simple ways are much easier.

You are correct Sayid, ok for removing meds but no need for constant use, I am not sure why some manufacturers supply with new filters to be honest. And again correct about leeching back toxins, I for got that, if used for too long.

Hi guys,
Just finished a 35% water change, with your advice I changed the Carbon/Floss cartridge to a new Carbon/Floss cartridge as that's what I had handy, the pet store was closed and I couldn't get my hands on some white filter floss to go with the new ceramic noodles I had brought last week, to replace the carbon/floss cartridge all together. So, I will now wait 3 weeks and then replace the carbon/floss cartridge with ceramic noodles and white filter floss.. There is also a bio grid in the HOB filter which held some BB, and I'm running a jumbo sponge filter too, so I will be interested to see if I loose my cycle after replacing the new carbon/floss cartridge today.. I will let the water settle for 3 hours now and then test it, hopefully my Nitrate will have dropped a bit, it was reading 40ppm.

If there is one thing I remember about researching carbon 12 odd months ago, it was that once the carbon was at the end of its life (3 weeks, as sayid said) the carbon then just stops working at removing toxins, it does not leech them back into the water. I just looked it up, here is the info:

Does Carbon leach absorbed contaminants back into the water once it’s exhausted?
Not under normal conditions, however there are a few exceptions. As long as your pH is within normal range for marine aquariums then the answer is no, carbon will not leach substances back into the water once it’s useful life has expired. Extreme shifts in pH to highly alkaline or acidic ranges would cause carbon to leach contaminants back into the aquarium water and at that point everything in the aquarium would cease to live. Therefore, carbon will not leach contaminants back into the aquarium.

Thank you both for your help on this note, I will report back with my water readings in a few hours :)

Hello again,
My readings were as follows last night:
PH 7.0
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 40
KH 35.8
GH 107.4
I tested the nitrite again in the morning to double check I had not lost the cycle, it was zero again thankfully. There is still an issue with the nitrate being 40 though, I cant seem to get it to lower. I havnt been taking out more than 40% water during a water change, perhaps I need to do a 60% one and see if that helps. Here is a vid and some pics I took today..
Attachment 21443
Attachment 21444
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Swayaj-9IY8

Hi Sabrina ;
Your tank looks very clean ,is it my imagination or a few of those plants are artificial ,i am a bit baffled by your nitrate level ,40 ppm is a bit high for the number of fish you have which makes me think if you may not be able to vacuum the waist/ detritus the way you want ,not very urgent but worth thinking about before it start the health of your fish . apart from that your tank and fish looks lovely.

Hi,
Only one of the plants is fake, the others are live. I have been doing regular water changes but they have not been big ones, only around 40% each time, which I thought was enough, but maybe not. I have time today to do a large water change so I'm thinking I will take out 50% water and vacuum, add it back and then back to back do another 50% change, surely that will bring my nitrate down. Thanks, I think they look good too :)

Turns out I only needed to do one large water change to bring the Nitrate down. I changed just over 100 liters of water, that's 26 gallons. My nitrate is now 10-20ppm, I am happy with that. Its been a busy day here with the big water change and I also set up my other 4 foot tank I brought a few weeks ago, its now full, running and dosed with Prime and Fluval Cycle. The Fluval cycle treatment goes for 3 days, so I will add some Cories on Wednesday-Thursday to complete the cycle process. This will be the 3rd time I have used Fluval cycle, your tank only takes exactly 2 weeks to the day to cycle fully with only a couple of small water changes, its much better than any other bottled beneficial bacteria on the market, I absolutely swear by it now. :)