My 650 planted discus tank

Hi all,

This is my first post on this forum. I had registration issues that Jason solved, many thamks

I have been keeping discus and angelfish for nearly a year in a four foot planted tank. The fish grew well, and there was a lot of agression. No pecking order in paricular, just general violance. So I broke this tank down

[IMG]http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h9...ps5d07ea40.jpg[/IMG]

and moved them to a 6 x 2 x 2 CADE.

The tank is heavily planted , with more than 10 species of plants. The front half is a swimming area with white river sand as a substrate.

Attachment 20853

Attachment 20854

Filtration:

Sump.
Water is drained from the tank via
1. A PVC overflow
2. PVC suction

Most of the water is drained via the suction, and a small amount trickle down the overflow. I want to minimise CO2 degassing, while getting some form of surface skim.

Attachment 20855


More pics to follow.

Love the tank, any chance of some details on your PVC drain setup?

Thanks ILLUSN

The PVC drains are cheap affairs. They are not pretty but they work. Google DIY PVC ooverflow and you will see what I did.

This is the overflow drain. Just a small amount of water trickles down the drain. But enough to skim the surface of the tank
Attachment 20858

This is the suction drain. Most of the water goes down here. The plan is for it to suck in solids and debri deeper down in the tank. I use a 5W Hydor Koriala pump to circlate water from the other end of the tank.
Attachment 20859

Both these drain empty into a capped 100 mm PVC stormwater pipe I salvaged from a building site. Its sort of a wet dry, as the water empties above the water level in the sump. I capped it to minimise CO2 loss. I use Hydroton clay balls as a bio media. Cheap, and buoyant. The inflow from the tank makes them behave like Kaldess media reefers are so fond of.

The return pump is a Blagdon 5000LPH 65 watt. There are more economical (energy consumtiom wise)

Some of the return flow is recirculated into the sump. A two outlet garden hose attachment diverts the flow
[IMG]http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h9...pshheisstn.jpg[/IMG]

One arm goes into a DIY purigen/ carbon reactor
[IMG]http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h9...pshsmbumgf.jpg[/IMG]

Another arm goes into a modified micron filter i pit together. Its not bad for polishing water

[IMG]http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h9...ps47b2lnn2.jpg[/IMG]

CO2 is injected directedly into the return pump. I get a lot CO2 mist.
[IMG]
http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h9...pslqxgve4k.jpg[/IMG]

The plants are doing well. Discus tanks are not great for plants but I am happy so far.
[IMG]http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h9...psfyc0wvsb.jpg[/IMG]

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Lighting is about 8 hours of LED's, using Maxspect Razor and a pair of 160WE Kessils. I dose something like 10ppm nitrates and 1 PPM PO4 twice a week. Traces are every other day.

The fish are fed profusely, 4X/ day with a timer and a blended much of turkey, garlic, and spirulina once a day.

Water change is 50% once every 10 days or so. I use the water to flush toilets and water the garden.

There are about 10 plant species in there.

Fauna, other than discus are blue angels, a veiled angel, some L number plecos, a small school or cardinals, rummy nose tetras and golden pencilfish.

Thanks for looking. Coments welcome.

love it mate well done!

very nice! where abouts you from?

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Originally Posted by Nathan

very nice! where abouts you from?

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Thanks. Keilor East. Do you live nearby?

Did a big trim today, a bucketful of cuttings harvested. I donated some and composted the rest.
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The fish behaviour is interesting. My discus are fairly agressive. They peck on my hands whenever they can. They seem to like blowing up the soft, so I sunk in some pellets here and there to give them something meaningful to do. The angelfish spawn often, but sadly the eggs are just another protein source for the rest of the tank, despite the parents best afforts.

discus love to graze off the soft sand, I used to love watching mine blow into it to float up the colour bits and then eat the food. Magnificent looking tank!

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Originally Posted by ILLUSN

discus love to graze off the soft sand, I used to love watching mine blow into it to float up the colour bits and then eat the food. Magnificent looking tank!

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Thanks! My ultimate dream will to set up a full, large, planted biotope-riparium with discus and altums. It also has to mainly solar driven, environmentally sound and as sustainable as possible. I am proud to say that, my tank is second hand, all the PVC bits, and filtaration bits were DIYed from discarded stuff.

love your work and the concept! putting solar on my roof was the best thing I ever did in summer we now make power than we use, so I have a guilt free 1000L tank.
working on batteries now and finishing the roof with more solar to try and get our production to equal our winter consumption (I think we're now at about 30% of our winter usage now)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ILLUSN

love your work and the concept! putting solar on my roof was the best thing I ever did in summer we now make power than we use, so I have a guilt free 1000L tank.
working on batteries now and finishing the roof with more solar to try and get our production to equal our winter consumption (I think we're now at about 30% of our winter usage now)

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Hey Jothy,
its been a while since I have been on here and talked to people. I see that you put solar on your roof and you mentioned you are going to put it back into the battery's. How many 12v battery are you looking at installing for your house. I have been told at our new place that we are building that the transformer is full and no more solar will be allowed so the only option is battery's. Have they come down in price yet as I was wanting to know how much it costs to set it up on a house.

Cheers Axl

I have been asked about tank maintainence, and also keen to know how much time and effort other put into their discus tanks. Time is a favtor for me, as I work nearly a 100 hours a week.

Daily, or once every two days
1. Feeding dis us various treats/frozen food. They are otherwise feed 4x/ via timer
2 Dosing dry ferts
3. Spot dosing Glut and hydrogen peroxide on BBA patches( it only grows on a particular wood)
4. Making sure the drainage pipes are not blocked
Weekly
1. Trimmimg each portion/patch of vegetation, one plant species a week
2. 30-40% water change
3. Some glass cleaning
4. Pulling out the damn U Gibba and burning it!

overall, i would say 1/2 hour a week.

before trim ( 2 weeks growth)
[IMG]http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h9...ps0tfnhyyr.jpg[/IMG]

After agressively hacking 5-10 mins

[IMG]http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h9...pszzazlh7o.jpg[/IMG]

Tonina. fluvantis s not an ideal plant to grow in a discus tank. Wimpy plant. But its doing ok, and is my canary in the mine
[IMG]http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h9...pshx4amoau.jpg[/IMG]

Next week, we mow the blyxa

A sad event, one of my beautiful discus jumped out, and died :(

Quote:

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Originally Posted by shakti

Next week, we mow the blyxa

A sad event, one of my beautiful discus jumped out, and died :(

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Oh man that's horrible news! Don't you have glass lids?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by shakti

as I work nearly a 100 hours a week.

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We're not so different, you and I. ;)

Update time. The tank has been running for almost 3 months, and is starting to mature.

I am pleased with
1. Discus health
2.Other fish health
3.General water clarity issues

Issues
1. BBA appears here and there. I am still dependant on chemicals
2.Going by numbers, my CO2 is still off. Way off, but the plants looks ok, so not quite sure if I need to fix it.
3. Only one golden pencil fish surviving. For some reason, the rest jumped out.
4. Invaded by a horrible carnivarous plant U.gibba. It's trying to take over the tank
5. Bolbitis is supposed to be an 'easy' plants, but is just rotting.

The fish behaviour is very interesting to watch in a planted tank that has white sand and adequate swim room.

The Anubian nana has taken off.
Attachment 20926
The alternata reinikii is doing well. I drilled holes in the driftwood and stuffed a few stems in. They are trying to escape.
Attachment 20927

A full tank shot after trim
Attachment 20930

And my three discus
Attachment 20929

Thanks for looking.

UPDATE

The tank has had its ups and downs. With the high temperature, CO2, EI dosing and frequent protein rich homade feeds, algae and grow. It bould down to basic gardening, removing dead leafs, trimming old growth to encourage new growth, weekly water changes.
I am trying to i troduce a more 'natural' filteration system. I have taken to growing amazon frogbit in my sump. these plants suck up loads of ammnonia, soften water and their long roots supports a lot of bacterial growth. Need to keep up on the nitrate dosing though. Lets see how it goes.
[IMG]http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h9...pshrv8u4sr.jpg[/IMG]

The plant growth good is good. Needs frequest hacking though. The more agressive plants suck up all that CO2. Then the wimpy plants dont do well, and algae grows on them. Increasing the CO2 is risky, as the discus really dont like it. My tank pH drops from 7.3 to 6.8 after 2 hours of CO2. If we go by numbers, optimal. CO2 meansinjecting enoung to drop the pH by one whole unit. But the discus wont tolerate that.


Here are some tank shots
[IMG]http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h9...psylmbgc8t.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h9...psxpv3qtjm.jpg[/IMG]

There are six discus, with one breeding pair. The females spawns often, and they take over half the tank, but none off the eggs hatch. has anyone ever had luck with raising frus in a community tank? The corydoras breed well.

Thanks for looking

Hi can I get a list of the plants you have used in your tank thanks