# 125 Gal Trial-n-error Discus tank



## Petrus (Aug 15, 2003)

The tank is viewed from three sides so it's quite challenging to come up with a hardscape that works in all three directions. I had someone added in side panels, sliding doors, and some shelves to hide the bare metal stand and make some use of the room underneath...


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## Petrus (Aug 15, 2003)

Next is to fill the tank with substrate. I spent a bit of time deciding what to use as a substrate. There aren't any Flourite, Ecocomplete, Onyx, etc here in Thailand and I was left with a choice of either plain quartz gravel or ADA aquasoil. Well, the ADA aquasoil costs more than 10x than the gravel, and in order to fill this tank, the amount of money spent on the ADA soil would be as much as the tank and stand costs themselves. I coiuldn't really take that, so I went with the plain gravel/peat/clay mix and took my changes.
The first layer is a mix of pumic, peat, and red clay


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## Petrus (Aug 15, 2003)

The bottom layer was topped with about 3-5" of regular quartz gravel


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## Petrus (Aug 15, 2003)

Next, I added the driftwood and rocks. I found a decent size stump that fits the tank quite well. I wish it was a bit taller, but oh well. We'll see how it goes.


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## Petrus (Aug 15, 2003)

Here's the view from the side..


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## Petrus (Aug 15, 2003)

Since I wanted this to be a discus tank, there should be some open spaces for the fish to swim around. I chose to use hairgrass as the foreground plant. But since this tank can be viewed from 3 sides, the hairgrass is basically on all three sides. Here's the view of the tank after 1 month of planting. One mistake that I did was to start dosing EI from day 1. By the first week, I was getting hair algae among the hairgrass. The grass did, however, grew very fast and became quite tall (3-4") and it was looking a bit messy.

I was playing around with some DIY CO2 reactor when setting this tank up. I didn't want the reactor to be in-line with the filter due to leaking concerns, so I decided to put the reactor in the tank. A bit of a visual distraction...


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## Petrus (Aug 15, 2003)

Here's a closeup of my DIY CO2 reactor inside the tank. It's basically a water bottle with the output filter tube entering from the top. CO2 is injected via the small airline tubing going into the uper section of the bottle. With this method, I get the same dissolution as an inline reactor, although it sometimes is a bit distracting. I'm planting C. Balanse in this area in hope to cover it up a bit.


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## Petrus (Aug 15, 2003)

Due to the hair-algae outbreak, I scaled back on the EI dosing and reduce the lighting - from 4 NO fluorescence (36x4 = 144 watts) down to 3 tubes (36x3 = 108 Watts), 8 hours a day for about a week. It worked. The hair algae was almost gone by the second week. The plants are doing alright, although not growing as much. They weren't withering or anything though. Some of you may be surprised that I'm using just 144 watts (~1 wpg) for this tank. Well, I found that hairgrass actually grew fine at this level.

Here's a closeup of the hairgrass after 2 weeks of reduced lighting.


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## Petrus (Aug 15, 2003)

Here's the tank at the 2 month timepoint. At this point, the hair-algae is going away, and I'm about to go back to dosing EI again. I had to make a decision as to what trace element to use. There's no gregwatson ferts here, nor was there Seachem or TMG to get a hold of. Ofcourse there's the ADA line of ferts, but we'll get to that later. I decided that for this size take, I would go broke with ADA ferts. So I went down to the local hydroponics store and grabbed a trace mix that they had. It has:
B	1.1%
Cu	0.25%
Fe	6%
Mn	2.4%
Mo	0.25%
Zn	1.3%

The ratios aren't the same as CSM+B or TMG, but I gave it a try. I mixed 2 tablespoon with 500 ml water. The tap water here has KH = 5 and GH = 7 so I didn't add any extra Mg or Ca. I also added 2 tablespoons of K2SO4 to the mix. For EI, I dose 10 ml of this solution 3x a week along with KNO3 and K2HPO4.


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## JenThePlantGeek (Mar 27, 2006)

What a lovely tank! I love the transition pictures of bare hardscape to lush and green. Good job beating that algae - just goes to show that if you keep your plants happy, then the algae won't be a problem.  I can't wait to see pictures of it full of discus!


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## Petrus (Aug 15, 2003)

Here's what it looks like from the other (back?) side...


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## Petrus (Aug 15, 2003)

Thanks Jen... the take behaved relatively nice during the first 2 months..but the problems are just begining..heh heh...


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## Petrus (Aug 15, 2003)

So after the hair-algae event, I went back to EI dosing. By the way, this tank is located in the pantry with a huge refridgerator giving off heat nearby. As a result, the temperature in this tank varies between 28-31C (82-88F) the entire time, even with fans blowing on the surface. Good for discus, but not sure about the plants. Perhaps this is one of the causes of the issues I'm having (more on this later)?

After another month of EI dosing, here's what I noticed:
- Hair algae is back! But it's mostly growing among the hairgrass, not on plant leaves or wood or glass.
- Sagittaria subdulata is taking over the tank!! They are spreading runners like crazy and are a pain to prune since it also pulls up hairgrass along with its roots.
- For some reason, my sword on the left (E. uruguayensis) and java fern barely grew at all. They just sit there despite dosing EI. Any ideas why this is so? Even now, after a year, java fern doesn't grow in this tank. It just sits there doing nothing. Could it be the temperature?

Here's an image of the tank after another month. Anyone know what the stem plant on the right is? A stem hitchhiked with the other plants.


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## Architect1 (Feb 19, 2006)

I don't know if you know but Planted tanks stunt the discus growth so what i would do is get 12 adults. It be nice to see some wilds in there. But its up to you and good luck.


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## Nightshop (May 12, 2006)

Wow you certainly have a nack for growing plants! I love seeing tanks this deep with beautiful hardscape and plants.

When are you going to be adding some discus?


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## Y0uH0 (Dec 19, 2005)

Love the plant growth. You have no problems getting them to grow so healthily. I am so envious.


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## Petrus (Aug 15, 2003)

Architect1 said:


> I don't know if you know but Planted tanks stunt the discus growth so what i would do is get 12 adults. It be nice to see some wilds in there. But its up to you and good luck.



Thanks Architect. I'm aware of that. Actually, I'm planning to put in just 5 adults at the most since I only have time to change water once a week and no more. Wilds are next to impossible to get over here. I've looked all over for them but couldn't find any. I'll just have to stick to wild-looking domestics.


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## Petrus (Aug 15, 2003)

Nightshop: Thanks.. I'm going to be posting some of discus pictures soon... 

Y0uH0: Don't be envious...I'm not that good, really. For some reason, I still can't get java fern, of all plants, to grow! They just stay there, no new leaves, not rotting either. I really can't figure it out. Could it be the high temperature?


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## Petrus (Aug 15, 2003)

Alright... a month has gone by from the last set of images, and both the dwarf and giant sag have taken over 90% of the tank. Sorry I don't have pictures of the sag jungle, but it lookedmore like a tub of weeds with leaves reaching the surface. I got tired of it and started ripping out the sag/hairgrass/E.tenellus mix , leaving only an island of sag on the right untouched. This time, I wanted to try my hands on glosso and see how that works for me.
Here's a shot of the front of the tank after the massive sag removal  Noticed that the javafern pretty much stayed dormant despite the explosive growth of the sags.


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## Petrus (Aug 15, 2003)

Here's the other side of the tank...


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## Petrus (Aug 15, 2003)

and the side...


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## Petrus (Aug 15, 2003)

At this point, I have about 20 cardinal tetras, 10 rummy noses, a couple mollies to skim the surface, and a couple of SAEs. I'm still running on 4 NO fluorescent (144 watts) with reflectors in this 125 gal (~ 1-1.5 wpg) on this tank. Let's see how the glosso handles it. oh, and I also have an exploding population of cherry shrimps.. They will serve as nutritious snacks for the discus once they've arrived


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## Petrus (Aug 15, 2003)

the newly planted glosso patches..


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## Brilliant (Apr 11, 2006)

Looks great!

I liked the first pics, I actually thought the algae was a thinner grass or a different plant. Your sag looked like my Echinodorus tenellus. I do like the glosso move. Cant wait to see it grow in.

Less water changes stunt Discus not a planted tank. If you change your water Discus grow out.

I cant grow java fern or the 'Windeløv' in my tank either. I have other plants growing fine. Perhaps this one is heat sensitive because I have a few clumps growing OK in non Discus tank w/ OEM hood.


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## Y0uH0 (Dec 19, 2005)

Nice transition. Your previous scape was very beautiful but i agree that it did overgrow quite abit. I'm sure your glosso carpet will grow just fine=)


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## MiSo (Oct 26, 2005)

i like the tank without so much hairgrass. i'm sure the glosso will fill in just fine and will make the tank look great. 

the view from all 3 sides are great. awesome job man.
i'm sure once everything grows in, it'll be fantastic.


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## attack11 (May 5, 2006)

great scape.


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## crazie.eddie (May 31, 2004)

Beautiful tank.



Architect1 said:


> I don't know if you know but Planted tanks stunt the discus growth so what i would do is get 12 adults. It be nice to see some wilds in there. But its up to you and good luck.


How would a planted tank stunt the growth?


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## Petrus (Aug 15, 2003)

Thanks for all the nice words everyone. Now that I looked back at the sag forest scape, I liked it more and more..but back then it was time for a change. Perhaps I have a mild case of ADHD 

Anyway...fast forwarding another month and the glosso lawn starts to fill in. I also got some Ludwigia arcuata and added some golden tetras to the tank..and oh..one dwarf puffer to help out with the snail problems. I guess this guy is too little to handle all the snails in there. I've heard issues about them being aggressive and nipping other people's fins, but this guy is extremely mellow. Never seen him chase a fish, ever! I'm afraid to get more since I might get one of the badly-behaving ones..especially with discus in later.

Here's the shot of the front


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## Petrus (Aug 15, 2003)

the side....


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## Petrus (Aug 15, 2003)

the little puffer..


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## Petrus (Aug 15, 2003)

the glosso is filling in...


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## Petrus (Aug 15, 2003)

close up of the cherry


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## Petrus (Aug 15, 2003)

Update after a long while.. 
The glosso carpet became so thick and unmanageable that I had to ripped the entire mat out. So now I'm again left with a bare surface up front. Collectoritis also got a hold of me during this point, and my tank now looks like a jungle. Since I couldn't find true wild discus around here, I got three wild-looking domestics. They appear to be descendants of the alanquer or something along that line. Two weeks after I had them in my tank, they bred. Here's the front of the tank. The two on the left are laying eggs on a C. Balanse leaf, while the other female looks on waiting its turn to spawn with the male.


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## Petrus (Aug 15, 2003)

the right side


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## Petrus (Aug 15, 2003)

The back of the tank


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## Petrus (Aug 15, 2003)

I really like this plant.. really cool looking!


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## Petrus (Aug 15, 2003)

deciding which shrimp to eat... just kidding.. they are curious, but I've never seen them eat a single shrimp.


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## Petrus (Aug 15, 2003)

mom and dad tending the eggs


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## Petrus (Aug 15, 2003)

another pic of the front..


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## the_noobinator (Jun 10, 2006)

the coloration on your discus is great!


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## Architect1 (Feb 19, 2006)

crazie.eddie said:


> Beautiful tank.
> 
> 
> 
> How would a planted tank stunt the growth?


I was just told on simply discus don't put plants grow them in a Bar bottom tank and the will get bigger. I noticed my self to mine where growing in a planted tank. They are stunted now. I think on is they only grow as big as the environment that is given to them. The other would be the water chemistry. The final would be the amount of food fed, how many times a week you do a water change. That’s what I believe it to be but don't quote me on it I'm still new.


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## Architect1 (Feb 19, 2006)

Wow I havent' been on in a long time and thats amazing. Its good you kept the tank open in the middle and alowed them some where to swim. Beautiful tank and fish vary nice job.


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## Brilliant (Apr 11, 2006)

Architect1 said:


> I was just told on simply discus don't put plants grow them in a Bar bottom tank and the will get bigger. I noticed my self to mine where growing in a planted tank. They are stunted now. I think on is they only grow as big as the environment that is given to them. The other would be the water chemistry. The final would be the amount of food fed, how many times a week you do a water change. That’s what I believe it to be but don't quote me on it I'm still new.


Weird...you seemed to quickly suggest planted tanks stunt Discus but then when asked you are backing out of it citing a forum that seems to run rampant with misinformation (or generalizations) like this.

Planted tanks typically do not get the water changes Discus need to grow out. This doesnt mean Discus cant grow out in a planted tank. This is a generalization maybe not misinformation. Bare bottom tanks are only recommended because they are easy to clean.



The tank looks wonderful! I envy you, I am a long away from having a nice planted tank AND Discus tank. Sooner or later I will learn both then hopefully mend them together.


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## esarkipato (Jul 19, 2005)

WOW your tank is cool. I can't hardly believe the stunning plant growth you get with only 144 watts of normal output fluoros.....glosso went nuts!


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## Ds11375 (Jan 28, 2006)

Hi

Are you using pressurized Co2 with that DIY reactor? Doesn't your canister filter make a racket when taking in the Co2? Any DIY plans for your reactor?

Dan




Petrus said:


> Here's a closeup of my DIY CO2 reactor inside the tank. It's basically a water bottle with the output filter tube entering from the top. CO2 is injected via the small airline tubing going into the uper section of the bottle. With this method, I get the same dissolution as an inline reactor, although it sometimes is a bit distracting. I'm planting C. Balanse in this area in hope to cover it up a bit.


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## Urkevitz (Jan 12, 2004)

Petrus said:


> deciding which shrimp to eat... just kidding.. they are curious, but I've never seen them eat a single shrimp.


That is an awesome photo


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## fresh_lynny (Mar 9, 2006)

Petrus said:


> So after the hair-algae event, I went back to EI dosing. By the way, this tank is located in the pantry with a huge refridgerator giving off heat nearby. As a result, the temperature in this tank varies between 28-31C (82-88F) the entire time, even with fans blowing on the surface. Good for discus, but not sure about the plants. Perhaps this is one of the causes of the issues I'm having (more on this later)?
> 
> After another month of EI dosing, here's what I noticed:
> - Hair algae is back! But it's mostly growing among the hairgrass, not on plant leaves or wood or glass.
> ...


Great start...beautiful tank. I feel your pain about the three sidded view. It poses a challange for a scape to look good on all sides.
One suggestion.....I don't think EI is the best way to go for you. I am basing that on a combination of low light /wpg, and by a DIY CO2 setup. I think you need to either bump up the light and CO2, or scale back to a modified version of EI. A lot of times too much trace/Fe can cause the hair algae. Remove what you can with a toothbrush or comb, and spot squirt excel on the affected areas, then get some amanos to clean up the rest.
As for the stump, I think it looks great and give the discus more swimming space. It will be a lovely tank <it already is>


well hehehe I see I just read this an realized it was an old thread....
just disregard...LOL


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## Petrus (Aug 15, 2003)

Thanks for the comments and suggestions everyone. 
esarkipato: Yeah, I can't believe it either, but it's true. So far, the only plant I couldn't grow because of insufficient light in this tank is HC. Anything else grows fine (except javaferns of course).
Ds11375: The tube you see coming in from the top of the bottle is the _outflow_ from the canister filter. The CO2 stays inside the bottle and gets churned as the water comes out from the canister down into the bioballs. I'm using pressurized CO2 at 3bps without any problems. By late day, there is a buildup of gas inside the bottle though. Depending on the plant's pearling rate, it can fill as much as 2/3 of the bottle. I suspect that this is largely O2 and a little bit of CO2. This disappears by morning though.

fresh_newby: I agree with your suggestion that EI may not be suitable. I tried EI with this tank and while the plants grew much faster, so did the algae. Right now, I'm down to dosing the NPK once a week after 50% water change, and add only trace 3x/week until the next water change. So far it looks ok. I have been struggling with green dust algae for many months now. It just comes back every time I cleaned the glass. I tried leaving it for 4 weeks before cleaning it up, but it still comes back. Not sure what else to do.


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## fresh_lynny (Mar 9, 2006)

Petrus said:


> Thanks for the comments and suggestions everyone.
> esarkipato: Yeah, I can't believe it either, but it's true. So far, the only plant I couldn't grow because of insufficient light in this tank is HC. Anything else grows fine (except javaferns of course).
> Ds11375: The tube you see coming in from the top of the bottle is the _outflow_ from the canister filter. The CO2 stays inside the bottle and gets churned as the water comes out from the canister down into the bioballs. I'm using pressurized CO2 at 3bps without any problems. By late day, there is a buildup of gas inside the bottle though. Depending on the plant's pearling rate, it can fill as much as 2/3 of the bottle. I suspect that this is largely O2 and a little bit of CO2. This disappears by morning though.
> 
> fresh_newby: I agree with your suggestion that EI may not be suitable. I tried EI with this tank and while the plants grew much faster, so did the algae. Right now, I'm down to dosing the NPK once a week after 50% water change, and add only trace 3x/week until the next water change. So far it looks ok. I have been struggling with green dust algae for many months now. It just comes back every time I cleaned the glass. I tried leaving it for 4 weeks before cleaning it up, but it still comes back. Not sure what else to do.


Petrus
<yummy vino> lol anyway, GDA will resolve on its own. Don't bother cleaning the glass because it just stirs up spores and they scatter to other parts of the tank only to emerge again. It will resove on its own. You just have to be very patient. I went through this pricess when I first set up my tank and I couldn't even see inside the thing, but as hard as it is, you have to just let it be. just ignore it, don't disturb it, don't touch it, for 2 to 3 weeks a green fuzz algae starts growing on the plant leaves, and by the end of that time the GDA thins out, you can once again see thru it, it vanishes from the leaves, and you can wipe it off the glass, never to see it again. You have to wait it out completely before touching it. I know it is hard!


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## rezi (Aug 26, 2006)

I was wondering what the plant was when the author said "I really love this plant... really cool lookin!" I like the plant too, and it is very cool looking. Thanks

(small round pointy star-like green low growing plant)


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## Petrus (Aug 15, 2003)

Thanks fresh_newby. I'll try to wait it out once again. Do you mean I'm not supposed to do any water changes? Before, I left it for 4 weeks but I still did 30% water changes every week or so. 

Rezi: It's Eriocaulon cerinum. It's a native plant here but many people have them. They only have them during the monsoon season, when rice paddies are flooded.


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## scolley (Apr 4, 2004)

Petrus said:


>


Petrus - Just saw this thread, and LOVE your fish and the hardscape! I could not agree more on the stump. Taller would have been cool, but that doesn't change the fact that this is a really nice piece of wood!

Now I'm gonna go out on a limb... I know Amano talks all about "hiding your intentions" and all that. IMO that is baloney in some cases - like yours. That is one KILLER hardscape. I'd put in tall background plants behind that wood, and low (very low) plants in front - with NOTHING to obscure the view of that wood.

I'd kill for that wood. Please consider opening up your fore-mid ground so we can see it.

Either way though, great tank! Thanks for sharing it.


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## mecgeorgeneo (Aug 12, 2005)

great looking tank! nice job ;D


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## fresh_lynny (Mar 9, 2006)

Petrus, you can still do water changes, but try not to disturb the walls and let the spores dump back into the water. Be careful not to move it around, and even consider running UV during this period.


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## Petrus (Aug 15, 2003)

Scolley: Thank you very much for the kind words and suggestion. I completely agree with you on opening up the forground. When I first set up this tank, I was thinking of having just something tall behind the stump to hide the equipment, and a lawn of hairgrass and "dwarf" sag everywhere else (you can see this in my earlier pictures). Well, the "dwaf" sag didn't stay "dwarf" and it turned into a jungle. The tank has evolve quite a bit since then, going through a stem plant collectoritis phase, then back to the low-maintenace phase. I'm going to post my most recent photo of this tank soon. Maybe my next scape will be back to the hairgrass field concept. But I only have one tank so it'll have to wait 

mecgeorgeneo: Thanks pal!

fresh_newby: Thank you for the suggestion. After various attempts, I finally got it under control. Here's what I did. I've tried leaving it for three weeks before cleaning, but it came back still. What did it was a combination of leaving it alone, AND keeping a lean water column by dosing only trace elements conservatively. I noticed that if I dose N or P during this period, it re-emerges very quickly. Just my 2 cents.


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## Petrus (Aug 15, 2003)

Here's the latest update of my tank, taken a couple days ago. You can see that I've removed most of the stem plants since I got lazy at having to trim them every few days. Now it's just a low-maintenance scape. Too bad the wood is now hidden beind various plants.


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## Petrus (Aug 15, 2003)

Here's the back of the aquarium... Not optimal yet, but it's kinda hard to have a hardscape that looks good from both sides.. You can see the CO2 reactor on the right that I was trying to hide behind the sag/balanse bush.


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## Petrus (Aug 15, 2003)

Here's a pic of the larger female discus..


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## Petrus (Aug 15, 2003)

Wild discus is super rare here, so I just settled with wild-looking stuff.. 

Here's the male and the other smaller female about to spawn


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## Petrus (Aug 15, 2003)

My favorite view...


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## jt20194 (Oct 16, 2006)

*Wow*

Love your tank! Discus are great fish and yours are absolutely beautiful. I'll be making some changes to my tank after looking at yours.


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## standoyo (Nov 6, 2005)

That's a really nice setup you have there Petrus and the tanks is looking better and better I think. Nice use of space and balance of the 3 sided view. Not sure how you can make that very nice piece of wood more visible other than clearing the mid-ground but perhaps leaving some areas visible?

I really enjoyed the transformation from start! That makes me want to start my own thread on discus and planted...hmmm.


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## Petrus (Aug 15, 2003)

jt20194: Thanks!! I'm glad to hear that and I look forward to seeing your scape  

Stan: Thanks for the kind words. It did take a while to get where I am right now. I had also been pondering how to expose the wood some more, but the hairgrass was getting so tall (3-4") it was enough to cover a lot of the tail end anyway. Whenever I get bored with this scape, I'll try showing more wood . Please do start your journal. I always enjoy reading other people's journal and follow their journey as well. Sometimes you uncover things that may be of use to other people out there. It's kinda hard sometimes to take a moment and document everything while you're doing it. Most of the time you get carried away and before you know it, you're done and forgot to take pictures


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## xzzap (Sep 5, 2005)

sssspretty!


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## AQUA_OBSESSION (Oct 21, 2006)

This tank is probably one of the coolest tanks I have ever seen. Very nice. I would be curious to see how it looks now. Any updates or new photos.

Matt


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## Petrus (Aug 15, 2003)

Thanks Matt. The layout is pretty much the same, but things have grown in quite a bit. C. helferi towers now spread on the surface, and grass has grown thicker and taller. I'll post some more pictures soon. But right now, I'm quite puzzled. Today, I can not find my largest (~6") discus! He's no where to be found. I looked everywhere..inside, outside, on the floor, etc. He simply vanished into thin air. I even went in and combed through the sag forest hoping to find him (or his body) but nothing. I just can't believe an object that size can just simply disappear. Tomorrow I'll do a 50% water change and major pruning (I'm getting rid of the sag...too invasive..and replace it with more C. balanse instead) and see if I can find him somewhere. Go figure..


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## caymandiver75 (Sep 5, 2006)

Petrus said:


> Here's the latest update of my tank, taken a couple days ago. You can see that I've removed most of the stem plants since I got lazy at having to trim them every few days. Now it's just a low-maintenance scape. Too bad the wood is now hidden beind various plants.


I love your tank!!! What plants do you have in there? Also, where does everyone buy their plants? My local fish stores have little to nothing. I also have Red Ludwiga that seems to grow quickly in my tank, but it quickly loses its leaves from the bottom half down and they love to shoot out ugly white roots from their stems.


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## ddaquaria (Jan 19, 2003)

Petrus said:


>


What plant is this? Your c. Heleri looks great!


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## sNApple (Nov 6, 2005)

yeah whats this plant called?
your tank looks good too.


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## Petrus (Aug 15, 2003)

caymandiver75: There are quite a few in there..but the ones that you can see are: Hairgrass, riccia, Cyperus helferi, Anubias (nana, petite nana, and coffefolia), C.wendtii, C. Balanse, and an unknown crypt, Blyxa japonica, Didiplis diandra (my favorite stem plant), "dwarf" sag, Crinum calamistratun, Crinum natans. I apologize for any misspells. 

ddaquaria, sNApple: The plant is Erioculon cerinum. Really cool plant but a slow grower.... my hairgrass took over it.

Well, I did a 60% water change today and removed all my sag to look for my discus. I finally found him (actually, his body). Apparently he was trapped deep between the driftwood and the tall dense Blyxa japonica bushes. I'm not quite sure how he got in there, but I would guess he was chasing some cherry shrimps and got himself stuck inside. Poor guy.. now the females are shimming at one another and cleaning out a spot like they're a pair...hmm..


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## eklikewhoa (Aug 29, 2006)

beautiful tank!!


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## AQUA_OBSESSION (Oct 21, 2006)

That is too bad that your male discus did not make it. He was a very sharp looking male.

I have started a 90 gallon planted tank and just finished planting many different plants and am now waiting for it to grow out a bit. Good call on the C. Balansae - I just picked up one and am looking to get many more. I planted a bunch of sag but can already tell it is very invasive and may need to rethink that part of the tank. Can't wait to see the next photo.

Matt


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## fresh_lynny (Mar 9, 2006)

caymandiver75 said:


> I love your tank!!! What plants do you have in there? Also, where does everyone buy their plants? My local fish stores have little to nothing. I also have Red Ludwiga that seems to grow quickly in my tank, but it quickly loses its leaves from the bottom half down and they love to shoot out ugly white roots from their stems.


Caymandiver, many just trade pr buy in the swap and shop section of this forum. I highly recommend it!

Petrus, let us know about your disappearing Discus. I am interested to know where a fish that size can disappear to.


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## Petrus (Aug 15, 2003)

Thanks for the recent comments everyone. I just got around to take a couple pictures of the tank. I haven't had much time to care for it at all...just 50% water change weekly and fert additions and that's basically it...oh..and feed the fish of course.

Here's a front shot of the tank. Basically I removed all the "dwarf" sag on the left behind the stump. It was more of a "giant invasive weed" and was getting out of control and so I replaced it with some Didiplis..my favorite plant. I like it because they branch heavily into a bushy appearance without any trimming at all. Most stem plants I've had require cutting in order to get a bushy look..but not this one. The hairgrass is also getting long- about 4". There are still some Clado among the grass but not too much and is manageable. The Blyxa bush has grown and dominate the midground. You can imagine how my large male discus got stuck between the bush and the wood.










Here's the back of the tank:










Close up of the pearling Blyxa japonica. I get massive pearling everyday.










And the Didiplis "bush". All these tips actually branched out from a single stem!










The shoal of cardinals...










Even my discus is pearling... now that's something you don't see often 










That's all for now.. Happy Holidays everyone and thanks for looking!!!


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## ianmoede (Oct 1, 2004)

Your discus, and tank in general are truly stunning. The discus strike me as the perfect mix of wild and captive bred, with the bright red coloration and blu eon the face, mixed with the wild bars. Kudos!


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## fresh_lynny (Mar 9, 2006)

I have to agree....stunning, Petrus. The tank and the fauna.


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## jt20194 (Oct 16, 2006)

Absolutely beautiful! I love the transition. Gives me hope that when I have time to redo my tank I might get it right this time. Thanks for sharing this.

JT


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## Jeff Richard (Jun 17, 2004)

Architect1 said:


> I don't know if you know but Planted tanks stunt the discus growth so what i would do is get 12 adults. It be nice to see some wilds in there. But its up to you and good luck.


That is not an entirely correct statement ... one cannot usually grow discus as big/as fast in a planted tank as they can in a bare bottom tank; however, slower growing or smaller discus does not equal stunted. The reason is that discus breeders and hobbyists will overfeed in order to get maximum growth in smallest possible time. Often beefheart is used ... this is extremely messy. The only practical way to do this is in a bare bottom tank and utilize massive water changes.

However, if you are patient and aren't interested in maximum growth, one can raise discus in planted tanks.

Here is an interesting observation ... I've pulled mature angelfish and discus from planted community tanks to breed in their own tank ... after several months I've often seen noticible growth on these fish. Fish, like reptiles and anphibians, will continue growing throughout their lives.


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