# 150 gal discus tank



## coralife205

ok. heres where i am!!!!!! almost there!!!!!!










































































just need to push it back a lil, fill up with water, and add some equitment and im ready to go. bulbs are 6700K


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## CL

Nice! Personally I'd move the horizontal pieces of wood that are sitting on the tops of the vertical pieces so that they are sticking in the substrate as well.


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## Riiz

Not a bad start, but are you keeping the tank that far from the wall?


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## CL

Riiz said:


> Not a bad start, but are you keeping the tank that far from the wall?


He said he was going to move it back


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## legomaniac89

Nice! Like CL said, the horizontal pieces of wood are kinda throwing me off a bit. But other than that, it looks like a really good start.

I didn't look real closely, but you definitely want to make sure that any sharp points on the wood are rounded off completely. You don't want your discus hurting themselves on the sharp points.


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## intermediate_noob

Maybe I just cannot see it clearly, but what size pump will you be using in your sump? The reason I ask is your overflow looks to be 1-1.25" which will flow a lot of water and without a strong pump, your sump may overflow. Just wondering.

Your tank is amazing though, I love the way you setup the vents in your hood to keep the lights cooler as well. Great job!


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## brycerb

intermediate_noob said:


> Maybe I just cannot see it clearly, but what size pump will you be using in your sump? The reason I ask is your overflow looks to be 1-1.25" which will flow a lot of water and without a strong pump, your sump may overflow. Just wondering.
> 
> Your tank is amazing though, I love the way you setup the vents in your hood to keep the lights cooler as well. Great job!


It dosen't matter how big the drain pipe is, it will only drain as much as the pump can push to the tank. You could have a 10" hole in the right place and never overflow your sump.


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## coralife205

I have an ehime 600 gal per hour. i got the tank set up, but ill need to post more pics. ill post more tonight.


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## coralife205

ive taken all of these in the last week


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## coralife205

same with these...


























































im about to go take more pics~! it looks so much differnt! my next post will be of the new pics as of today, 8-7-09


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## Digsy

Nice progress, I've followed this tank a little on Simply Discus and APC. What fish are you adding until you get the Discus?


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## coralife205

sweet. ill be adding otos, cardinals,maybe some sort of pleco, but it will only be 1 pleco, if even that. and ill be adding corrys.......

5 corys
5 otos
20-35 cardinals
maybe A SAE, if i do not get the pleco. if i get a pleco , i want it to be a nice kind.


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## coralife205

Tank still has quite a bit of maturing to do. The plants health needs to improve. I believe im starting to see some diatoms on some plant leaves…all perfectly normal. Im really going to try to wait before I add any fish to let things stabilize. Im very eager to add fish, but my better judgment says I need to wait…well, enjoy the pictures. I took them about an hour ago. Warning, a lot of pictures. This will be the last time, I promise, that I will ever post this many at once…sorry.


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## coralife205




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## coralife205




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## coralife205




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## coralife205




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## coralife205




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## coralife205




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## coralife205




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## bsmith

Tank looks great. I would only say the same about the horizontal pieces of DW, they just look out of place. Also I believe all of the plants other then the anubis and java fer need to be in the water as they rely heavily on root feeding. Also, I hope you have dry ferts because that flourish nitrogen and other MAcro ferts will not only become super expensive in the long run but also quite tedious. 

Keep up the good work.


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## CL

Great job! Gotta love that shimmer! I bet it looks awesome on a fw tank. Take a moonlight pic!


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## SearunSimpson

Not going to lie, i'm throwing you mad props on not adding fish! A tank of that size will take some time to cycle through and I can see that you know that. All to often I see people giving guppies and danios ammonia baths and I cringe.
That tank is going to look stellar once it fills in! would deffinitely get a pleco or Ancistrus for sure on that. If you want a nice one that is peacful and small, you could get two or so of some Bristle Nose Pleco's. They stay small and won't disturb everything like some of the bigger, more clumsy plecos can (and they won't be aggressive like some are). 

Ottos for the leaves, Plecos for the glass and wood, and some corries for the bottom. In a tank that big though, you could easily get away with a large, and VERY AWESOME shoal of corries. In a tank of that size, a group of only 5 corries will look alright, but at times may look out of sorts, especially when they start to wander by themselves, which they do now and again. If you got lets say 10 or so, that would really add to the whole tank.


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## coralife205

Long story short, i gave in and bought panda corrys from fantastic fins almost a week ago. one is dead. they apear stressed and look like they are suffering from malnutrition. i have 5 left. they all look the same. i put some stress guard in , and did a water change. i have 0 amonia, and very little nitrites, and some few nitrates...so my tank is cycleing...but the big qustion is......why wont they eat? i put some shrimp pellets in the tank...they dont eat it;snails do though. i put some algea wafers in, they ignore it...i put some fish flakes in...they ignore it....wtf....i dont know what to do.


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## coralife205




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## bsmith

Man that looks good. But I do not envy you when it will come to trimming time.


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## coralife205

yea, once things stabalize and in a month or two , ill get rid of the stem plants..


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## coralife205

Time for an update…

24 cardinals 
4 rams
5 amano shrimp
5 corrys
3 BN plecos; 1 Long Fin, 1 Albino, 1 Regular
1 clam
26348246875624 snails; trumpet, rams horn, and the common little black ones that I don’t know the name of.


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## speedie408

Looks awesome so far man. It's going to look even nicer once your tank matures. Keep it up. Looking forward to seeing her grow.


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## coralife205

I think this guy was posing for me  , does anybody know if my glosso is growing correctly? Jw…


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## coralife205

i went to fantastic fins today to buy a fish net, i got some sissors and cut the net off from the handle part, got some plant weights, and "tied" them to the net around the over flow as you see , to hold it down. i did this because i got sick of finding shrimp in the sump....so far its working pretty good...

the clam has not moved in a few days, i was curious as to how it was doing...well i dig him up,he burried him self, and this is what he looks like. im suprised he wont close his shell or move at all...i dont know crap about clams, so my qusiton is, is he even alive??? thats what he looks like, wont even close his shell or move what so ever...jw


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## jkcole

hate to say it but if his shell isnt closed he is no longer with us. i have clams in all my tanks and when they look like that they are no more.


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## coralife205




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## coralife205

http://s387.photobucket.com/albums/oo313/coralife205/

so here is my weekly update... I notice that some of my algae is starting to go away, but then its forming on other places. Every 5 days I’m using hydrogen peroxide on it. It seems to be working, in combination with the amino shrimp and olive nerite snails. Today I added 7 otos. Over the week, I added a few more swoards (hard to see in the pics) and ive added a few more fast growing stem plants , to help combat the algae. In the next month I plan on removeing some of the stem plants (depending on how the tank is doing) and replaceing with swoards and / or crypts. The Rotala Macrandra seems to be doing pretty well (thtas a relative term). Its doing better then last week. It is starting to turn red a little bit near the top, and starting to grow new leaves near the bottom of the stems. I chopped the pennywort in half today because it was all the way up at the surface, and it will grow back pretty fast anyway. The only things that have died since I first put fish in the tank are 1 panda corry, 1 clam, and one Ram. That’s pretty damn good considering how young the tank still is…if all goes well through the month of September, I will add the discus in the first week , or sometime mid October. , if I lose any more fish, or something happens, who knows, then I will wait until November. But I doubt anything is else is going to go wrong (knock on wood.)


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## Digsy

Looking good! What discus are you planning to buy?


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## coralife205

5inch, blue, red, brilliant turquoise....blue diamnond,leopard skin, red scribbelt


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## RipariumGuy

Very good looking aquarium. You have one BIG peice O-drift wood! By the way I like your Discus coloration.


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## Tex Gal

Your tank looks so BIG. I think it's because of your drift wood. With all that wood in there it just screams plecos! They would love it in there. You could get some small varieties. They would love all the nooks and crannys!


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## coralife205

Tex Gal said:


> Your tank looks so BIG. I think it's because of your drift wood. With all that wood in there it just screams plecos! They would love it in there. You could get some small varieties. They would love all the nooks and crannys!


 
i have 4 plecos... 2 long fin, and 2 regular... 2 of them are albino;a long fin and a regular, and 2 of them are regular; regular long fin, and regular

7 otos

3 rams

30 cardinals

5 panda corrys

no more fish!!!!


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## Tex Gal

Oh... you could easily fit a 50 so more in there.... right?... after all it's a big tank!  You could dose learner ferts!


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## coralife205

well when i say no more fish, i mean, no more fish untill i get the discus! im planing on early-mid october.





Tex Gal said:


> Oh... you could easily fit a 50 so more in there.... right?... after all it's a big tank!  You could dose learner ferts!


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## coralife205




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## coralife205




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## Hobbes1911

Man Dale and Chris have so many awesome plecos, L201 would look really good. You could easily just add them and they will breed. These things go for like 30$ a piece to sell them!!

HOwever, the tank is looking pretty sweet.


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## coralife205

when i get my discus, how should i feed them? what foods, whats a good feeding schedule, that kind of thing?


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## bsmith

I feed mine tetra color bits once a day. Then either frozen blood worms, brine shrimp or some kind of beef heart every other day or so.


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## coralife205

is that live brine shrimp or frozen?


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## bsmith

Frozen. I dont really think live are necessary even if you are trying to breed them. Im not BTW.


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## tkfishgeek

With my discus, I feed them 2 times a day with Ocean Nutrition Brime Shrimp & Hikari Blood worms. The best thing to do is find out what the breeder is feeding them. Feed them that for a month. That more or less all the week eat due to that what the have been eating from day 1. That just about all they will eat. When starting my discus they did not eat for 2 days due to stress of the move. Had to start them on only Hikari bloodworms for a few weeks till they starting eating what the other fish where eating. (Shrimp, flake, FZN Discus food.)


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## coralife205

Okay, I cheated. I have 8 Discus. I’ve had them less then a week. Wednesday I got one. The next day I got another. And then the day after that I got 6. I’m doing two water changes a week, and feeding them a verity of foods. Frozen bloodworms, flakes, beef heart (right before a water change) live brine shrimp, algae wafers (they like the stuff I feed my plecos..sinking pellets, and two other kinds of foods that are from fantastic fins. One is called decap brine, and the other is called APR. They recommended both of them. Every couple days I’m going to be using seachem nourish, and vitality. 





























































































http://s387.photobucket.com/albums/oo313/coralife205/?albumview=slideshow


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## coralife205




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## fishbreath

Very nice. How much water do you change a week?


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## speedie408

Awesome looking Rams.


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## coralife205

I W I S H i could do 50%, but my storage container is only 60 Gallons. so i do an entire trash can worth on Sunday, then i do another trash can worth on Friday and on wed, i clean the sump. ( i have RO/DI water). but belive me, i would love to do 50%.


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## tkfishgeek

Looks Great. Most have to really good rams or you are adding something to keep up the KH & GH up to make everyone happy with RO water.


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## j-gens

can i ask why you are using ro water? is the water in your area particularly bad?


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## BayBoy1205

Just wondering what you add to your RO/DI water when you do a water change?


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## coralife205

Ill take more and better pictures tonight when the tank clears up. But I just wanted to show everyone that im starting to get FLOWERS! Last night I saw it , but it was only half way up to the surface, and I looked in the tank now, and now its opening up! And I have another one. Im not sure what plants there coming from however. And incase your wondering, I took out the piece of wood on the left because I wanted to provide more swimming room for the discus, im not sure I like it as much, but I got to do whats good for the fish… anways, now that they have flowerd, what ever plants they are, how the heck do I like…well, make the plants reproduce…like pollinate, like how is this done…I don’t know… *feels stupid* also, the cardinal plant is starting to grow out of the water!


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## coralife205

Okay, right now my tank looks very cloudy, and it’s because I rescaped it. I can live with the way it looks because hopefully over time the java fern will fill in and the Lotus will draw your attention more than the wood… we’ll see what happens… the glosso is starting to grow properly, which im happy about. Im sad I got rid of the Rotala but, it was necisary….oh, and notice the flower!!! sooo what do you think????


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## coralife205

werid organism in my tank. i would take a picture of it, i tried tried again, it just wont come out. so i drew a picture of it on paint. ive counted about 100 of thease little guys on the glass, plants, wood, substrate, filter, etc...they seem to have a little "mouth" that helps them stay on to surfaces, kind of like a suction cup. and they seem to move around and crawl up the glass...sometimes. since my mom is a micobiolgist, ive tryed to get some of them to put in a vial and let her take it to work to look at it under a micoscope, BUT, they seem to close up there legs and there whole body seems to turn into this shape --> * belive it or not that is actual size too. the whole organism is literly about the size of ! <--that ........why am i inspecting my tank this closely anway what is it? they harmless? are they a parasite?


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## bsmith

Hydra, not a big deal unless you have baby animals in there.


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## coralife205

thank you!!!!


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## coralife205

my 90 gallon per day RO unit has turned in to a 60 gallon per every 5 days...... i changed out the sediment and carbon filters.... it dident help. in fact, overnight i the sediment filter was very yellow and looked cloged, again. looks the same as the old one did. the only thing i didn not change was the membrane or the DI....im not sure whats wrong. my pressure is just a little bit under 80 psi.... but it takes 5 days to fill up a 60 gallon trash can... this is not good for my water changes.... i want to do 2 water changes a week!!! like i was before...


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## j-gens

j-gens said:


> can i ask why you are using ro water? is the water in your area particularly bad?


again...


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## coralife205

Im useing RO water because Its a planted tank and I want to have total control of what goes in to my tank... when you use tap water, you dont know whats in the water. You dont know the minerals, phosphate levels, silica, copper, nitrates, etc...I use RO water for that and also for the discus...


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## coralife205

I was getting ready to do a water change and then, I looked at the tank. I was like, I should probably take pictures BEFORE a water change because the water will be cloudy for a little while afterword. So anyways, here are some really neat pictures!!! I know I took a lot, but that’s what happens when you’re finally proud of your tank! I moved the Sunset Hygro to the left-center. I know it looks kind of wild right now, but over time hopefully it will look neater as it re-establishes. In place I put another sword plant back behind the wood. I’m starting to get new flowers. I’ve been asked by quite a few people to add some moss to the wood, sooo I did. I’m not sure how long it will last but hopefully it will grow properly. I’ve never had much luck with moss in the past….


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## bsmith

Did you get that BBA under control?


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## coralife205

yes, most of its gone, after i bought 7 SAE (not planning on keeping them for very long, promise lol). and i used Hydrogen peroxide. i just got to find a way to get rid of the Hydra, i read something about useing a little bit of salt??


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## coralife205

Its safe to assume that this is NOT normal...what should I do? Is this related to the Hydra?


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## bsmith

Nope, thats from internal parasites. I believe (though I have never had to deal with it myself) metrosomthingorother will kill it but someone else will post the correct name of the med in sure. Dont fret the fish can USUALLY live like that for a while.


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## blackandyellow

I love this pic with the hatchets reflected! its a contest winner! I would get more of these to school together on the top!

Lovely tank, congratulations. If a humble opinion counts, I would trade the golden discus for another blue and keep all similar, it gives the whole tank a more natural look.

I really like your tank...


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## coralife205

thank you!. im going to go to the store tomrrow and buy some meds... is there anyting that i should know that is NOT safe for discus???


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## j-gens

metro is a pretty harsh treatment

i heard something about levamisole being good or praziquantel it really depends on what kind of worms are present


general cure is a conbination of metronidizole and praziquantel

you should try and figure out what it actually is before treating


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## Vladdy

I really like this tank.


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## coralife205

So your probably wondering what happened. The truth is, I do not entirely know what happened either, but from talking to a couple of people they all seem to agree on the same thing. 

I was doing a routine water change a week ago. Once I was almost done filling the tank up, all my fish started dieing. I lost 20 cardinals, all my corys , plecos, otos, SAE. To my surprise the only survivers were ALL the discus , 9 cardinals, and 2 rams. Everyone ive talked to agrees there was a problem with the Ph of my RO water.. The Ph of the RO water was 8.4. All of my fish started dieing one after another , all in about 15 miniuts. They started dieing in less than 5 miniuts of new water. A few days later once things seemd to have ‘stabilized’, I lost about 90% of ALL MY PLANTS. So. Since there was so much debrea everywhere, I decided to basicly tare down the tank, vacume up most of the debrea. I changed about 80% of the water. I took out all the wood…I was thinking about putting it back in, but now that im looking at the tank and fish, im thinking ill leave it out. Make things worse, im all out of fertilizer for the plants. 

I just got doing a water change over an hour ago, that’s why the tank is cloudy. However, everything seems to be doing okay. So here are the pictures….hopefuly ill get the thing back up and running in about a month. Im sad.


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## yikesjason

That would be horrible! I am glad your discus made it though.


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## kangshiang

always want a hugh tank......
Great work here.....


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## johnm

for what its worth i think the tank actually looks bettor. Another side note, always make sure your new water matches whats in the tank. hth


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## coralife205

So I know I haven’t updated in a while. Its because I wanted my tank to stabilize and get back on track. I promise that the water is not as cloudy as it looks in the picture. It always looks cloudy when I take pictures, but the water is actually really more clear. Yes I took out the wood. The only problems I seem to really be having right now is that little bit of algae and the one discus….it looks so skinny. It eats normally like all the other ones, but it just looks so much different than the rest. Its been like this for 3 weeks now. Im not going to put it in the quartine tank because in order to catch it, I would have to tare down my tank again. I’ve tried and tried and tried. It sounds easier than it is to catch fish in that size tank. that’s why , at least one reason, why fish stores have like 10 gallon tanks for all there fish….for a damn good reason lol. Anyways, enjoy what it is so far. Its not a master piece, but its getting there. Has a long way to go…probably by the end of January it will be good.


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## adrianng1996

wow,nice tank,i also have discus and cardinals and rams and SAE in my 140g
lol.....but i think the water is a little too warm for the cardinals..
but its good to have discus and cardinals together becoz discus keep the cardinals in tighter groups and tha cardinals help let the discus become less shy


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## nismo tetra

Awesome tank, sorry to hear your run of bad luck. I have to say that the rescape looks better. That horizontal driftwood just looked a little meh and very unnatural compared to the rest of your scape. The stumpy pieces alone would have been sweet.

I think that discus might have some type of intestinal worm. Some of my black bar myleus have that same symptom. They eat plenty and fine, but the worms eat the food in them. It will eventually die if not treated. I'm sure there is a medicated fish flake for it. I just feed mine to the redtail cat. Seems to work lol.


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## PDX-PLT

Wow, that's one very skinny young discus. Actually, a few of them look stressed - on the dark side, fins clamped. How much and how often to do feed them? Discus that little have voracious appetites. They should be getting 5-6 feedings a day.


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## coralife205

yea theres obvously something wrong with that skiney discus. anybody would know by looking at it. even my parents did and they know nothing about fish...i know somethings wrong, justnot sure how to help it, or (sad to say this) if i should just let it be and die peacfuly...unless if its contagious to other fish in the tank... i feed my fish 4 times a day. every fewdays live black worms, everyday flakes, discus pellets, frosen bloodworms, live brine shrimp...belive it or not they act differntly when im around. and there fins are not always clamed. th always come out and there fins are always open like normal, and there colors really really come out. but.... when i walk up to the tank, they all turn dark like that, clamp there fins, and hide like that...kind of mkaes me wonder if there scared of me..... i got all thoughs fish in there, that school, to help them feel less stress(don tworry i do plenty of water changes, twice-three times a week to keep the tank clean), but it doesent seem to be working....when im maybe 20 feet away from the tank, there all out...feeding time...there hideing, then come out when i walk away and get the food...hmmmm any ideas in order to make them more people-friendly?


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## mistergreen

you're going staghorn algae there too. Lower your lights and check for ammonia (triggers staghorn).


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## PDX-PLT

yea sounds like they're on the shy side. I don't know why some groups end up like that, and some don't. My group of discus think I'm the Food God - if they see me enter the room from the hallway, a good 12-14 feet away, the all come rushing to the side of the tank closest to me.

I'm no expert and I don't know what you can do with the skinny one. Do you see it eat? If was in a hospital tank then you'd know exactly how much it ate and how much is pooped (and what they look like) and it could be medicated individually.


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## coralife205

it eats as if i havent gave it food in a week!!! its the first fish to get the food. and once it gets to an area of food on the bottom it defends its food and trys to prevvent the other discus from eating its food. it acts like its starving all the time. it just keeps eating and eating and eating...i saw it poop two days ago. it was white and thick. than another time it was sort of white, but mostly clear. its so hard to catch though. ive tryed sooooo many times to catch the fish and ive thought about takeing it in to the store i bougght it from and ask them what to do. (they breed discus there, they know what there doing). i would be willing to give it away to someone if i knew they would save its life...


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## Green Leaf Aquariums

I hope your Discus gets well soon. A wide variety of food everyday will help beef him up some. Good luck

-O


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## NJAquaBarren

Tanks looks great. I'd expect project this big to hav a stumble or two. Really nice. Was wondering about heat. With all of those light fixtures are you having issues dissapating heat? Are they making discus temperatures easy to acheive and a plus, or is it a challenge to not overheat?

I like canaopies, but always worry about heat with high light.

Again, great job.


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## coralife205

ive had a few problems as stated above... tempature is harder to achive than you would think. i have three heaters in the tank, all in differnt areas. the metal halides put out some heat, but it onlyheats the surface water. the temp in the canopy is usualy 96*. tank heat is normaly 82. temp goes down at night when lights are off.


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## jmhart

Great start!


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## lauraleellbp

coralife205 said:


> it eats as if i havent gave it food in a week!!! its the first fish to get the food. and once it gets to an area of food on the bottom it defends its food and trys to prevvent the other discus from eating its food. it acts like its starving all the time. it just keeps eating and eating and eating...i saw it poop two days ago. it was white and thick. than another time it was sort of white, but mostly clear. its so hard to catch though. ive tryed sooooo many times to catch the fish and ive thought about takeing it in to the store i bougght it from and ask them what to do. (they breed discus there, they know what there doing). i would be willing to give it away to someone if i knew they would save its life...


That sounds to me like internal parasites. Discus are very prone to them. I'd try to get all the discus to eat some raw crushed garlic. You might try mixing it in their food. I'd feed it for a week.


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## nismo tetra

I am trying this internal parasites food to see if it has any affect on my black bar's.
http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=12788

Maybe you could try some for your discus. Its pretty cheap. And they only have 5.99 shipping this month. There is a $5 off coupon code also its 1130/8477. So its 99 cent shipping. Keep in mind its in 1 oz containers. I got 3 of them.


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## Ograx

I noticed the tank is close to a TV and what looks like a subwoofer, do the fish seem to mind it when your using the TV or playing music?


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## anastasisariel

I really liked your initial setup with the driftwood. Even the horizontal pieces. But hey, I'm a weirdo and just get sick of seeing planted tanks with a flat level-looking hard scape. I like grates because they help give the aquarium depth, and allow you to emphasize areas in the tank without relying solely on plant placement. :angel: The only problem I would see in those pieces would be that they would block light, but that could be fixed with low light plants, and you are one of the few who have a big enough tank to work with swords.


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## coralife205

the fish dont seem to mind the noise. yea, i miss the wood a little bit, but it blocked too much light.


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## Green Leaf Aquariums

How are the fish doing?


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## Frogmanx82

The best fish for controlling algae is the Florida Flagfish. No fish eats as much hair algae as this fish. I'm surprised they are not standard on planted tanks.


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## jmhart

Frogmanx82 said:


> The best fish for controlling algae is the Florida Flagfish. No fish eats as much hair algae as this fish. I'm surprised they are not standard on planted tanks.



The problem is that they can be territorial, to the point that they aren't well suited for a community tank.


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## Frogmanx82

I had them in with fancy guppies. They would go after the babies but seldom messed with anything else. Usually they are happy munching on algae all day. I guess it depends on the community and size of the tank.


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## coralife205




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## coralife205

anybody know about corn snakes on here that i can ask qustions about in a PM


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## HEINEKEN357

Very nice looking tank bro glad you put back the wood makes the tank now. I had a corn snake a few years back whats up with him?


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## coralife205

ill send you a PM cause its off topic on the forum


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## wgama

Epic tank! Awesome job!


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## lilhelper

Very Nice Job!


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## LadyofWisdom

Those hi fin serpaes are going to look lovely as their fins fill out!! Great looking tank!!


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## coralife205

“Where did all the fish go?” is probably what your asking. I’m sorry to report, they are all dead. Breaks my heart. Everyday for an entire week I would be pulling out around 5 fish at a time. I feel horrible. I don’t know what killed them, but I have ruled out poor water quality. I can only speculate that since my temperature was fluctuating about 5* at night, that maybe they got ich… I’m not entirely sure. But yea, anyway, as you can see I’ve given the tank a good cleaning.. I took out all the plants and cleaned up the gravel so much that I took out all the debris. Did 2 water changes in one night, and I spent from 9pm - 6am working on the tank, strait, with out taking more than an hour break, just working on this tank. I added the spray bar and replaced the output house, it was clogged. The spray bar seems to make the water circulate more efficiently , and provides a more gentle movement in the tank. Have 2 nano power heads. And 3 heaters.. I added some new plants. Anyways, I don’t think ill be adding fish soon. I’m too scared. I’m scared of spending money on fish that are only going to die. I want to wait a few weeks until I can be sure that what ever parasite, protozoan, what ever it was, is dead and wont hurt the next fish I put in there. I’m going to make sure my water temp is more stable… I’m not sure if I’m going to add discus again. IF I do, ill add 2-4 discus, and they will be fully grown adults. I don’t want to mess with parasites or disease or sickness or PH or anything of that sort again. But I’m not sure…I’m tired of having accidents and problems, I just want to have a healthy and enjoyable tank to look at. I was thinking about restocking the tank to look like this… 

20 cardinals
6 plecos 
10 black neons
12 rams

If I get the discus ill knock off 2 plecos and 6 rams.


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## Green Leaf Aquariums

Sorry to hear about your fish


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## coralife205

im so depressed


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## Frogmanx82

Boy, that's a tough one. I doubt ick was the culprit. You say water quality wasn't an issue. Did you do any water changes? Its possible the city added extra chloramines. Unless you added something to the tank that had a fast acting disease or you added water that had a chemical issue, its hard to see how this could have happened to every fish all at once.

I see you are in Livonia. I grew up at Levan and Schoolcraft and went to Bentley High School which is now a rec center. 

Good luck with the restocking. Even without fish, its a beautiful tank.


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## coralife205

i use RODI water. 50 water change per week. yes i add acid alkaline buffers and equalibrium. i acutaly live a few streets away...levan and 5 mile lol. im literly a 2 miniute walk from the hospital


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## bigfruits

beautiful tank, sorry about the fish.
what wattage are your halides?

cheers
-z


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## steve_dowg2001

this sucks you should fill the tank with rainbow fish =)


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## coralife205

each halide is 150 watts. im planing on restocking the tank to look like this..

4 plecos
20 cardinals
10 black neons
12 rams
4 groumis
12 cherry barbs ( 6 male, 6 female) 

im not sure on the rams completely, i havent had the best luck with them in the past. if i dont go with the rams, ill get more groumis


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## LeTigra

Your tank is beautiful as it is now. Such a bummer that you lost all your fish again though. Good luck when you start restocking : )


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## ycbs

Why was your tank fluctuating 5 degrees at night? Not enough heating in the tank? Discus like warmer temps and, like most fish, also like stable temps. Constant temp changing puts a lot of stress on them and makes their immune systems weak, which opens the door for all kinds of health issues.


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## mitchar19

I went through the same problems as you when I got my first set of discus. From what I can tell yours looked exactly like mine. I'm pretty sure the culprit was hexamita, which caused the slimy white feces and the fish to slowly become dark,skinny and lose their apetite. I even tried medicating my fish several times but to no avail. It was very depressing to watch them slowly decline.

Here is where I went wrong:
I bought my discus from different sources and mixed them without proper quarantine and they were juvenilles.

Here is where I think you went wrong:
It looks like the discus you bought were either very young (which would mean they should be raised in a bare bottom tank, so that you can keep the water super clean until adulthood) or they were stunted to begin with. (which would mean that they were not the best stock to start with)

Not to worry though, I went through my hard learning experience, bit the bullet and ended up buying 7 beautiful adult fish from a supplier on the simplydiscus forum. I have had these fish for over a year and a half with no health problems what so ever. So my suggestion to you if you want discus in a planted tank, is to go ahead and just buy some adults from a quality breeder( one source). You will greatly reduce the risk of them becoming sick and losing money. Also, join the simplydiscus forum, there are a lot of experienced discus owners and breeders on that site.


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## coralife205

i am a member of the discus forum... http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showthread.php?t=72179


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## lauraleellbp

Is this a 4' or 6' tank? Either way, I probably wouldn't do more than 3-4 pairs of Rams, at most. They need their space when spawning. www.Oddballfish.com has a good reputation with their Ram stock, they're bred near Tampa rather than imports.


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## coralife205

6 foot tank


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