Discus Tank Setup
Bernie & Cathy Higgins
Hi! everyone,
We are ordering equipment for our new 90 gallon tank to become a Discus
Habitat. The more I peruse all the gear available the more confused I
get.
How about some help with filteration. I assume its a good idea as with
most other tanks to have an undergravel filter and powerheads. Now the
other filtration system. Emperior Penguin, diatom, magnum, what to
use. I've heard about adding Peat to the filter, what to use??? Also,
from reading I am assuming Discus do not like as much aeraton as other
Cichlids due to their natural habitat of warm still waters.
We are trying to put together our order so we can get our new tank
underway.
Any help with equipment would be appreciated.
THX
Catherine
MMutch6923
undergravel is not the best idea for discus, wet-dry (trickle) is the way
to go, discus are very demanding on water quality, with a wet dry you are
able to run your tank with a bare bottom to enable you to keep the tank
much cleaner, or if you can't stand to look at a tank with no substrate,
use a very shallow layer of gravel and clean it often, under gravel
filters trap too much waste under the plates and water quality will suffer
Frank Jones, Pastor
> How about some help with filteration. I assume its a good idea as with
> most other tanks to have an undergravel filter and powerheads. Now the
> other filtration system. Emperior Penguin, diatom, magnum, what to
> use. I've heard about adding Peat to the filter, what to use??? Also,
> from reading I am assuming Discus do not like as much aeraton as other
> Cichlids due to their natural habitat of warm still waters.
I do not have a UG and have not missed it. I would suggest that you skip
this. NO FLAMES on this suggestion please. I run a HOT magnum for mech
filtration with a FLUVAL. The fluval has a sponge, peat, sponge in it. I am
going to add a Fluidized Bed Filter for biological --- but this works just
fine
in my 55 with 4 discus in it. BTW, temp is at 86, ph 6.8.
--
Frank Jones, Pastor
E-Mail: lbch...@clover.net
Anthony B. Percival
Make sure that you cover the tree modes of filtration Mechanical
(particulate waste, food, and debris) Chemical (Carbon, peat, etc), and
most important Biological (undergravel or wet dry to break down amonia,
nitrite). I would not advise the undergravel which gets hard to maintain
in a heavily planted tank with a lot of rock work, it also loses it
effeciency in the long term. Wet dry is the way to go as someone posted
earlier. You are correct about discus comming from warm water that is
still but make sure that it is well oxygenated because warmer water hold
less dissolved oxygen. Power heads breaking or an air pump breaking the
water surface at the top of the tank is enough (I does not have to be too
strong). A wet dry, combined with a good canister filter such as an Ehiem
or a fluval would be best, the problem with the magnum is that it does not
hold enough chemical media like carbon, peat, or resin.
Good luck,
Anthony Percival
jul...@easynet.co.uk
HI,
I have used u/g and it is fine. At the moment I use Eheim external
with a spray bar to agitate the water surface
Eheim see an 'amazon' peat to go into external canisters - I use this.
You might try reverse flow u/g - it stops the gravel getting so
compacted and makes it more difficult for the crud to get trapped in
the substrate. As long as the water is clean
ammonia/nitrate/nitrite/contaminants - it doesn't matter which method
you use
Amazon swords are good plants along with mopani wood to give a bit of
structure
In some recent articles I have read in UK magazines, the author made
the interesting point that the amazon and its tributaries has big
floods so the water has major changes in temperature/PH/clarity at
different times of the year. To think that Discus live in hot still
water is not the whole story
Good luck
Mark
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
On Mon, 03 Feb 1997 10:19:27 -0500, Bernie & Cathy Higgins
<Bhig...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>Hi! everyone,
>
>We are ordering equipment for our new 90 gallon tank to become a Discus
>Habitat. The more I peruse all the gear available the more confused I
>get.
>
>How about some help with filteration. I assume its a good idea as with
>most other tanks to have an undergravel filter and powerheads. Now the
>other filtration system. Emperior Penguin, diatom, magnum, what to
>use. I've heard about adding Peat to the filter, what to use??? Also,
>from reading I am assuming Discus do not like as much aeraton as other
>Cichlids due to their natural habitat of warm still waters.
>
Anthony B. Percival
jul...@easynet.co.uk wrote:
: You might try reverse flow u/g - it stops the gravel getting so
: compacted and makes it more difficult for the crud to get trapped in
: the substrate.
The reason why the gravel does not get compacted is because all of the
crud collects under the plate of the UG, even if you find a method to
prefilter the water before it goes down the uplift tubes particulate
matter will still pass. You can't operate a canister filter reverse flow
on your UG because it causes too much stress on the pump. Also bear in
mind that the most sensitive and important part of your filtration is your
bacteria, would you really feel comfortable agitating the gravel bed that
holds your beloved bacteria to siphon and do a water change? Especially
knowing how sensitive discus are to water chemistry?
Now if this becomes a heated debate lets try not to flame each other as
I'm not putting down UG filters but we all know that wet dry is the ore
effective of the two, mainly because of the availability of oxygen and
surface area to grow nitrosomonas, and nitrobacteria.
Anthony
John
abpe...@newstand.syr.edu (Anthony B. Percival) wrote:
>You can't operate a canister filter reverse flow
>on your UG because it causes too much stress on the pump.
Hi, How do you figure that? Yes you can use a canister to do reverse
flow. I know people that have done it without problems. It doesn't cause
any stress on the pump. Do you know how it works? The canister ( intake )
takes in the water, filters it, and then the out going water is forced up
through the gravel. It's not complicated.
Bye,
John
HSIAOTSU
Wet/dry filter is probably the best way to go. For those of us on a
budget, biowheels do an excellent job of biological filtration. However,
they only do a mediocre job of mechanical filtration.
Discus tend not to like strong water turbulence -- but this should NOT be
interpreted to suggest they like still water. Many hobbyists have
reported that discus thrive with an airstone. I use long air curtains and
the discus revel inthe bubbles.
Anthony B. Percival
I need to correct myself when I said before taht reverse flow puts with a
cannister filter puts too much stress on the pump, what I meant to say was
a cannister/UG in standard mode with the intake sucking from the uplift
tubes. I responded to the last post while I was very sleepy, sorry :(
Anthony