# Discus, the king of the aquarium!



## Harry H (13 Mar 2020)

Hi All,

Thought of starting an active thread for the people who are currently keeping Discus or kept before and have valuable experiences to share. So, lets get going.

Hands up please! 

H.


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## REDSTEVEO (29 Jun 2020)

This is the link for the British & International Discus Keepers Association B.I.D.K.A on Facebook.

You are welcome.
https://m.facebook.com/groups/282706469124539?ref=bookmarks&_rdr


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## castle (29 Jun 2020)

Adorable jewels of a fish, but they poop too much for me


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## Harry H (29 Jun 2020)

Tell me about it! 

They cost a fortune to buy, and eat about £40 worth of beefheart a month!

But I absolutely love them!

Got 6 more little guys from DevotelyDiscus yesterday actually.


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## Melll (9 Aug 2020)

I bought 6 x 2 inch Discus from Lincs Aquatics 2 years ago.  They are now somewhat larger and gorgeous


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## Harry H (9 Aug 2020)

View from my couch right now...


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## Jayefc1 (9 Aug 2020)

That is beautiful mate


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## rebel (10 Aug 2020)

Harry H said:


> View from my couch right now...


Clever setup!


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## Harry H (8 Sep 2020)

I had to take out the plants, too much organic waste due to rotting of plants. Very hard to keep them at 30C. Looking for a much bigger size wood as well, something with character.


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## dw1305 (8 Sep 2020)

Hi all, 





Harry H said:


> I had to take out the plants, too much organic waste due to rotting of plants.


You could try Nile Cabbage (_Pistia stratiotes_), it is <"widely distributed in the Amazon"> and not bothered by high temperature. The updated link for TomC's travelogue page is <"Collecting in Pebas 2008....">

They are <"very effective at nutrient removal">. (If the link stops working the paper is: Victor _et al._  (2016) "Phytoremediation of wastewater toxicity using water hyacinth (_Eichhornia crassipes_) and water lettuce (_Pistia stratiotes_)" International Journal of Phytoremediation *18*)

The worry I would have is that if you don't have any plants you are reliant on the filter for nitrification and that becomes a single point of failure.





Harry H said:


> They cost a fortune to buy


It would honestly stop me sleeping, I'd be up every 1/2 hour to make sure the filter was still working. 

You can re-arrange this into a sentence, but if anything went wrong "wife", "remove", "wear", "t*sticles as earrings" comes to mind.

cheers Darrel


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## Driftless (8 Sep 2020)

I have discus one tank is a 75g that is heavily planted with CO2 that is home to 7 discus, it is in my office I will post a picture later.


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## Harry H (8 Sep 2020)

dw1305 said:


> Hi all, You could try Nile Cabbage (_Pistia stratiotes_), it is <"widely distributed in the Amazon"> and not bothered by high temperature. The updated link for TomC's travelogue page is <"Collecting in Pebas 2008....">
> 
> They are <"very effective at nutrient removal">. (If the link stops working the paper is: Victor _et al._  (2016) "Phytoremediation of wastewater toxicity using water hyacinth (_Eichhornia crassipes_) and water lettuce (_Pistia stratiotes_)" International Journal of Phytoremediation *18*)
> 
> ...



Thank you, very useful information as always about the plants!
I will look into those, and see if I can grow them. Plats I had were all epis and were on wood, I have just sand, only anubias survived, but ended up covered in brown due to beef heart. I put the anubias in the nano shrimp tank, you cannot believe they are the same plants, in three days, they are now spotless.

I hear you about the cost, it made me chuckle, my wife was the same at the beginning, but now she loves them, and that gives me a bit more room to maneuver really.


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## Harry H (8 Sep 2020)

Driftless said:


> I have discus one tank is a 75g that is heavily planted with CO2 that is home to 7 discus, it is in my office I will post a picture later.


Looking forward to seeing the photos.
I have other high tech tanks, but without a pH controlled co2 system, not sure I would be brave enough. I once gassed a school of fish in my EA 600, I would be devastated if same happens to my discus.


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## Driftless (8 Sep 2020)

Harry H said:


> Looking forward to seeing the photos.
> I have other high tech tanks, but without a pH controlled co2 system, not sure I would be brave enough. I once gassed a school of fish in my EA 600, I would be devastated if same happens to my discus.



One of the discus is hiding.  We almost gassed a tank, luckily I came back to the office, that is when I switched to Art Co2 dual stage regulators.

Dual filters for capacity and redundancy not flow and redundant heaters, CO2 and photo sessions are 9 hours each with CO2 coming on and off an hour earlier.  Daily dosing of fert.


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## sparkyweasel (8 Sep 2020)

Harry H said:


> I put the anubias in the nano shrimp tank, you cannot believe they are the same plants, in three days, they are now spotless.


If you get some more wood and Anubias, you could swap them over regularly so you always have nice plants in he Discus tank and spares being cleaned.


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## RudeDogg1 (22 Sep 2020)

Harry H said:


> Tell me about it!
> 
> They cost a fortune to buy, and eat about £40 worth of beefheart a month!
> 
> ...



I got all my old discus from Mark. Will see if I can dig out some pics


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## RudeDogg1 (22 Sep 2020)




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## RudeDogg1 (22 Sep 2020)

Just realised the first pic is before a rescape


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## NorthernDan (23 Sep 2020)

RudeDogg1 said:


> Just realised the first pic is before a rescape


Love that tank mate!

I'm hoping next year to do my dream aquarium having just acquired the space to do so.
Will be a minimum of 6x2x2 but I'd like to go bigger (access is down a narrow flight of stairs ) full of discus. Luckily I have one of the top UK guys right on my doorstep and in the past have bred and kept a 400l discus tank that was pretty heavily planted. Advice I'd give is if you are going planted, save and buy the biggest discus you can afford. Trying to grow on small discus in a planted aquarium is quite the pain. Last time I did discus I was doing everything on a cheap budget, no co2 for plants, couple of cheap t5 light fixtures, growing on diddy £10 discus. I managed some success, eventually breeding a couple pairs myself but it was quite stressful making sure they all got enough to eat etc in a planted tank.


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## NorthernDan (23 Sep 2020)

Managed to dig up a few old photos. They weren't the best scapes ever but the plants did grow half decent considering.










I then got a bit sick of the messy look and escaped to something a bit cleaner for a while.







These pics are all a good 7 years old so excuse the poor quality. My phone camera would have been naff ha.


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