150l Discus tank

So I decided to startup a Discus tank, hopefully in the future getting into breeding as well.

I decided on a tank size of 120(l)x45(h)x28(d). According to my calculations, 6mm glass should hold up fine, with a safety factor of about 2.8 incase of bumps, scratches etc.

Unfortunately when I received the glass the "polishing" of the edges was a bit overdone(they were more rounded than square) but it shouldn't be too big of an issue.

Here are some pics of the progress:


As it was packaged


After cleaning ot the gluing areas


Just over halfway done


Does anybody know how long this silicone takes to dry before you can add water. I couldn't find anything yet.

 

The completed job:



My 120l tank - just added tome more bogwood



My 60l tank:




Sorry bout the crappy pics - my camera batteries went flat

 

That's 150litres... right? Is this enough water for a school of discus??

Another question... what made you go so narrow?? 28cm is a VERY narrow tank.

Most people say 24 hours... I always say 48 hours before flooding the tank. (esp considering the weather we are having up in GP at the moment.)

 

Not really a school, just 2 or 3, and once they start pairing off, I'll place them in breeding tanks in the garage.

Sizewize I have a nice cupboard that is not very wide. The idea is to place it in the entrance hall of my house. A nice picture when I get home every day.

 

I agree with Zoom, that tank is really not a good size for Discus.

Each adult Discus should be given around 60L of water EACH Minimum. So effectively, that tank is only good for two adult Discus.

The tank is also far to narrow to allow them to happily swim. THe depth is also not ideal, and Discus should be in a tank of around 60cm deep or more.

To be honest, for a good school of discus, I would be looking at a 1.5m x 60cm x 60cm. 1.2m at smallest, or an 80cm cube.

Rather use this tank for some smaller fishes.

Regards
G!

 

Hi Captain,

Firstly, that tank is too small to house Discus. There is no way around it no matter how one look at it.
2-3 Discus in a tank will not work unless they are adults. With adults you have a small chance of 2 or 3 being ok in a tank. Juveniles or even smaller? Forget it! They will sit in a dark corner untill they eventually fall ill and die.

As far as breeding discus is concerned in your earlier post- if you are under the impression that breeding these fish is as easy as putting two or three in a tank and wait untill a pair is formed, forget that as well. I really applaud your enthusiasm with this, but do your homework properly, otherwise there will just be another unhappy fishkeeper, or dying or unhappy fish, and eventually the species "Discus" get a bad label again.

Rgds

Marco

 

My idea is to keep a pair in there that have already paired up. I have had lots of success breeding all kinds of angels for over 2 years now. I have a fully established, running, breeding setup for them. I can easily remove a pair of discus from one of my customers' tanks, as I often have a customer that wants to exchange pairs, mainly because they want a new look in their tanks with new colours, for instance they want some reds instead of blues.

Breeding discus is not all that hard, but I do agree, you must get the basics right.

I have maintained discus in offices and boardrooms for a while now as well, and even had an instance where a pair spawned. The customer reported that they had to keep clients out of the boardroom, as they were more worried about the fry getting eaten than the pitch that was presented. Unfortunately I was away for a week and couldn't do anything about it in the early stages, but 20 or so survived in the end, swimming in tanks all around Northern Gauteng. This specific tank was a 400l built in unit of fibreglass, acrylic and glass.

 

@captain

I'd LOVE to see how you TEACH complete non-fish people (aka office idiots) to maintain a discus tank. Every office I've been to with fish in their offices have such poor maintenance routines on their tanks that even a simple goldfish couldn't survive. To teach office people to feed discus 6-8 times a day (Incl weekends and holidays), without overfeeding them is quite an achievement. Getting them to do water changes twice a week is something I'd like to see... but getting a bunch of office idiots to understand the relationship between water hardness, temperature, Carbonate Hardness and pH, with the right mixture of RO water to maintain the proper parameters for Discus... now this is something to be proud of.

Angels cannot be compared to discus at all, not by any means. Angels can be compared to Guppies, Mollies, Swordtails... Meaning, put Angels in water, and as long as you have a male and a female, they will spawn.

Granted... but providing optimum conditions is key. And besides the fact that IMO your tank doesn't meet suitable height, nor depth, I honestly believe that 150litres of water is too little even for a breeding pair. (Possibly a stunted breeding pair... but would that be considered an accomplishment?)

Captain, you have been given some very good (constructive) crits by some very good discus breeders on this forum.

 

Hi Captain

This is what you said at first, hence my reply that putting two or thee in a tank doesnt mean success.

I guess they are not that difficult, thats why quality Discus are cheap and easy to come by. . .

Believe me when I tell you that this is the exception, not the rule. For the same amount of money I can introduce you to many people who have tried breeding discus for ages without success. It furthermore also depends on what you "Want" to breed. Breeding discus per say, two fish that are willing to spawn AND raise their fry is NOT rocket science, you are right. Unfortunately more often than not this results in the "wishy-washy' unclassifiable mixes that the market is already flooded with.
Breeding quality, healthy strain bred Discus? Thats a whole different kettle of fish, hence the price tag on these specimens.

I do not for one moment doubt your ability, do however not compare Angels to Discus, they are vastly different. Once hatched the ball is in the keepers hands with regards to Angels. With discus you depend on the harmony that MUST exist between male and female, and this is not always easy to achieve.

Nonetheless, I wish you well. Good luck in this endeavour, its worth it in the end.

Rgds

Marco

 

Thanks for all the help guys. I'll take it into consideration. I can believe that the spawning was extremely exeptional.

WRT feeding, Currently I have about 5 offices equipped with discus. The persons in charge are not neccesarily discus breeders, but all have the knowledge to do so correctly either via owning tanks themselves or via prior fishkeeping experience from the tank.

Before adding discus or any of the more delicate species, I consult with the customer, and make sure they understand that discus are not guppies. Usually those kind of tanks have already been running for a few years, mostly run by other maintenance guys, and I took them over when they went bust or the customer wasn't happy anymore. Unfortunately some people can be quite demanding and in one instance the customer went ahead and added discus himself when I told him the waterflow in thank was wrong and the other fish in the tank way too agressive. Swopped him out for a couple of angels in the end, after 2 of the died.

The initial idea in breeding is to get the experience of breeding the holy grail of freshwater species. Obviously when I eventually do succeed, I don't mind to fork out a couple of grand for a good strain of breeding stock. The stock that I will start off with will probably come from Jungle.

Once again I truly appreciate your criticism and comments, and will consider it all when finally going ahead with my plans.

 

Nice build there. What was the price of the glass?
Hope it comes out well. So many critics nowadays.

 

use the tank as a grow up tank with either a good filter or lots of frequent water changes.
As they start to form pairs move them to the garage as you said.
You did a good job building your own tank +1
mattie

 

Nothing wrong with that in itself, though..

Around R650.00 including the tube of silicon

Thanks, I hope so too

 

I don't really like the idea of stunted fish, but certainly a tank with smaller, growing, 2in discus does have it's appeal. If I do run into trouble, wrt their size, I'll just park them in one of the display tanks at one of my LPS or in one of my maintenance tanks.

But the whole idea of the excersize is actually to experience the breeding of discus.

 

Hey captain

Quick request, when the batteries are charged can you please post some pics of these discus you plan to breed in their current set up?

Secondly pls answer the following:

What breed of discus do you currently have?
What size are they and how old are they?
What have you been feeding them?

I ask this as I'm a novice discus owner, unlike Marco, so just want to learn more.

Regards
Andrew

 

Hi Andrew

Unfortunately I do not have the fish that I plan to put in at my home at the moment. When I or my buddy goes to service the discus tanks later in the week I'll get some pics, but at this stage I might be going for some from Jungle Aquatics.

But when I finally do get them I'll probably be going for some Blue Diamond or Albino Goldens.

To feed them Tetra manufactures a good feed, but feeding live foods is highly recommended, but if you can not feed live foods all the time, frozen foods can also do. A problem though with the tetra mix is that it lacks vitamin C somewhat. The Discus need the vitamins as they can potentially carry a certain disease that might affect and eat away at the organs, but I can't remember it's name right now. Brine shrimp and oxheart are popular feeds. Look around on the forum though, a lot has been written on here about feeding Discus. Prof Bellstedt also manufactures a nice mix. (Any idea where I can get it?)

I stand to be corrected. Any comment?

 

Hi captain

Yip, that's why I threw the questions into the mix. I'm currently growing out an assortment of 16 juvenile discus and using prof dirks feed mainly. I have the fish split into two groups following advice given by prof and marco and the fish are doing well. Lively, full bellies after a feed and one blue turquoise has shown phenomenal growth.

Do a search here for profs feeding recommendations, its well worth the read.

I know he is able to courier his feed up to jhb so drop him a pm and ask for his pricelist.

Bear in mind the fish need a minimum of 60-70litres per adult fish and do best if kept in groups of no less than 6. So that's a tank size of 400litres.

Good luck and look forward to seeing the pics of what you go for.

Andrew

 

Hi,

Me again...

Whenever the topic 'Discus' gets raised, many ppl jump on the wagon and dish out comments left right and center. OBVIOUSLY I am aware of the fact that forum's exist, just for that purpose, so people can learn and share and enjoy their interest and hobby.
Unfortunately it just so happens that many times, and with 'Discus' replace the word 'many' with 'most' a few people will make comments in passing without understanding the implications of their comments. Its got nothing to do with being "anal" about things, its just basic courtesy.
@Firefly - yes there are many critics, however imagine for a second a new member, or guest has to read this thread and all we do is heap praise on a tank intended for Discus keeping, without pointing to the fact that the tank is inadequate for its intended purpose. That new member, always wanting to keep Discus sets out and does the same. He pays an arm and a leg for nice fish and 6 mths down the line realise with a great shock that his fish, that he paid good money for are now stunted and will never reach full potential. Tough luck I guess! Thats apart from the fact that in creating a forum of 'Value' these things need to be addressed. We are part of an international community and not correcting false info turns the entire forum into somewhat of a joke.

Personally, and this can be verified by @Vis and @Zoom, (two guys I have always encouraged to keep Discus as I know they want and do have the skill to do so), I am all against Discus being labelled 'difficult, problematic and/or sickly'
Those assumptions are simply not true!
At the same time, do not for a single moment think that they can be compared to other tropicals, its just not possible. Given, in modern times Discus has become much easier to keep and breed than 20 years back, but that does not mean keeping guppy's and Angels for 5 years prepares you for the dedication, commitment and patience needed when keeping Discus.
More often than not people will use Discus as some form of bragging right, and before long proclaim how easy they are to keep or how good they are at keeping them. Then, one day with a shock they realise somethings a miss, and suddenly, the "all knowing discus prophet" comes admitting to not having a clue what to do next. I have seen this not once...but hundreds of times! I have seen grown men cry when R20k's worth of fish swim aimlessly in a tank, bumping into objects,black as night with their slime coat dripping from them in big chunks! And just two weeks before that same keeper stood next to me in the LPS and when given advise smiled with a smirk as if to say, "what do you know"

@captain

I apologise for highligting the negative part around this thread and also for somewhat derailing it. Unfortunately many before you have popped in here and made wild remarks and rudicolous comments regarding these fish. Soon, they are back here wanting advise where before they turned a blind eye to it.
I do NOT see myself as the 'chosen one' with Discus. I too often have questions and a need for answers regarding these fish. Thats what Discus are like, as soon as you think you have them figured out, they throw you curve ball.

I hope I have explained myself, and others comments regarding this thread in a manner that will ease its acceptance and not alienate you from us. All is done in good spirit and with good intentions, and I hope you can appreciate that.

Rgds

Marco

 

Can't be THAT tough, can it? Some soft candle-light, a little romantic music, a rose...sorted! ;-p

 

I have considered adding a few tots brandy to the water. . .we all know what happens to us when WE consume it!