# Some pictures of my discus & tank



## JJman (Jul 13, 2006)

It seems discus is becoming more and more popular for the planted aquarium. After a long time of trial and error trying to keep them in a planted tank, here are my latest pictures of my 125 gallon discus tank. There are three discus in there, one male and two females. At first I wanted to put in more, but three looks good in my opinion. After months of green dust algae, I think they are fading away. Now I'm having issues with Clado...not sure what to do with them. Right now I'm just removing them by hand... Adding amano shrimps is on my mind but I hope there are some other solutions since they aren't cheap!!

enjoy..
Here's the front of the tank


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## JJman (Jul 13, 2006)

Here's the back of the aqurium..


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## JJman (Jul 13, 2006)

Here's a picture of the larger female. She's the male's mistress. He occasionally breed with her, but his main partner is the smaller one.


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## JJman (Jul 13, 2006)

Here's the male with his little wife... they spawn almost every week. After a couple spawns, the male takes a break and pairs up with the other female. The eggs all got eaten after a day or two though. In this picture, they are cleaning out a corner preparing to spawn (again...).


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## lildark185 (Jul 7, 2006)

You have a very nice layout with some very nice discus. One suggestion, I would just take out the patch of vals on the right side of the tank (from the front view). It would allow the discus more space to swim as well as make the tank look whole instead of divided into the left side and that one patch. Do the discus always eat the eggs  ?


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## JJman (Jul 13, 2006)

lildark185: Thanks for your suggestion! The patch of Balanse/"dwarf" sag was intentionally put there to conceal the CO2 reactor (you can see it from the back though). I don't like seeing equipment in the tank 
The discus always eat the eggs. I was tempted to separate them out but then I don't know what to do with the babies. 
By the way..I'm starting to think that there's no such thing as a "Dwarf" sag. When I got them, they were nice and small...but after some time, that's what you see. They are also very invasive.


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## JJman (Jul 13, 2006)

More pics... close up of the "petite" nana. When I got it, they were fingernail size..now they've become more quarter-size. How do I keep them small??


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## JJman (Jul 13, 2006)

One good thing about having dense foliage is that I can keep cherry shrimps with the discus. Some do get eaten, but there's a sustainable population there for the discus to have some nutritious "snacks"


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## JJman (Jul 13, 2006)

Last picture.. my favorite viewpoint... I call it..the two towers 










thanks for looking everyone!


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## Jdinh04 (Oct 7, 2004)

Dude the tank looks really nice! the plants look very healthy as well! great job!


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## bristles (Mar 7, 2006)

Good lord man! your aquarium looks stunning, the hair grass is so pure, mine grows like crazy but always has a hint of fuzzy algae in it. The Discus look very content, don't know if you have a place to keep one of the females for a few weeks, so the males attention will be focused on just one female. A friend in our local aquarium gardeners club has mastered Discus breeding and watching the fry feeding on the adults emulsion is a real memory maker. Extra Discus are always in demand at the LFS. Good stuff indeed JJman. I would not change a thing in your layout.


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## JJman (Jul 13, 2006)

Jdinh04: Thank you very much for your compliment.
Bristles: I'm having some issues with Clado right now, but they are quite manageable. They just won't go away, however.

This tank is 125 gals (48x24x24) and I only have 5x36W NO fluorescent tubes over it. So on a wpg basis, this is quite low (180 watts + relectors). Still I find that I can grow hairgrass, glosso, etc without any problems. The only two things I can't seem to grow in this aquarium are HC, and Java ferns..believe it or not. 

I'm also dosing only my home brew trace solution twice a week with 50% water changes every 7-10 days. I also add 1.5 teaspoons of K2SO4 after water change. No N or P addition whatsoever.

Based on my observations, water movement is very important to making plants grow well and keeping algae at bay. You need a method to provide circulation at lower depths of the aquarium for the foreground plants.
Anyway, thanks for the compliments and suggestions. I'll post some more pictures later on..


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## Blitzhill (Sep 2, 2006)

*Wow!*

What a gorgeous tank JJman. Also very nice, clear pictures.


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## bristles (Mar 7, 2006)

That is great plant growth for such low light. I would never have guessed the WPG by looking at your photos. What is it with hair grass & algae ? It always seems to be a battle:fencing:


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## JJman (Jul 13, 2006)

Blitzhill: Thank you very much for the compliment. I only have a crappy point&shoot camera though. Hoping to get a better one soon  But then..better pictures = see more algae  lol...

Bristles: I hear ya..I am always jealous whenever people post pictures of algae-free foreground densely filled with hairgrass. How the heck does one do this!! 
I'm a bit lazy to be raising young discus also. They need water changes everyday and feeding 4-5x daily or something like that..I'm just not feeling up to it. 

By the way.. can someone tell me what this strain is called? I know that they are descendants of the wild-type..perhaps alanquer or some sort of wild blue. 

Thanks!!


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## avijitsen (Oct 28, 2006)

JJ Man,

Brilliant Job!! Am very inpressed with ur tank. Hope to reach ur levels as far as the plantation is concerned for my Discuses. Currently my planted tank is on last day of black out to take care of Green water algae. Maybe in a month or so the Discuses shud be there.

take care


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## JJman (Jul 13, 2006)

Hi Avijitsen,
Thanks for the compliment bro. I too had an outbreak of green water early in the beginning. I had to hook up my UV after each water change for about 2 days to clear the water up, then it would be back again by the end of the week. Hang in there. It will go away... But for me, it was followed by green dust, green spot, and clado and various points after that. I think I've had them all.. except blue green algae. Maybe that'll be next..


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## YzMxer99 (Jul 17, 2006)

Gotta say that that tank is stunning, 3 discus looks just right.


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## JJman (Jul 13, 2006)

YzMxer99: Thanks man. I agree that adding more might make it feel crowded. Right now two of them are about 5", the other is 4". But then again, I really would like some true wilds in my tank though, so who knows. One day I might not be able to resist the urge .


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## jassar (Jul 30, 2006)

I really like the "two towers"! that patch looks so healthy man! great job indeed!
keep it up and please keep us posted with more pics..
Cheers!


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## standoyo (Aug 25, 2005)

Hi JJ,

Well done on the tank! 
A bit of algae with discus tanks is somehow unavoidable. sigh.

The strain looks like a brown that's been coloured up quite a bit if I'm not mistaken. The caudal tail should be clear in a non PB that's not been coloured.


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## JJman (Jul 13, 2006)

jassar: Thanks! I couldn't stand using a crappy point-n-shoot anymore so I went out and got a DSLR finally! I'll be posting more images soon.

Stan: Thanks again! Interesting observation. I was trying to compare them to various wild strains and they look like a cross between an alanquer and a wild blue to me. But I guess they can be colored-up browns like you said. I wish there are some Heckels around here tho.. !!


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