Discus and Water Quality

[Vitaliy]

Discus are known for a number of things; their unique look, their shines, and generally they only thrive in proper water quality and will not tolerate mediocre. I have kept Discus before but it was always small tanks, 33 long to 55 gallon tanks.

I am just wondering how would you go about filtration for a tank of 125 gallons or greater. The reason I ask is because the filters for tanks that size are generally powerful and create a strong current in the tank. From my own experience with Discus they are absolutely horrible in strong current tanks.

Suggestions? Ideas? Experiences?

 

[Zoodiver]

I kept a breeding group of 7 in a 800gallon. It was heavily planted and the direction of the flow was carefully directed to avoid high current areas. It had a surface drawing overflow box that fed a sump below. The filter was run off the sump and cycled back into the sump as well as into the tank. That helped eliminate the strength of the water being pushed through the filter. The water going back into the sump was passed into a bio-tower (4'x4'x8') first. It also had a CO2 canister running on it to control pH. Lighting was in the form of two 1000 watt units and a two pairs of 48" flor.

 

[driftwood]

the best way to filter discus would be with a couple sponge filters. low flow and great for a barebottom discus tank. also works well in a planted tank but u'll need to add power heads to add oxygen to the water. sponges are great and with a good pump its a very cost effective way to filter a discus tank. i got rid of my discus but i still have the sponges hooked up. keeping a few cobra pikes in that tank now.

 

[shekes]

8 of my discus share a 70g with some 30 neons, corydoras etc. I feed them beefheart daily until they throw up, the only filter is an UGF and I do monthly WC of 80-90%. You are more qualified to tell whether or not the quality of the water in the last week befor WC could be described as "proper" than I am myself. But I can assure you that my discus are beautiful and grow quickly.

I used to keep 16 discus in a 50g with a UGF only but that was indeed a bit too much.

Recently somebody told me his discus loved current...

 

[TheUnhappiest]

I have 4 Discus and 2 Fluval 304's in a 60 gal. The current is pretty strong but there doing very well.

 

[Gooda]

I know I'm going to start sounding like the Wet/Dry sales rep, I've pushed these about 10 times in the last 2 days... but they work great. The less current you want the smaller the pump you use. Overflow is a beautiful thing...

 

[Ornatapinnis]

I use wet/dry filters on my discus tanks. My way around the water current issue is I buy or build an over sized filter and use a pump smaller than typically used on the size aquarium I set up. My theory is that instead of turning over the aquarium water at a fast pace exposing the water to the media multple times per hour. I am exposing the water to a larger amount of surface area per hour at a slow rate. I have done this for many years on a few aquariums and have found it to work real well. The drawback it that if it's going to be a planted aquarium, you more than likley will need a co2 reactor because the wet / dry will de gass the water so well. Not a big deal to set one up but to do it correctly can be expensive.

One more thing, the other way I decrease current is to have two or more water returns. THis makes the return lines water pressure lower as it's added to the aquarium.

Joel