Drip System or no drip system?

[Tropical Haven]

Just wanted to get some opinions. I am finally geting back into the discus world again after a 10 year break and I have a general question. I have a 125gal tank right now that has been established for about 5 years now and here is what is in it. I have 1 gold severum, 1 parrot, 6 tetra's, 6 baby black angels and all I have in there is 4 good size hydro sponges. These sponges have done well for me and with a 30 percent water change 3 times a week I have a nitrate level of 15ppm which all of my fish have been fine with and no illnesses at all.
Now I am in the process of getting some tanks ready for some discus in the next month and the main question is, is 15ppm of nitrates in the tank ok for discus or does that need to be lower without any harm to them. I really am leaning towards a drip system because I am very busy during the summer months (with little league baseball) and cannot devote as much time as I could with the tanks. I figured that with the drip system it would keep the nitrates down better if I can only clean the tanks twice a week. Let me know which way you would go on this situation, any help would be appreciated.

[FishLover888]

I'm no expert. My understanding is discus need less than 5ppm of nitrates reading for the long run.

You may get away from time to time over that a bit. Not sure about 15ppm for the long run. Different fish have different requriement for nitrate level. I'm afraid discus is one of them that requires much lower than other fish.

30% of water changes three times of a week and you still have nitrates reading of 15ppm? With the fish load you have, you should have a much lower readings. Something is keep your nitrates high. Not sure what is it yet.

There are few reasons for nitrates to be high. Fish load, over feeding, accumulated waste and water source.

I don't think you have a fish load problem. You can try to look into the other three factors to see if you can keep the nitrates less than 5 with your water changes. If you can there is no need for a drip system. I'm a big fan of large water changes. I would go for 40% for each WC instead of 30%. 10% more is only going to add few minutes to your water change routine and that may make a difference. Vac your gravel will help to remove accumutated waste and testing your water source can tell you if you have a problem with your tap water or not.

HTH