The Diary of the Bathi's Discus Planted Tank

[Iminit]

Tank looks great! Following! How many discus are you planning to add? Wild or domestic?


Yes it’s getting hard to find large pieces of driftwood in local shops. The prices have just sky rocketed! So they’re not selling. I’ve found some great deals on market place on older tank wood. The ones with drilled holes in them on slate. 80s stuff.

[Bathi]

Tank looks great! Following! How many discus are you planning to add? Wild or domestic?.

I am planning to keep 10-15 discus. I would like to add wild discus, but they are very hard to find in Sri Lanka. Also, a pair is expensive. Affording six wild discus is something akin to buying two or three Chili Red Arowanas. So I'm going with domestics.

[Bathi]

Chapter 04 - Tankmates

After the first week of the cycle, I decided to add fish to the tank. I already owned 7 discus and a 15-inch ghost knife fish. The ghost knife is a gentle giant. In the previous tank I put platies with him to control the population. But the result is a lot of platy babies also happily live with the ghost knife. So, in this tank, I decided to add a variety of small fish too.

How many Discus?

Based on the filtration and the main tank water volume, I decided to keep 10-15 adult discus. I want to maintain a natural look, so I decided to keep turquoise varieties, leopards, and red covers. Currently, I own 7 fish. All of them are more than 13 cm with the tail. Also, last year I raised little discus with the big ones. So, in this tank, I added 4 turquoises and 2 red cover babies. These babies are 3-4 cm. Adding babies with adults is an experiment. I want to check how they are growing.

Bottom Cleaners?

I decided to keep a variety of corydoras with the discus. I'm hoping they will eat any uneaten food and, to some extent, clean the substrate. I can't keep the loaches because I'm planning to add snails. Earth eater varieties will keep the sand clean too, but I can't keep them because of the plants. They will uproot the plants. Because of that, cories are my only option. So, I finally purchased six Sterbai cories.

Algae Eaters?

I added several types of algae eaters to maintain a less algae tank. I decided to add snails. Currently, I have 1 nerite and more ramshorn snails. Also, 1 otocinclus and 1 Siamese algae eater. I'm planning to add a bristlenose pleco too, but I need to find a normal one, not the albino.

School Fish?

I decided to add a variety of tetras that schooled very tightly. After research, I found that rummy nose tetras school tightly, especially if there are bigger fish in the tank. So, I bought 20 rummy nose tetras too.


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[Iminit]

Mts snails would have been a better pick. Being sand the mts go into the sand and constantly move it around so there won’t be any trapped gas/dead spots. Have you added the new discus? I do see a small one in there. Did you qt the new guys? The Otto needs company. As does the SAE. The SAE will chase your discus if left alone. But if you add 2 more the three will play an endless game of tag. Being a 180g tank you could easily get 6 ottos in there. They don’t get big and live off of algae and bio-film. Now all of these new fish should be quarantined for at least 4 weeks. Just to make sure they are healthy.

[Bathi]

Mts snails would have been a better pick. Being sand the mts go into the sand and constantly move it around so there won’t be any trapped gas/dead spots. Have you added the new discus? I do see a small one in there.

Thanks for letting me know about MTS snails. I will definitely add those too.

Have you added the new discus? I do see a small one in there. Did you qt the new guys? The Otto needs company. As does the SAE. The SAE will chase your discus if left alone. But if you add 2 more the three will play an endless game of tag. Being a 180g tank you could easily get 6 ottos in there. They don’t get big and live off of algae and bio-film. Now all of these new fish should be quarantined for at least 4 weeks. Just to make sure they are healthy.

I didn't quarantine all of the fish separately. I treated all the tanks once. I will share more about this in the next chapter. I'm not sure if that process will work or not.
Adding more Ottos and SAE is a good idea. However, in my country, the cost of one Otto is the same as a pair of 4cm discus. SAE is also expensive. Currently, they are schooling with Rummies. Yes, more fish from OTTO and SAE need to be added in the future.

[brewmaster15]

Your tank is looking great.. My best advice is to quarantine any new fish.. dont skimp on this step . With all the work you have put into this tank.. I'd hate to see you have issues.
Al

[ravvlet]

Incredible! Love the flood light idea. It creates such a nice effect too. One day I will be more conservative in my planting; I love that you’ve focused the plants around that gorgeous driftwood piece. I “oversalt” with plants and always end up with a jungle.

[Bathi]

Chapter 05 - Treatments

I didn't quarantine my new fish because I felt the need to treat the entire tank at once. I hadn't boiled the driftwood before adding it to the tank, and I also collected sand from a paddy field. As a precaution, I decided to treat the entire tank for both internal and external parasites. I used EIHO WORM EX and EIHO PRAZI GOLD, continuing the treatment for a duration of 7 days.


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[Bathi]

Your tank is looking great.. My best advice is to quarantine any new fish.. dont skimp on this step . With all the work you have put into this tank.. I'd hate to see you have issues.
Al

I didn't quarantine the new fish this time. But I did something. Please review the latest chapter and share your ideas.

[Bathi]

Incredible! Love the flood light idea. It creates such a nice effect too. One day I will be more conservative in my planting; I love that you’ve focused the plants around that gorgeous driftwood piece. I “oversalt” with plants and always end up with a jungle.

Yes, the floodlight is adding a shimmering effect to the tank. I will share updates about the plants too.

[Bathi]

Chapter 06 - Unexpected Loss

I lost three of my healthiest fish, and I'm not sure why.

After seven days of treatment, I performed a 70% water change. I planned to age the water a little bit, test the parameters, and observe how the sump is handling them. After the water change, everything is fine, and all the fish ate well.

After the water change, I was away from home for four days. During this time, my parents fed the exact amount of food that I normally give to my discus. After four days, I returned and saw that the black ghost knife fish was out of its hiding space. During feeding time, the black ghost rejected the food, while all my other discus ate actively. I checked the water parameters and realized that ammonia and nitrite levels were at 0, but the pH was 7. When I did the last water change six days ago, the pH was 6.5. Over the past two years, the ghost fish has occasionally shown this behavior when something is happening in the water. It is more sensitive than the discus. When I realized this unusual behavior from the ghost, it was almost 11 pm, and I decided to change the water the next morning

At 5 am the next day, I checked the tank again and saw that the ghost fish was breathing fast at the top of the water level. I immediately moved it to the hospital tank. After that, I noticed that two of my discus were also breathing fast and coming to the top of the tank. The other discus and tetras seemed fine. But the conditions of both the discus and the ghost fish worsened, and after a few hours, they died. During this time, I did a 50% water change in the main tank.

I tried to analyze what happened. Nothing changed after the water change last week in the main tank. However, for the sump, I added 2L of K3 filter media. I placed this K3 in the first chamber before the filter pads. K3 needs oxygen to function efficiently. That why I removed the filter socks and put K3 in temporarily.
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I'm not exactly sure if this is the reason, but I suspect that during the four days, K3 produced a bacteria colony that absorbed oxygen. Somehow, the oxygen levels in the main tank reduced because of this. The ghost knife fish required more oxygen in the water, which is why it showed signs the previous day, and I didn't realize it. After feeding, I lost both of the discus. Both of them were top eaters in my discus gang. I have one discus with a swimming bladder issue, and he eats less and is skinny. But he was also fine after this incident.

So, I assume this happened because of low oxygen levels. I moved the K3 media to chamber 2 and added an air line after that. It seemed like the other fish were fine now.

Both discus and ghost in 2021
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Both discus and ghost, before this incident
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After the death
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When I bought the ghost, he was the size of a guppy. It is one of my all-time favorite fish.
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[Iminit]

Sorry for the lose of your fish!
May be more to this than what you think. I find it hard to believe the k3 could produce so much bacteria that it removed that much oxygen from the tank. May have more to do with the meds added. Do the meds same to add air stones when using? K3 is just a porous rock with a hole in the middle. No different than bio-home or matrix or any of the others. I never read watch out for oxygen depletion when using these products.
I could have been combining those meds or even the 70% water change. Maybe parents fed the wrong stuff. Hard to figure out now but I’d keep an eye out on the other fish. None of the tetras died? Or any other dither fish?

[Bathi]

Sorry for the lose of your fish!
May be more to this than what you think. I find it hard to believe the k3 could produce so much bacteria that it removed that much oxygen from the tank. May have more to do with the meds added. Do the meds same to add air stones when using? K3 is just a porous rock with a hole in the middle. No different than bio-home or matrix or any of the others. I never read watch out for oxygen depletion when using these products.
I could have been combining those meds or even the 70% water change. Maybe parents fed the wrong stuff. Hard to figure out now but I’d keep an eye out on the other fish. None of the tetras died? Or any other dither fish?

Yes, I also find it hard to believe that K3 removes oxygen from the main tank. However, this is the only area I changed. I have been using these meds for more than 3 years now. They are safe. After the meds and water change, they lived for another 5 days, and I was the one who fed them their last meal. Same pellets, nothing has changed. Tetras are fine, only 2 discus and the ghost. Both of the discus ate very well in their last meal. The ghost is like a test kit. If something is wrong in the water, the ghost will usually show immediate responses on his skin, like fungus. But this time, there were no signs at all.

[Red Eye.]

Top stuff ...how do you feed the fish?. uneating food must be a problem long term....? have had planted tanks 5x2x2....over head Metal H lamps / CO2...etc.....

My problem is bacteria build up. ??? Uv can help.

but your tank is Spot on so far.....I,m a very postive person at heart ....so please inform me how you feed......small amounts in different places so all the fish get a litte bit of food.

At 52 will Not have a Full planted tank with Discus / Wilds ........................! too many place for old food to sit....even if you have bottom feeders....are they going to find old food under a large log!!.

SORRY.......I,m with UKAPS forum too.....Red eye.

Mark at Devotedly Discus has kept discus since the 90,s keeps at 30C 86F....and does not push planted tanks....which I love but it just does not last long term.

cheers Matthew UK.

[Red Eye.]

Ammonia spike....?