90g high-tech planted discus tank

DonkeyFish · Post by **DonkeyFish** » Sun Dec 06, 2009 11:05 pm

!!! YAY DISCUS!! Now the hard part.... leaving them alone

Good luck with the spawn (and tank, of course)!!

Ben Belton · Post by **Ben Belton** » Sun Dec 06, 2009 11:15 pm

What kind of light is that? I feel like you say it somewhere in the text, but I can't find it.

chris_todd · Post by **chris_todd** » Sun Dec 06, 2009 11:24 pm

It's a Tek-light SunSystem 4x54W T-5.

Edit: with two plugs, one for the outer pair of bulbs, one for the inner. I'm running them with the outside on 8am-11pm and the other two for four hours at midday. If I cut the photoperiod for the outer bulbs to 12-14 hours, I might have fewer problems with algae, but I'd rather be able to feed the tank in the morning and still enjoy it until 11 pm.

chris_todd · Post by **chris_todd** » Tue Dec 08, 2009 1:31 pm

chris_todd wrote: Well, let the cycle begin - I now know that at least one of them is, in fact, a female, because a few minutes ago I caught her laying eggs:

And the following day, all the eggs were gone, so someone had some caviar for breakfast!

So let's see, Jen, they should spawn again on December 20th, eh?

Maybe this time the male will figure out he needs to fertilize them, LOL. Before they're eaten, that is.

chris_todd · Post by **chris_todd** » Tue Dec 08, 2009 1:33 pm

Another lesson I've learned from this tank:
When using mineralized soil, plan your aquascape well before you plant, because moving or removing heavily rooted plants later makes quite a mess!

Cristy Keister · Post by **Cristy Keister** » Tue Dec 08, 2009 2:13 pm

A tip that I found greatly improves the survival of the eggs and new fry: Don't let the tank go completely dark overnight. If the Discus can't see the eggs/fry they need to protect then they sometimes either 1) loose focus/interest and stop trying to protect; or 2) forget they even had eggs and wake up in the morning to a great meal. You can leave on a small light in the room or use an LED "moon" light.

chris_todd · Post by **chris_todd** » Tue Dec 08, 2009 2:20 pm

Cristy Keister wrote:A tip that I found greatly improves the survival of the eggs and new fry: Don't let the tank go completely dark overnight. If the Discus can't see the eggs/fry they need to protect then they sometimes either 1) loose focus/interest and stop trying to protect; or 2) forget they even had eggs and wake up in the morning to a great meal. You can leave on a small light in the room or use an LED "moon" light.

An excellent suggestion, I may try that! I had noticed that when the female went to eat some bloodworms, the rams would poach eggs while the Discus weren't looking.

Cristy Keister · Post by **Cristy Keister** » Tue Dec 08, 2009 3:11 pm

A good pair of parents will take turns eating and protecting the fry. Yours are still new at this game. They should improve with each try.

However, you're unlikely to be able to raise the fry in a tank with other species. You should be able to get them to the stage where they are feeding off the parents, but then when the fry start to leave their parents side, they get nabbed by the other fish.

Aaron · Post by **Aaron** » Tue Dec 08, 2009 4:32 pm

chris_todd wrote:Another lesson I've learned from this tank:
When using mineralized soil, plan your aquascape well before you plant, because moving or removing heavily rooted plants later makes quite a mess!

Yup.

Turning the filter off while moving things around helps a lot too. Honestly, moving heavily rooted plants in any tank makes a huge mess.

Mark F. · Post by **Mark F.** » Wed Dec 09, 2009 9:36 am

I'll second Aaron on his points - I just rescaped a three-gallon glass cylinder, with nothing but smallish river gravel for substrate (ostensibly) ... turned off the Azoo nano-filter beforehand, but still ended up with mulm soup!

90g high-tech planted discus tank

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