Problems with my discus tank

[jhutch]

I have a piece of driftwood in my 55 gallon tank with 5 young adult tangerine/pigeon bloods. Some green algae looking stuff has completely colonized the driftwood and I was wondering if anyone knows if this is good or bad and what i should do? They seem to be eating it and I don't know if I should leave it. I also have a problem with my pH. I am filtering with peat pellets and I can't seem to get the pH lower than 7.6. The discus seem to be ok other than they don't eat very much. What should I do to lower the pH without doing harm to the fish? I have discus buffer but when i used that before it killed the single pigeon blood that was in the tank and seems to have permanently done damage to my young cobalt blue because he hasn't grown at all in 3 months.

[ILuvMyGoldBarb]

First of all, you don't really need to lower the ph in that tank any more then the peat is doing. If you had Wild Caught Discus then you would want to do so, but captive bred Discus will be just fine in that pH. As for growth rate I have 4 questions:
1. Is the tank bare bottom?
2. What is your water change routine? How much and how often?
3. Feeding. What are you feeding and how often?
4. How big are the Discus currently?

[helot13]

You can leave the algae. If it is green it is good. red and blue algaes are not bad, but they are not as healthy for the tank in general as green algae.

The discus are the more sensitive to water conditions than your other fish. If you want then to thrive, try to get your tank to match their water needs. The other fish may or may not adjust, but the needs of discus are pretty tame in comparison to other fish so the bloods should do fine.

[jhutch]

I do water changes 50% of the 55 gallon tank they are in every night. The tank has gravel but I was wondering if bare bottom would be better because I want to breed them. I feed a frozen discus food but I am going to start making my own food. They are 5 to 5 and 1/2 inches. Tangerine/Pigeon Blood cross and the five discus are all that is in the tank.

[siymdapolio]

50 percent every night sounds like a bit munch to me??? does anybody else do that with their discuss?

The Ac has a great article check it out http://www.aquaticcommunity.com/discusfish/discus.php

[kitten3326]

I do 40-50% water changes nightly as well, my discus are well over a year now. The best food you could feed your discus is the New Life Spectrum discus forumla. I to was feeding my frozen brine shimp and frozen blood worms however after about 3 weeks of feeding the NLS their color is remarkable. Discus are picking eaters however if you stick with just feeding them NLS they will eat it. It was very stressful for me when trying to get them to eat the NLS however after perserving they eat nothing but now and they are healthy and happy and love their food. The green algae that is on your driftwood will not harm your discus either. If you are planning to breed your discus, I would suggest a bare bottom tank as this is much easier to keep clean, you will also need an edgeing tile for them to lay their eggs on once they have paired off. If you contact fishguy, he will let you know what to do, I believe he has a breeding tank for his discus. Also I will include this link for you to read on NLS. I hope this helps:)

http://www.aquaticcommunity.com/aquariumforum/showthread.php?t=11726

[SpyderSpy6]

If you were only changing the water once a week I would reccomend doing 50%. If you are doing it everynight you only need to change the water about 10-20%, missing a day won't hurt either. I think you what's happening is you are putting too much tap water back in to the tank, which is keeping your pH up and not allowing the peat nuggets to work.

When you added the discus buffer, how much, and how often did you add it? With your pH where it is, and you saying that the last time you used it your fish didn't respond well, you may have put too much in causing a pH shock. The discus buffer will immediately drop the pH to 5.8-6.5.

I keep my water at pH 6.3 and my fish colors are great, and they are more active at 6.3-6.5. Although with tank breed's you don't have to match Amazon water quality but doing your best always helps. You can also try Tetra's black water extract, which my fish seem to really like when I put it in the water.

For the algae, I would go get a pack of siamese algae eaters (about 5) clean off the log and whatever has the algae, put those little guys in the tank and they will help maintain it's growth. They will not remove it by just putting them in there.

I hope this helps!

[ILuvMyGoldBarb]

50 percent every night sounds like a bit munch to me??? does anybody else do that with their discuss?

The Ac has a great article check it out http://www.aquaticcommunity.com/discusfish/discus.php

During their first year I did 90% water changes every other day on my Discus tank. Many breeders in Asia actually will do a 200% water change everyday on the grow-out tanks and not even run a filter on them because of the large amount of water being changed. A one year old Discus should be full grown

[jhutch]

thanks you guys have given me a lot of help. I don't think my discus are full grown and they are 14 months old. I bought them so I can breed them so this advice will help.http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/gallery/watermark.php?file=45587&size=1

[siymdapolio]

Geese did not know it took so much.

thanks for the info ILMGB did not know that... thanks!:19: