Very true akainechu, thank your for the encouragement. I have a general question for the veterans out there. I use a simple API brand "Ammonia NH3/NH4+" test kit. I assume this means I can't tell what the nitrate level is, even if the test kit is registering 0ppm on the color chart. My question is, can I assume that my nitrates are fine if my specific test kit registers 0ppm? I've made that assumption because my water has consisitently been this way for well over 8 months now.
A Bumpy Road
- Thread starter ericNH
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I'm a bit confused. Are you saying you just have a test kit for ammonia? If so there is no way for you to test for nitrate, you need the nitrate test.
It'd be useful to have nitrites and pH too if you can get those 
Yea well I have a pH test kit I used back when I tried to force the pH into a level I wanted. That didn't work out so good. So now I basically ignore it, and just acclimate any new fish to the tank very slowly with a dripline. I'm not gonna wrestle with the pH.
The nitrates, on the other hand, are something I know I can't ignore. For some reason I just thought that if my ammonia tests kept coming up 0ppm then I would be okay. But nitrates are at the END of the nitrate cycle, and all ammonia in the tank is eventually converted to nitrate and there's nowhere for it to go unless I have a massive amount of plants. I just got a nitrate test kit and found the level to be wayyyy too high - it's about 80 ppm. So I'm gonna have to step up my water changes, which admittedly I've been slacking on. I used to do 25% water changes 2x a week, then it went down to 1, and for the past 2 months or so I've only been doing them once every 2 weeks.
Shame on me! At least I know what's been killing my discus.
The nitrates, on the other hand, are something I know I can't ignore. For some reason I just thought that if my ammonia tests kept coming up 0ppm then I would be okay. But nitrates are at the END of the nitrate cycle, and all ammonia in the tank is eventually converted to nitrate and there's nowhere for it to go unless I have a massive amount of plants. I just got a nitrate test kit and found the level to be wayyyy too high - it's about 80 ppm. So I'm gonna have to step up my water changes, which admittedly I've been slacking on. I used to do 25% water changes 2x a week, then it went down to 1, and for the past 2 months or so I've only been doing them once every 2 weeks.
Shame on me! At least I know what's been killing my discus.
I didn't mean to make it sound like you should mess with your pH. It's just good to know what it's at.
I would certainly go back to a weekly water change schedule, sorry you've lost some Discus. Hopefully the increased water changes helps
I would certainly go back to a weekly water change schedule, sorry you've lost some Discus. Hopefully the increased water changes helps
Thanks Ninja. I know you know what you're talking about, and I trust your advcice. And I want to ask you - what would you recommend as a maximum nitrate level? Should it be reading only traces, or is 20 or 40 ppm acceptable?
I believe the recommended is around ~20ppm above what your tapwater is. I have not kept Discus so I'm not sure what level you'd want it at for them, sorry
I've gotten the nitrate level down to about 20 ppm. Is it just me, or is it really hard to distinguish between the colors in the API nitrate color card? I don't see any difference in the colors showing 10 and 20 ppm. Nor can I see a difference in the colors that indicate 40 and 80 ppm on the card. Well, in any case I've done a couple of 25% water changes and the nitrates are significantly reduced.
I want more plants! Why oh why did I not put a layer of soil under the sand when I set this tank up. I am kicking myself now. The plants I have are small and grow extremely slowly.
I want more plants! Why oh why did I not put a layer of soil under the sand when I set this tank up. I am kicking myself now. The plants I have are small and grow extremely slowly.
They are very hard for me to distinguish between too. 
You don't need soil to have plants. I would post in the planted section with your lighting and what plants you have and ask how you can help them out or what plants you should get instead that might be better suited
You don't need soil to have plants. I would post in the planted section with your lighting and what plants you have and ask how you can help them out or what plants you should get instead that might be better suited
So, I've made some major changes lately. I recently purchased several anubias, tied them to some driftwood, and I also dropped a few water lettuce into the tank. I've also started using Flourish Excel. That was about a week ago, and I already see a difference in all my plants. And I've also adjusted my water change schedule - 25% every other day now, no exceptions. My nitrates are down to about 10 ppm now. And the remaining algae in my tank is all but gone! Happy happy joy joy!
I brought my last angel back to the fish store, and picked up 3 more discus, bringing my discus total up to 5. Using a dripline to adjust them, they were happy and out exploring the tank within a half hour! No darkness and hiding in the corners, they were basically happy right out of the gate. But here is where things got hairy. The two discus that I already had (Peri is one of them, there's a picture of him earlier in this thread from back when the tank was still a disaster) they became ultra aggressive after about an hour. I mean, they were both totally viciously all out chasing and attacking the 3 new guys, to the point where the new guys eventually were all bullied into a corner behind a rock, and they wouldn't come back out.
Now I've read that this is kinda' normal if you don't start off right away with a pack of 6 or more all at once. But what to do? I don't have a second tank to give my aggressive discus a time out. What I came up with is working well at the moment. I am using two large nets, with a small stone at the bottom of each to pull the net down in to an inverted pyramid, resting on top of the tank so that they hang down into the water. I captured and placed each of the aggressive discus in their own netted area. They can move around a tiny bit, and they can't hurt themselves or the newcomers now, and the newcomers are perfectly happy once again. Whew! Obviously I'll have to let them out eventually, but I think I'll keep it this way for another day, and hopefully when I set the two aggressive discus free, they will feel like the newcomers and try to join in the newcomer pack. Sounds iffy to me, but that's all I got for now.
I hope this works, because if it does, I will FINALLY have a tank I can be proud of. If not, well dammit I'm at the end of my rope, and I think I'll just let them all try to kill each other, and to hell with discus.
I brought my last angel back to the fish store, and picked up 3 more discus, bringing my discus total up to 5. Using a dripline to adjust them, they were happy and out exploring the tank within a half hour! No darkness and hiding in the corners, they were basically happy right out of the gate. But here is where things got hairy. The two discus that I already had (Peri is one of them, there's a picture of him earlier in this thread from back when the tank was still a disaster) they became ultra aggressive after about an hour. I mean, they were both totally viciously all out chasing and attacking the 3 new guys, to the point where the new guys eventually were all bullied into a corner behind a rock, and they wouldn't come back out.
Now I've read that this is kinda' normal if you don't start off right away with a pack of 6 or more all at once. But what to do? I don't have a second tank to give my aggressive discus a time out. What I came up with is working well at the moment. I am using two large nets, with a small stone at the bottom of each to pull the net down in to an inverted pyramid, resting on top of the tank so that they hang down into the water. I captured and placed each of the aggressive discus in their own netted area. They can move around a tiny bit, and they can't hurt themselves or the newcomers now, and the newcomers are perfectly happy once again. Whew! Obviously I'll have to let them out eventually, but I think I'll keep it this way for another day, and hopefully when I set the two aggressive discus free, they will feel like the newcomers and try to join in the newcomer pack. Sounds iffy to me, but that's all I got for now.
I hope this works, because if it does, I will FINALLY have a tank I can be proud of. If not, well dammit I'm at the end of my rope, and I think I'll just let them all try to kill each other, and to hell with discus.
They might need to work out the hierarchy. I would expect something like this when adding new fish since they are cichlids after all, which can be territorial. Did you try rearranging the decor yet?
No I didn't rearrange anything in the tank. I've read that that helps, but tbh, I don't want to create the mess in my tank. Thanks for the suggestion - if my discus don't settle down enough I suppose I'll eventually have to try that. But I *really* hope it doesn't come down to that.
On an unrelated subject, I've made my first batch of homemade, high-protein fish food today, and they took to it right away
I used equal parts raw cleaned shrimp, raw salmon, and raw squid. I put it all in a food processor with a about 1.5 tbsp of wheat gluten, and made a ball of paste about the size of a baseball. I split it up into two ziplock bags, flattened it all out, sealed them and put them in the freezer. I kept about half a teaspoon on the side to test it out, and yessiree, they ate it all right. It took a little finagling to get them to start in on it, but once they did, they went for it.
I saw someone do something similar on a youtube video and it was explained that while beef heart is okay, mollusks and crustaceans are far better for discus nutritionally, and some coldwater fish like salmon or cod supplement the mix with fatty acids that discus need. Wheat gluten is used a binder to absorb moisture and help make it pasty. Oddly enough, it was said that wheat gluten alone is almost a perfect food for discus, but obviously you can't just dump some into a tank and expect the discus to feed on a cloud of wheat gluten powder.
On an unrelated subject, I've made my first batch of homemade, high-protein fish food today, and they took to it right away
I saw someone do something similar on a youtube video and it was explained that while beef heart is okay, mollusks and crustaceans are far better for discus nutritionally, and some coldwater fish like salmon or cod supplement the mix with fatty acids that discus need. Wheat gluten is used a binder to absorb moisture and help make it pasty. Oddly enough, it was said that wheat gluten alone is almost a perfect food for discus, but obviously you can't just dump some into a tank and expect the discus to feed on a cloud of wheat gluten powder.
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