Discus Fish Tank – Sustain Life Aquatic
The Perfect Discus Fish Tank
Pets / Aquarium Fish
A true, passionate aquarist knows that a tank is only as good as its ability to sustain aquatic life. At the end of the day, it is your personal calculations and adjustments that will dictate if your discus fish will live for another week or succumb to a natural death in the captive waters of your tank. Image Credit: WATER3 にオプションで６匹のドイツ・ロートターキスを追加した水槽, Ni opushon de 6-biki no Doitsu rōtotākisu o tsuika shita suisō, A tank with an optional 6 German Rot Turkis Discus fish added to, Wikimedia Commons. Image License: Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0), Creative Commons.
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Knowing the essentials of a perfect discus fish tank will bring you one step closer to being able to raise small discus to full maturity. Here are some guidelines to get you started on the right track:
The Fish Tank for Discus Fish – Essential Guidelines
1. The minimum size for a species tank that will house discus fish 24”across. Don’t put your discus fish in any other tank that is smaller than 24”, as the water volume will not be enough to raise healthy fish. Use a smaller tank only as a temporary quarantining area for new or sick fish.
2. Tank cycling is an S.O.P. (standard operating procedure), regardless of what species you are planning to keep. The minimum time for cycling is one week. Seasoned aquarists may even insist to cycle a tank for a whole five weeks before keeping discus fish there.
With the price of discus fish rising every year, it’s not surprising that private breeders and professional aquarists are not willing to take any chances with their new discus stocks.
3. An ideal tank has three kinds of filtering systems installed: biological, chemical, and mechanical. The biological system will take care of the ammonia by encouraging the growth of beneficial bacteria that will denitrify the water.
A chemical system, on the other hand, will absorb and disable other chemical compounds that may build up in the water. The water in your tank is called a “system” because several natural processes occur in it without your knowing it.
Finally, a mechanical filtration system will take care of solid waste and other fragments that the two other systems cannot get rid of. Mechanical filters are often equipped with a simple floss mesh that traps large particles in the water. All three systems require electricity in order to work, because water has to be pumped through the system and back to the tank. The renewal of the water has to be done continuously to maintain high water quality in the tank.
4. The recommended pH for a discus tank is 6.5 to 7. Commercial discus strains will thrive is moderately hard water, while the wild strain prefers softer and more acidic tank water.
At this point in time, it is a wise move if you purchase a water hardness testing kit and a pH testing kit, so you can monitor your water closely. Zeolite may be used if the ammonia in the water is getting out of control.
Zeolite is loaded into a chemical filter as a substitute filtering media. This mineral traps the ammonia until it can’t absorb the chemical anymore. If the water is getting too acidic, an alkaline buffer may be purchased to control the acidity. If the water is getting too alkaline, acidifying agents may be used as well.
Now that you know all about the perfect tank, perhaps you could start thinking about, and planning for, some discus fish tank mates! 🙂
More INFO: Buy Discus Fish, Discus Fish Types Pictures, Keep Discus Fish, Raising Discus Fish, Exotic Discus Fish for Sale << HERE!
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