Spicy Reef

Not giving up on the discus just yet, while i've always had a planted tank someone mentioned I should try some large amazon sword? somehow it's like putting their heads in the sand, if they float between a few blades they feel protected? anyone hear of this? the type B and C's hang out at the bottom in the grass mostly so maybe....

So I put the number 2 bad guy in with number 1, and this happened...

Does anyone think this will be a problem? I super glued some nylon strapping with super tight tension around the rim... I stitched the strapping with sailors waxed thread (more like nylon string) and superglued the overlap as well.

My Discus... I have 4, and they are all bullies. I started off with a nicely aquascaped tank, rocks and plants for hiding etc... added 4 discus all got along fine for the first few months then one of them started herding the other three behind and under a large rock. when feeding time came, I put food all over the tank. this is the recommended plan by the discus king breeder who Cory visited many moons ago. It kind of makes sense unless you have a serious bully, this guy went out of his way to herd the other 3 during feeding time. He would grab a bite then thrash the others around and keep them from eating. I thought at the time they must still be getting enough food as they would come out during feeding. Finally one day I removed the rocks and the smallest one was so sad looking. The big bully was twice its size, all 4 were the same size when I got them. I couldn't find anything online how to deal with this. that's why I put him in jail. When I did this, the next largest started bullying the remaining two! Has anyone else had to deal with this?

Nice find, thanks! Do you have a thread going on ur nuvo 10?

Thank you so much for that well thought out reply. Yeah, I love my planted freshwater. My daughter has a nano 10g she's been cultivating through this pandemic. A-coop has been a nice floatation device, love the store and all the employees we've met. It's funny you mention more water more stability, I totally and wholeheartedly agree, that's one of the reasons I went for it with the 150g instead of a 75 w/ sump.... but I know how this hobby is and ur right I should plan for a sump down the road 🙂 I watched Cory drill some of those tanks and I'm giving it some serious thought. I kept all the "live" rock I had from 20 years ago, I always put it in a rock garden in the backyard everywhere I moved, weird eh, I added most of it to my freshwater tank... and a month ago i put it all in a 7 gallon bucket w/ salt - been dosing it daily with live rock enhance, caribisea purple up, and ammonium chloride to try and bring it back to life. I picked up some "live" sand yesterday and put it all in a 20g long. petco is having their sale right now.

This site has an amazing amount of data, I'm going to need a major cleanup crew to sift through it all. Many moons ago I started with a 55g long, that was a bomb as I had no money nor understanding of anything! 10 years later I went at it again with a 30g. I was fairly successful it lasted two years. Looking back I owe my success I think to the live rock which was plentiful in the day... but I moved around back then and the tank suffered and lay in my wake... Now I'm back, hopefully with much more patience, armed with the internet and a few years accumulated knowledge. I kept that 30g tank and have had it up and running for 2 years with discus (bunch of bullies!) candy cane tetras, neon tetras and cherry shrimp - planted of course. I came across a 150g on facebook and thought, why not... So i'm here for the full critique. In the past I built my own 5g bucket sump with diy hang-on overflow for that 30g - that was a lot of fun ;(... I did get it working, but now I'm going to have a go with an internal overflow, and/or maybe sit-on-top diy using gutter or something... I don't plan on more than a handful of critters so I don't feel like I "need" a sump. I just need to polish the water and keep it moving. Coral... I don't know, we'll see, that means par par par NO live rock these days??? anyone know where I might pick up 10lbs or so in Seattle? I am only as far as building the stand... Here's a short vid of it: https://youtu.be/kCYVSYZbLdg

All I could do in 1 day

I everybody, Nice forum! Thanks for getting this going Cory! I got back into this about a year ago... many years back I had a 30 gallon saltwater. This was my first tank. I really should have started with fresh water as the saltwater route has way too many equipment tangents for me to get lost on. After about 2-3 years of fumbling in the dark - no internet at the time (dates me) I ended up being successful with a very simple setup. I would have started with salt again, but I came across discus! Cool, so I fetched my 30 gallon out of the shed... bing bang boom I've been off to the races 🙂