jwcarlson

Ah, yes, the random cichlid murder spree.

I wipe down the sides/bottom/back of my discus tank about once a week. With heavy water changes I basically have no visible algae in my discus tank ever except on the bottom side of the lids occasionally. I suppose if I didn't do that, it would probably grow quite a bit. A paper towel does the job just fine as long as I keep up with wiping down. If it's tough to reach, you can wad up the paper towel and use a big pair of tweezers, I do that on a couple of deeper tanks. That said, it will absolutely be a pain having it up against a pitched ceiling because it will somewhat limit your access.

@Cjbear087 Make sure to consider how you're going to keep the area behind the 3D background clean. Especially if you're going to being growing out your discus. And, given your water... just a reminder that you don't have a lot of wiggle room before things will go sideways fast. I'd save the 3D background for adulthood (or ditch it entirely) and opt for something external when you're growing them out.

Seems like you're not cycled. From the FAQs on the Seachem website: Seachem - Prime

I went on ebay or something similar and bought a big brick of melomine foam blocks for next to nothing many years ago (like $10 for 100 blocks kind of cheap). I'm not even sure where they are in the house right now, but I've got one that I use for aquariums and it holds up just fine. The thin sheets, I would think wouldn't hold up very well. 95% of the time I just use a paper towel folded into a square. Works great.

Hard water with my sensitive fish can make the journey more difficult, but it doesn't mean you can't do it. I've had pretty good luck with all sorts of soft water fish in my liquid rock water. I will say that discus have been especially challenging now that I've had them for the last couple of years. I'm struggling with an on going infection inside of at least one of my fish. But that's besides the point for here. With most of your bog standard fish from Petco/Petsmart, they'll likely be just fine in your water. I breed sterbai corydoras in my liquid rock. Same with CPDs, furcata rainbows, bristlenose plecos... there's a ton of options with just your normal tap water in almost every circumstance. But it can present challenges. I think you'll be fine with what you've got most likely.

I'm sure every fish is different, but none of mine act scared/stressed/etc during or after a water change... even in the tanks that I change water in infrequently. My discus are left on the bottom of the tank completely on their side with fins out of the water and they'll start eating as soon as there's enough water that they're upright. Unless I forget water conditioner. The rams will attack my hands and the tube if they have recently had fry. But everything else just carries on. And I usually don't do water changes much less than 75%. In tanks with fry and big mats of hornwort, there's almost no swimming space left. And I might leave them at that drained state for 20-30 minutes. I drain all the tanks I'm changing water in until I'm ready to refill. Most fish seem happy for water changes, honestly. But I always use aged water at the exact same temperature as the tank (unless I'm trying to trigger a spawn or something).

I'd be more concerned about why you think your fish "hate water changes".

I do not believe that's a legitimate concern. 🙂

You're over complicating it. And making it too big (in my opinion). I would run one header just above your top tank and run all my drops from there. No siphon issue that way.

I'd be more concerned with it draining out onto the floor than into the pump. The problem with check valves is they cause a drop in pressure, which basically "consumes" air. Anything below the water level could get water in it. But if your pump is lower and the PVC header farther up, then you will be fine. The worry would be if it's lower and it could fill up your header and there's inevitably a small leak somewhere. Granted, this is pretty low risk, but you might even decide to shut off the air for maintenance or something.

It's hard to get an exact scale, but they look pretty small? They look most like sterbai, but I'm not an expert by any means. However, the pattern isn't normal if they're sterbai. And they have zero hint of the orange pectoral fins.

I doubt the GH is an issue, but not seeing any nitrates seems like your tank might not be cycled. But it could be that your plants are keeping it all down. On another note, I have had absolutely terrible luck with bettas. I've been keeping fish for 25 years and bettas just never seem to last very long for me. I've only ever had 3 or 4, but they just don't seem to do well for me. Meanwhile some kindergarten teacher probably has one in a quart of water that's never been changed for the last six years. 😄

Ask your co-worker how he got them to quit breeding. 🤣

I don't know that the pipes need to be higher up out of necessity, but mine are up out of the way. It works. Yours could be lower. Mine is not a "loop". It's just a long stretch that I've bent into a U. Maybe I'm getting away with it because my pump is oversized for what I need. I will say that the end of the line does seem to have a bit less pressure. But it's not horrible. I could pretty easily cut into it and complete the "loop". I have no plans on expanding anything, so I should be good like this. I would guess you could get by with the same setup. Here's a way simplified version that's in my fishroom's... side room. 😄 Separate pump, it just a couple tanks, couple aging barrels, and a couple brine shrimp hatchers. This type of setup would be plenty for your setup, I would think. Just make it the width of your tank and pre-assemble two drops per tank on average. There's different colored PVC or paint that sticks to PVC that you could use if you want it to blend in a little better. I didn't glue or seal any of my joints. I don't hear any leaks, but I'm sure there's some loss. If needed I want to be able to disassemble and reconfigure. Both of the airpumps that I'm using are fairly quiet, but I'm not sure they're "living room" quiet. It might make sense to run something through a wall and put your pump in a different room or a closet. Not sure about your house layout, but that's something to consider. Edit to add: one of the benefits of having it all up above water level is there's no chance of a siphon starting if your pump fails.