Oscars to Discus

Ok so we got rid of the two monster Oscars. I want to change the tank over to a Discus tank. Would black gravel look good? And what is everyone's opinion of under gravel filters. We were at a little Mom and Pop type fish store today and the lady has about 100 tanks in there and they are crystal clear. I asked her how she keeps them in such good shape for having that many tanks. Oh also not a sick fish in any of them. She said that all she ever uses are under gravel filters and all she has to do is about a 3g water change on the tanks a week plus a little vacuuming of the gravel. Sounded to me to be much easier the the canister type filters or the sponge filters. What do you think? I'm thinking of doing it in this tank for the Discus.

Personally I don't like UGF mainly because they greatly increase the risk of food getting stuck in them and rotting away. Discus eat lots of meaty type foods that make tank cleaning a fairly often thing. Some people will vac out food after every meal, that might be a bit much but if you let it go for a few days and do a vac. you will see what I mean. The food grows fungus quickly and fouls the water much easier then say flake foods.

You have to watch your Nitrates a little more closely then with other fish so that decomposing fish food will work against you. Not to mention that they are very hard to clean should anything get in there. I know that over time my pipes get some scum build up naturally and the same would happen to those pipes but the problem is I can't just tear the tank down to clean them.

Sponge filters are about as easy as it gets. Squeeze the filter once a week or two in some water change bucket and your set. They of course don't provide the mechanical filtration of a canister but I personally would be using the gravel vac often enough it wouldn't matter. Depending on how heavily you stock and how fast your Nitrates come up you could go half a week/week without a gravel vac but your going to have to be mindful to not over feed and foul the water.

Canisters are a good inbetween especially if the one you have is easy to take apart and clean. What's even better is if you have a canister filter and stick a sponge pre filter on the intake you can easily remove the sponge and get all the large debris out and then once every two+ week check inside to see how things are going.

All the normal stuff you just have to maintain excellent water quality and be willing to do a little extra work for discus but I can tell you one thing for sure... they are really a rewarding fish to have!

Gravel is really up to you. Some discus will eat their food off the ground, they blow and and stir it up then eat it so an easy to clean gravel is all that is really important. Nothing too course that food easily gets caught in it and you would be good.

OK thanks so much for all the info.

A lot of people don't use any substrate with there discus. The guy I by my discus from has two display tanks with florite and live plants and canister filrers. His breeding and fry tanks are mt with sponge filters. I am running a renamed xp4 on a 90g with 8 discus and some tetrasand cory catfish.

Yup bare bottom tanks are a very common thing for discus due again to the feeding issues. Much easier to see uneaten food in a bare tank. Substrate is fine though as long as you thoroughly clean it.

Ok thanks. I usually keep my tanks bare bottoms but I thought I'd try something different but maybe I'll just stike with the bare bottom.