Planted Discus

My local fish store started carrying Stendker Discus. I have always wanted to run a discus tank but in the old days running a discus tank meant catering to a very sensitive fish. With  Stendker’s line of tank bread discus used to standard tap water quality running a discus tank is much easier.

Having grown tired of the bad tap water in my area, very hard and (Nitrate 40 ppm), I recently invested in a 4 stage RO filter. I used to run my water through a a nitrate filter but in the last two years or so this has become a hopeless exercise, the nitrate filter gets saturated in just a few water changes.

I had also grown tired of the Amazonia substrate which is nice for plant growth but slowly falls apart and also accumulate lots of detritus which is hard to remove once the substrate has been filled up with plant roots.

So about half a year ago I took down the tank and changed the substrate to sand. The sand should keep any dirt on top of the substrate where I can easily siphon  it during water changes.