[Rakolde]

I'm setting up a Hydor Pro 450 for pure chemical filtration but i'm not sure if it's to much and will adversely effect the fishes health. I want to acheive 0 nitrates for my discus health, this is not to avoid water changes at all just to keep the water clean as absolutely possible. I do 85% every two days and nitrates are at 30-40ppm.

Order of media will be as follows top to bottom:

Sponge

Filter Floss
Poly Filter

Chem-Zorb
Purigen

Algone
The Water Cleanser

Any advice would be appreciated! Thanks.

 

[Thaim]

What size tank do you have?
How many discus and how old are they?

Jumping to 30 ppm in a few days is a huge jump. Your nitrates should never reach over 10ppm with discus if you want them in good health and to grow as big as possible. This can be hard to achieve if you simply do not have a tank large enough or if you arent keeping up with WC's

As far a chem filteration goes I've never heard of any discus owners doing this. Just WC WC WC. Some discus breeders will even do 2 water changes a day for these guys as fry because of the amount they eat which is 1 of the reasons why these fish can get to be so expensive. You'll have healthier fish with more frequent water changes IMO.

I've only had discus for a few years and the first pair i bought i was quite inexperienced. I wasn't keeping up with wc's and it may have stunted their growth. My more recent discus purchases i upped my wc schedule to everyday and my 10 month old discus are already bigger then my 2 year olds. Just food for thought

 

[Rockman]

What's your tap water like? Have you tested it for nitrate?

 

[Rakolde]

90 Gallon aquarium with 9 discus, 6 adults(5"-6" and 3 sub-adults(4"-4.5"). I have upped water changes to every other day to 70% still get 20ppm in that amount of time. No nitrate in water source. I don't do them everyday because the amount of micro bubbles in my tap water makes their slime coat shed severely and stresses them out. I know ageing it gets rid of bubbles but that won't work for me at all as there is just no room. In the summer my tap water is perfect, almost no micro bubbles at all. The whole idea of the chemical filtration is to keep the water as clean as I can regardless of doing daily or every other day water changes . As I stated before this idea is not to avoid water changes in anyway, giving my discus the best environment is my only goal.