December '11 - Paulo Freitas's 576 L Discus Aquarium. (Brazil)

We end the year with a portentous planted aquarium, which houses a motley collection of discus fish from various lineages. Merry Christmas to all and see you in 2012!

Owner:	Paulo Freitas, 30, from Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), 7 years of fishkeeping.
Setup:	October 2008.
Dimensions:	160x60x60 cm.
Volume:	576 L (nominal), 500 L (effective).
Filtration:	2 Jebo 839 canister filters, 1500 L/h each.
Lighting:	6x40 W fluorescents: 2 Power-glo (8 h), 2 Aqua-glo (7 h), 2 Grolux (6 h) + 4x15 W compact daylight fluorescent bulbs (4 h).
Heating:	2x300 W Atman.
Substrate:	Prodac Humus Plus + Sera Floredepot (1,5 cm) and pool filter sand (7 cm).
Decoration:	Rocks and driftwood.
Others:	9 W UV filter, 6 timers for the lamps, 1 automatic feeder, 2 kg CO2 cylinder with solenoid.
Water:	Temp 30°C, pH 6.6, GH 3, KH 2, Fe 0.5 ppm, O2 11 ppm.
Maintenance:	Weekly 20% water changes, pruning only when the plants reach the water surface (varies a lot). I use fertilizer for the plants and vitamins for the fish. For the water I use Seachem Prime and Sera Phosvec filter media.
Fauna:	14 Discus: 1 red turquoise, 1 blue turquoise, 1 pigeon, 1 pigeon blood, 1 blue diamond, 1 snow white, 1 blue white spot (jade), 1 red marlboro, 1 red dragon, 1 red map, 1 golden blue snake face, 1 red white spot, 1 red white, 1 eruption; 30 cardinal tetras, 20 black neon tetras, 15 rummynose tetras, 2 neon rainbowfish, a variety of bottom species and lots of shrimps.
Flora:	Heteranthera zosterifolia, Micranthemum umbrosum, Lobelia minima, Limnophila aromatica, Rotala wallichii, Ludwigia 'Pantanal', Hygrophila balsamica and others that I won and still haven't identified.
Comments:	Up to now I haven't had many problems with fish losses (only neons). Because I do a lot of water changes I don't always check the water parameters, only if there's something going on in the tank, since it's quite stabilized. I still have brush algae, but I've been removing slow growing plants, rocks and driftwood to get rid of them. I'm also controlling phosphate, I still haven't solved the brush algae problem but they've reduced a lot. One of the worst algae blooms was with cyanobacteria (looks like a green carpet) that destroyed my glossostigmas and my minimas. I used pharmacy medicine (erythromycin), for each 100 L I added 250 mg and solved it. Be careful with CO2 injection in the tank, I had a problem with a solenoid that didn't turn off at night and the morning after all the fish were gasping at the surface. I did a 60% water change and let an air pump on all day long to help get things back to normal with the fish breathing. For anyone planning a similar setup, I observe that you need to set a priority: discus or flora. Mine is discus, I do whatever is needed for the discus to be well.

If you'd like to submit an aquarium for Tank of the Month, just contact me.

Multicolored strains of discus fish to collect

Older photo, with plants in need of a good pruning

Photos taken by Paulo Freitas and displayed here with his permission.