In wall 75

[Steve]

Gonna start this post here, just picked this up tonight. Gonna do this as an in wall tank, planning maybe discus as of now but not 100% sure, we'll see. Should be a 2-3month build probably. Gonna do a 3d background and maybe some 3d BG on the wall as well, kind'a a mini build as my 265g office tank was with the rock wall, but not sure. We'll see how it unfolds

[Regalblue]

Looking forward to following this build.

[Steve]

It's gonna be a fun one. Not on the level of the 265g one I did before.( I do miss that) but still fun for me and enjoyable for all those here hopefully. We'll see how it goes.

[Ron]

I'm looking forward to following along. 

[Steve]

Well after a full day or building rods I ended up with a few spare hours this evening so decided to get started on this and not put it off. Gotta try to get what work done when I can.

Started out with areal mess in the utility room where I plan for the tank to go so had to clean all that up before any real work could be done. Quick shot of inside the utility room as well as the view from the front.




After getting all that area cleaned up it was time to cut out some braces on the wall that would prevent the tank from mounting flush with the wall itself. Ran into an issue with the footing of the wall. Even though this is not a structural wall at all the footing has to stay because it's old pine board tongue & groove so it needs the footing to help it support the boards. So after thinking about it for awhile I decided the best way to do it would be to build a base that the entire stand would sit on that would be level with the existing footer. That way the stand&tank will fit right up snug to the backside of the wall.

In this pic it is just mocked up with a single board the thickness of the existing footer just to make sure it'll fit good. So tomorrow I'll be headed to Lowes to get some lumber and build a solid base under the stand, then it'll be time to cut the rest of the opening down to fit the tank. Nothing pretty yet but it's just the grunt work right now.

[Steve]

Opening roughed in, new wood base under the stand is done, tank is leveled and just leak testing now. Long way to go but starting to see the direction I want to go with it now.

[Ogre44]

Woot, Steve's back and building another one!!!

[Steve]

Well you guys know me, I can not leave well enough alone. IMO anything worth doing, is worth OVER doing

So with that in mind, I spent the past two days working on changing the "utility room" behind the future discus tank into a "Discus tank support room"   ....Lots of cleaning, scrapped and painted the walls flat white, cleaned the floor and painted smoke grey, mounted some shelves for food and support gear, cleaned and painted the tub, added some area rugs, added 20g tank and stand for over wintering my Koi (still need to pick up another 20g for that tomorrow).

The "support room" for the discus is about done.

[kodyboy]

Looks awesome as always:)

[Steve]

Picked up an FX5 the other day for filtration on the Discus tank. Slowly but surely getting there.

[kodyboy]

That will be a well filtered 75!

[Steve]

Yeah I figure with only 6-8 Discus that should do the job. From what I have heard they require very good water quality so I wanted to make sure I didn't skimp on the filtration.

[Ron]

Yeah I figure with only 6-8 Discus that should do the job. From what I have heard they require very good water quality so I wanted to make sure I didn't skimp on the filtration.

For all the fishroom threads I've read through the years, a number of people who raise discus keep them on nothing but simple sponge filters. I'm really starting to believe that the "best filtration" something that is simply sufficient coupled with a rigid water-changing schedule.

[Steve]

Yeah I figure with only 6-8 Discus that should do the job. From what I have heard they require very good water quality so I wanted to make sure I didn't skimp on the filtration.

For all the fishroom threads I've read through the years, a number of people who raise discus keep them on nothing but simple sponge filters. I'm really starting to believe that the "best filtration" something that is simply sufficient coupled with a rigid water-changing schedule.

Honestly Ron, I have no idea what to believe to be honest. The past month I have been reading / Goggling all sorts of stuff. I joined numerous FB Discus pages, joined "Simpley Discus" online, and other pages/forums. There's so much info out there that just seems to contradict itself that I have no idea what to believe. Some guys say 50% daily water changes, which I tend to think is just crazy, how could any water quality go bad in 24hrs, but I dunno. Others say twice per week 75 %, others say big filters work best, others sponge filters....I dunno man.

My theory - Over filter it with a FX5, do twice per week 75% WC's and just see how they do and go from there ya know. We'll see.

[cranialdisturbance]

Discus are just very sensitive to any dissolved metabolites in the water.  I heard of one breeder who ran no filters on his discus tanks but did 80% water changes daily.  I would just keep tabs on your nitrate levels and try to keep them as low as possible.