160g Discus Journal

[tbui1178]

While you're taking pictures of your wife's tank, stop by and take pictures of Randall's too! lol.

[FrontosaurusRex]

ok. here are some pics of the new 75g tank. its temporarily holding all the Discus, Angels and Rummy Nose Tetras until they are old enough to be seperated. The background is painted "Lilac". I'm not sold on the color and I have a few other options i'm gonna experiment with.

[myjohnson]

I like the scape dude.

Nice open space for the fishes to swim!

[ssrprelude]

I like it, good job Nikki.

[cichlid1409]

i like the background, i think its the black substrate thats throwing it off . still looks kinda empty. good start though i just think it needs some plant or somethin.

[myjohnson]

yeah, plants would give it a nice look.

I'm also not a big fan of black sand but to each his own.

[FrontosaurusRex]

I think when we transfer everything into the 160g, i'll switch substrates and try to either add some thin driftwood pieces or some plants. I kind of liked the emptiness of the tank. I thought it looked kind of "artistic". LOL. I really wanna try to do something completely different with these Discus.

[wesleydnunder]

I've seen some really nice biotope discus tanks with just driftwood and white sand. Can you get some closer pics of the discus?

Mark

[Mzungu]

I kinda like the black sand, actually. :) I think it really enhances the rocks and the background color. But it might look totally different when the discus are bigger, so who knows? I like it, though, nice job!

The whole "look" of the tank reminds me of something that I can't quite figure out...I'll have to think on it some more.

[Darbex]

I wouldnt use dark or black sand with the discus they will darken their colors to match their surroundings and you wont get the full color of your discus.

[nikkijean1]

thanks for the opinions, i really am not crazy about the pic we posted, it doesnt do it justice, i think it looks much better in person, the black sand was one of my favorite parts but it may not work in the long run for discus, but i def like the look it has, but like i said the pics just dont show it off....but i am sure that is true with alot of tanks...

[FrontosaurusRex]

I like the scape. I think its different and original. I dont think this scape is going to work for discus in the long run but this would make a sick African tank. I think I'm gonna lighten the background color, use PFS and add a few pieces of driftwood as accents. I like the big rocks though. I think they look really clean with the Discus. I'll switch it up this weekend and post some more pics next week.

[Matt in Houston]

I would leave the background alone and play with the lighting first....changing bulbs can dramatically change the look without having to repaint. Also the lighter sand is going to reflect more light against the background and that will help to lighten it up a little as well.

Good luck, and thumbs up from me I personally like the paint color....I also agree with light colored sand for discus tanks..

[Darbex]

Dont take my post the wrong way you can put discus with dark substrate its just in my opinion they just dont show their brightest with dark substrates as they do with lighter ones. I noticed a difference in my wilds when I was using Warehouse PFS compared to Leslies PFS as Leslies is a lighter hue and my wilds are much brighter now.

[Darbex]

Here is a good example look at the post from Alex R near the bottom of the page he shows his discus on a brown substrate compared to a white substrate and you can see a major difference

http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showthread.php?t=68304&highlight=dark+substrate&page=2