when i came to the conclusion that the 700 gallon would look absolutely phenomenal with a school of
piranha and a school of tetras i had to make that move i was sold on it i couldn't think of any
other direction i wanted to go with it it was just so inspiring and i thought it would uh turn out to
be absolutely amazing turns out it did with their tank empty though i decided i'm going to re-escape
it and put the fish that were essentially in a holding tank into it and in doing so
we created a beautiful south american tank however that left this aquarium
bare that was a few weeks ago i went to the store and i seen a bunch of cool fish and you know i'm
just browsing around looking around but i did come across this one tank and i seen it from a distance
and all i said was all i could see was not for sale we all want what we can't have so of course
i had to go and see what it was and it turns out it was a pair of discus and i thought oh that's
awesome but i also thought no you know what we raised discus for years i spent 10 years with them
and you know i don't want to do a breeding tank and then a grow-out tank and then an even bigger
grow tank and you know i don't want to go through those motions of like professionally
breeding discus but then i thought you know what i've never done before kept discus with the intent
to breed them in a naturally set up aquarium and if i were to ever do that how would i go about
it obviously i kind of want to start off with the sand in the natural tank a lot of times we do want
to see a sand i went with a very fine brown sand for a couple of reasons color was important there
and when you are getting into discus a lot of the times the color of your scape highly affects
the coloration of the discus fine sand for a very simple reason i'm not doing bare bottom
this isn't going to be like a sterile discus breeding tank like i've shown you many times
how to do in the past and the biggest reason for doing that is it's so easy to remove uneaten food
fish waste detritus anything like that that's just polluting the tank when it comes to substrates the
finer the substrate the more likely that all of that's just going to simply settle on top
and you can easily remove it with a gravel vacuum the other pro to using a fine sand with discus
is these guys are still a cichlid they are still going to dig but they have the mouth similar to
like an angelfish a very tiny mouth that if they want to dig and uh display natural behaviors it's
going to be much more difficult for them to do so with a more coarse gravel so fine sand
was used here and it turns out it's the sand that was already in here and it's already saturated
with nitrifying bacteria so bonus there now it comes to rocks now discus are an adhesive ag layer
they're going to lay eggs to a surface but here's the kicker you could put in a rock and hope that
they will lay on it but they're probably going to lay it on your filter intake or your heater or the
glass itself a lot of the times it doesn't matter where you where you think they're going to lay
they're going to lay it wherever they want so what i've decided to do is take a couple of stone piles
and give them two distinct options with the ability to swim behind and hide behind and find
refuge as well with that said we are using almost like river stones that are smooth and that will be
ideal for them to even want to lay eggs ensuring that they're also in earth and i've made a video
in the past showing you how to do the chemical reactions with rocks that you might find out in
the wild or in your backyard and if you want to make sure they're safe for your aquarium
watch that video when it came to the wood this is actually a combination of malaysian bogwood
as well as some manzanita the manzanita the couple little smaller branches but you'll notice one
thing uh between them the wood is mostly smooth and rounded discus can scatter in the light or if
you walk by or something you know it doesn't take very much at times and they could just scatter all
around depending on how secure they fill in the tank and you don't want them to hurt themselves
on the wood so all smooth wood i also want to use a combination of manzanita as well as malaysian uh
bogwood the bogwood simply releases tannins and gives us a more darker look to the tank
but to finish off with it looking a little more natural and added in a couple hundred miniature
uh indian almond leaves or katapa leaves these are going to give it a more natural look but
they're also going to release some tannins in the water and also provide with some natural
anti-fungal properties so when the discus do lay eggs if they don't fertilize them all at least
the ones that are not fertilized they're not going to rot and potentially infect any others
lighting on this is going to be incredibly simple just a couple of shop lights led shop
lights they're low in wattage it's just enough to see the fish and when it comes to breeding discus
a lot of the times if you're finding you're having too much light we could simply just kind of turn
one off and boom they could feel a little bit more secure that way with that said we do not
want total darkness a lot of times in my breeding disc is past i would even have lights over the
top i would just use ambient light and in the middle of the night i would of course have a
night light and or some sort of a lamp on close by so the fry can still find their parents the
dimly lit tank also eliminates uh chances of you know algae or anything like that because for the
most part we want to be hands off with this tank we don't want to have to continuously be cleaning
it or anything like that kind of want it to be self-sustaining so what do we do for filtration
well in a discus breeding tank low flow is going to be key uh if you want to use
some sort of it doesn't really matter if you want to use sponge filter hang on the back a
sump a canister i've shown you guys how to build all of those and bread discus doing so you know
these uh built-in uh sumps that are in the 180s i built that for a discus breeding tank and i
bred them in that but i also did it with sumps i also did it with sponge filters it doesn't really
matter as long as it's sized properly and the flow is lower than your typical aquarium shooting for a
turnover rate of about two to four times an hour so on a hundred gallon tank for example you're
only going to need a filter that's doing two to four hundred gallons per hour and that's just
based off my experience and success that i've had i also want to talk about like long-term
goals for this what are my long-term goals i'm just going to put in a pair of discus
uh and that's it i'm not going to do anything else i'm not going to take the fry out eventually wean
them off the parents and grow them out somewhere else and sell them i'm going to leave this alone
i'm going to have a parent a couple of parents and see what happens long term do they continue
to breed with the babies in there do they if they obviously if they go after the babies
and see them as a threat i'll intervene and you know and kind of obviously remove them
well i'm not looking into getting into selling discus or anything like that but i do want to
you know have an opportunity to try a natural discus tank or at least semi-natural to see
what happens now of course i know what's going to be said what about plants wouldn't plants be
natural kinda sorta i mean in the wild discus are typically found in very murky very muddy
waters with some wood and that sort of thing but they're not typically we could have done like a
beautifully planted aquarium and in my opinion if you're going to add discus to an aquarium
a planted tank is one of the worst things you can do and they typically don't work out long term a
planted aquarium that's typically high tech is so focused on co2 and nutrients and none of this
benefits the fish and the discus health tends to drop more and more the focus here is on the fish
if i'm looking to add implants then i gotta worry about lights and nutrient levels co2 potentially
and a number of other things this is all i believe that i need if you want to do something like this
and you know add your plants in go for it but in my opinion the less that you have to
the less focus you take off the fish and the more work you put into other things and you know
concerns of lighting and plants and nutrients and co2 the less success you're likely going to have
there are concerns that i have when it comes to this
tank typically speaking when i'm breeding discus i do it in a 20 to 30 gallon tank
yes you know four to six inch discus a pair do wonderfully in a 20 to 30 gallon tank uh to
breed them in it offers a sense of security you know you kind of paint all the sides of whatnot
and that is not the case with this none of the sides are painted it is a 180 gallon aquarium
so i'm a little worried of having seeing what happens there but i'm pretty sure we're going
to be okay anyways with this tank set up the next video you're likely going to see
is me going to the fish store picking up the fish doing a tour of that store you'll get to meet
that the owner and whatnot i think you're really going to enjoy that store and of course if we are
able to secure the discus that are not for sale uh we've already kind of talked this i wouldn't
have done this if i didn't know i was going to be able to get them but um so cats out of the bag i'm
allowed to buy them so when we get them home and then of course one of the next videos after that
is of course getting them home acclimating them get them in the tank and then really talk about
their necessities the parameters of the water diet uh and other needs that you guys probably
are curious and wondering about that i used to talk about for years and years on this channel
when i was breeding discus and you know i haven't really had the opportunity to do it anymore
but the things that you're gonna learn from that video you can apply to the remainder of
your hobby and i can assure you you're gonna have just as much success as i do anyways hope
you've enjoyed this video and as excited as i am to begin this journey of a naturally set up
or a natural breeding discus tank i'm not sure what what i'm going to call it but as i am but
i think you guys are if you're not subscribed to this channel yet though and this is something you
want to see make sure you are if you're not already i'll see you guys in the next video