Let's start at how I keep my aquariums. I really try and setup my tanks in such a way that they would be healthy little ecosystems with a minimal interference from me as the tank keeper. This means that there must be a balance between all the organisms in the tank. Organisms would be the fish, plants, algae, snails and other micro-organisms. Doing this right keeps the fish healthy and the can cope better with minor fluctuations in the ecosystem like changing water quality or temperature fluctuations. Once my bought fish are acclimatized, I rarely experience losses.

The current discus tank was used as a goldfish tank before and was not cleaned out for a few years:

  I February 2015, I decided to try my hand at keeping discus. This is how the tank was set up:

The substrate was a mix of compost, manure, peat and gravel.

 The substrate placed between the rocks:

 The plants planted and sprayed to keep them wet:

 Water slowly added:

 Very dirty-from above:

 Very dirty- from the front:

 The filter system:

One day later:

 Eight days later I added the guppies to run in the tank and start producing fry as food for the discus:

 The gravel on top of the substrate:

 The discus added - they did not like the guppy fry. Lost quite a few discus because they were in a bad condition when I bought them:

 

The tank over time:

The discus did not eat the guppies, and this is where the guppy breeding started. In the next post I will show the guppies I used to start my lines.