re: Chasing the impossible dream

To: Aquatic plants list <aquatic-plants at actwin_com>
Subject: re: Chasing the impossible dream
From: Cynthia Powers <cyn at metronet_com>
Date: Wed, 18 Sep 1996 23:15:32 -0500 (CDT)

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 18 Sep 1996 11:37:00 -0500 (EST)
From: DIONIGI MALADORNO <MALADORD%A1%RNISD0 at mr_nut.roche.com>
Subject: Planted Discus tank
To: AQUATIC PLANTS <Aquatic-Plants at ActWin_com>

 Calvin Chin <cfc at pacific_net.sg> wrote:

<<<<<<Date: Tue, 17 Sep 1996 23:43:35 +0800
Subject: Chasing the impossible dream?

A dream of mine and many other aquarists is to keep the beautiful Discus in
a planted aquarium. However, it's always striking a balance between feeding
the fish regularly for it to be beautiful and having lots of algae problems
and having nice plants with no algae problems and starved skinny fish.>>>>>

I have been keeping a planted discus tank for more than a year now, and
after initial cyanobacteria problems (due to lack of information on how to
promote healthy plant growth), the tank has been basically algae-free for at
least six months. From this somewhat limited experience however I can say
that starving fish is absolutely not the pre-requisite for nice planted
tanks: on the contrary, if you have vigorously growing plants you are more
likely to be able to afford some extra input of nutrients from fish waste. I
have 5 discus in a 180 gal tank , and at the last few testings I made
(nitrates, phosphates) the levels were so low that I decided to have
adequate bioload margin to add a couple more (which are currently in
quarantine). So, you can reach good plant growth with a reasonable load of
well-fed fish, and then possibly you can even slightly increase it. If you
are interested in details, I can be contacted at
dionigi.maladorno at roche_com.

Dionigi