Ready for Discus?

>> Hello: I entered the hobby about 6 months ago after a 15 year break.
>> Have a 55 gallon tank. Canister filter and Biowheel on the back. 6.7
>> pH, 3-4 KH, 0 Ammonia ant Nitrite, less then 20ppm Nitrate. 3 to 4 x
>> weekly water changes fm tap (The tap water is nice and soft.) Live
>> plants, temp 82F. I have 4 cardinals 1 pair of Blue rams 10 'black'
>> neon's, 3 cordy cats and one small pelco. Lost a cardinal or two but
>> that's it. (The rams spawned twice but I think they ate the eggs!) I'm
>> dying to try my hand at discus. I really don't want to overstock the
>> tank but as I understand it I should get about 5 or so that they won't
>> bully each other.

>
> Your tank sounds excellent for Discus. Five would be an optimal number,
> but you might have good luck with 4 instead. Alternately, go with 5 and
> if they all do well, you might not mind upgrading their tank eventually.
>

>
> Generally, bare bottom tanks are used in situations where you want to keep
> the tank very clean, such as quarantine tanks (no Ich cysts hiding in the
> gravel) and in grow-out tanks (no rotting organic matter to add to your
> NO3 and DOCs, and for visibility to maintain better control over the fry's
> progress).
>
> Because of the investment and some breeding peculiarities, Discus breeders
> use a few extra tricks, and to a greater extreme. In an effort to keep
> the water very clean (zero hormones, DOCs and NO3) they sometimes use
> massive water change routines, so bare-bottom tanks help them achieve
> this. Do not confuse specialty techniques with requirements. Discus have
> the same requirements as Angelfish, but depending on parentage can be a
> bit more particular about the water's hardness and about what they are
> being fed.
>

>
> Yes, for any fish you want to provide a variety of foods to meet their
> protein, mineral and vitamin requirements. If you can get the Discus to
> eat it, flake food is a good staple to build on. From there, freeze-dried
> tubifex or the frozen products (beefheart, shrimp, mysis, bloodworms or
> custom Discus preparations) are added. There are a number of live
> cultures which are not hard to maintain as well. It just depends on your
> threshold. My routine was to feed dried foods in the morning
> (freeze-dried, pellets, flakes etc) and wet in the evenings (frozen foods
> or live). If you try to spoil your Discus, they will have you trained in
> short order ;~), however their culinary tastes tend to go to very rich
> foods (Discus delight, bloodworms, beefheart) which lack fibre (which I
> think accounts for 50% of a wild fish's diet) and other nutrients.
> Typically I keep about 5 or 6 foods on hand, a few dry (flake, algae
> wafers and pellets) and some frozen (shrimp, daphnia & bloodworms) and
> this takes care of 99.8% of the various fish in my care.
>