Reddit reviews Kerick Valve MA252 PVC Mini Float Valve, Tank Mount, Adjustable Arm, 1.5 gpm at 60 psi, 1/4" Tube

Okay. I'll play. You CAN go "cheap". I breed the little fuckers by the hundreds. But essential is a subjective word in this discus world. Give me a minute and i'll post what I think is essential.

For me: The essentials are


1. THE WATER (keep it clean for discus if you want them to grow)

The water in the aquarium has to be initially ideal. For me, this means using RO water. Super soft which the fish love and less than 200 microsiemens on my EC/TDS meter. You can definitely go cheaper, but I own this to see how my RO is doing and to see the water hardness. Discus like less than 200 microsiemens from my experience.

Despite what most people will tell you about RO's, I've had pretty great experience with one I bought off of craigslist. The most important piece is the membrane, which you can always replace. I think I paid 45 for the 5 stage one I have and 30 for the membrane AFTER year of having it just because I wanted to changed it. I filled 2 of the 3 first stages with Catalytic activated carbon that I bought in bulk. I thought I'd need to replace it every 3-6 months with how often I do water changes, but its been trucking along about a year now with the initial fill. Again, you should check your own refuse water for chlorine periodically to make sure your membrane isn't getting damaged when your carbon does eventually get old and ineffective.

I have a big 30 gallon skinny trash can with the filtrate from the RO emptying into it through a float valve.. When the thing gets full the RO is shut off. You also want to think about getting a pump inside the trash can to send the cleaned water to the aquariums easily through a hose or something. The extra "waste" water is carbon filtered but not membrane filtered, so its very alkaline. I often will add some of this water back into the aquarium via gallon bucks if I think the alkalinity is off or the TDS is too low. I shoot for 150ish but never more than 200. Eggs get more fertilized if they are laided in low TDS water.


2.SUMP AND THE BIOFILTER (Its like the liver of your system)
Do not go with HOB or canister filters. Invariably you will forget to change the carbon or clean the canister and it will go to crap suddenly.
You could go with expensive acrylic wet/dry systems that are prebuilt, but my FAVORITE and never ever leaked or over filled sump has been a 25lbs dog food container I got from the container store. It fits perfectly under my aquarium in the cabinet. That is only good for holding your water though.

You still need a place for your bacteria to grow inside of this container. I used bioballs, but i've experimented with lava rocks and other more naturally available media. Bioballs are easiest to move around or clean. I put them inside of little baskets that I ziptied together. The top basket is filled with filter floss (the crap some pillows get stuffed with) to capture floating debris. They are relatively small to my trash can sump so that I could easily see the pump at the bottom of my sump or move them around. This setup with aerate your water. You can get an airpump for emergencies, but you don't really need it. On the other hand you might want to enclose it a little bit since water likes to evaporate.



3. WATER FLOW PUMP and VEINS

A good pump on the floor of my sump. I can't remember if I used the 4000 or the 5000. Either way that brand is pretty quiet and dependable IF YOU DON'T run the water level low in the sump or suddenly have a leak somewhere else. Its simple. Just pump the water from the sump into the aquarium. Try not to have any right angles so you don't slow the flow.

You have to read up on wet/dry filters to see if you want the learning curve headache of dealing with routing water flows. What you want essentially is a system where the water will drain out of the aquarium as fast or a little slower than it comes into the aquarium, but not so fast that you end up with a sucking sound in your drain pipe that will drive you mad.
OUT
My latest SUPER CHEAP "overflow" has been a series of PVC pipes shaped into U's fitted with an aqualifter pump. I got the instructions from here essentially while modifying it to fit my needs. These little pumps are cool because if I loose power or siphon in my overflow, they will pump out the air and keep on pumping water without breaking down. Very useful little discovery. Never again have I had to jump start my siphon do it manually. I put a strainer over the pvc pipe in the aquarium just to keep it from catching any fish. Just lead the water into floss to catch junk.

As to how much water flow, I've seen breeders with as low a 2 turn overs per hour to as high as 5 or 7. Just experiment with your setup.

EXTRAS
IF you change your water often and keep it out of strong light for a while the bacteria will adapt to eating organic waste. IF you don't want to do that or ever worry about it, you can get a UV sterilizer from ebay and also a nice set of lights. I buy mine from topdogsellers, BUT you should know that my UV sterilizer started leaking about 6 months in. I had to place it into that big sump I mentioned earlier to keep it from leaking on the floor. Still works like a champ despite its leak. Its submersible so whatevs.

I keep a bare aquarium spare the place to lay eggs because its easier to drain the aquarium that way of crap. You can go to homedepot and buy a 30 foot acrylic tube and fit a pvc pipe into it to suck up the bottom of the aquarium out into your yard or bath tub. I'm sure you will figure it out.

You might not NEED a water heater depending on where you live, but I highly recommend it. Discus are often imported and hence come from places with parasites. Water temperature can help kill quite a few of these while boosting fish growth and encouraging good immune responses. Salt ( IN LESS THAN 200 microsiemens) can also help. Eventually you will learn all about prazi and other meds like Clout. I recommend this water heater since it won't shatter if you make any sudden changes to water temperature which you should strive to never to but may at some point need to .

Food can be made from beef heart and if you can train your fish to accept it your pocket book will thank you. Water changes will be important if you go this route as it can messy up quite a bit. If you are filthy rich feed them blackworms from california. Look it up. They are clean of parasites and don't die and dirty up your water. Fish LOVE them.

Let me know if you have any questions.

For what it's worth, here's how I solved the small tank problem:

https://i.imgur.com/ESjNxmv.png

I bought a check valve from amazon:
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B010JAQZK4

How this works: normally, the tank is full of water. That water goes through the finishing filter and to my fridge, icemaker, and faucet upstairs. When I open the valve shown in my picture there, RO water starts to flow into my kettle. It runs (with the same system you have), at about 1.5-2 gallons/hour. Because of the check valve, the tank stays full, and the fridge, icemaker, and faucet upstairs CONTINUE to have a full supply of water while my kettle fills. Unless I use 3 gallons of water from the fridge/faucet upstairs while the kettle is filling, (I don't use water that fast), my wife and kids never notice the service interruption. Finally, I use a float valve, mounted to a stick and clamped to the side of the kettle, to ensure I don't overflow. This way I can fill at 1.5 gal/hr over night.

Now - the water in the kettle doesn't go through the finishing filter, but all that filter is meant to do is remove off flavors from the water having sat in the tank. Since the kettle water never hits the tank, no worries. It tastes perfect, and measures nice and low on TDS, (in fact, my brewing water has lower TDS than my tank water, because the tank water suffers from TDS creep)

http://www.amazon.com/ss/customer-reviews/B0077RAX4W/ref=?_encoding=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0

I used this, and added another air tank the same size to it, to ensure that the water in the tank would have enough pressure to close the valve all the way. I've seen some people that used an electronic version that just tripped closed when the water hit a certain level.

I had the same issue, lost track of how many times I flooded my grow space forgetting the water barrel. Ive been using this one in my barrels for years now with 0 issues. Easily handles home water pressure. Use it with a hose to 1/4" adapter and good to go for cheap.

http://www.amazon.com/Kerick-Valve-MA252-Float-Adjustable/dp/B0077RAX4W?ie=UTF8&psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_search_detailpage