I can get you pictures tonight. It's built-in the wall that separates the living room with the office. The tank is viewable from
both living room and office. It's flush looking from the living room. but, the office it is in a cabinet like structure. Doors for
top access to lights and feeding and maintenance. Doors on the bottom that house one of the canister filters, water supply
and drain. Also, storage for essentials like salt, medicines tank cleaning tools and a 45 gallon water container to age water.

Very nice, gotta have that clean clear water!
Few questions- What water conditioner do you use, and what pH do they like? Do you get your fish from local stores, or have them shipped in? I don't know much about keeping Discus, other than the owner needing to have a high level of experience to keep them happy, and they sure are pretty.

it has been proven that watching fish in a tank can reduce Blood pressure and lower your heart rate .
I had a neighbor growing up that made his entire garage a three level fish tank wharehouse . At one point , he had over 200 tanks , mainly freshwater species . He even had oak barrels in his backyard to breed mosquitos to feed certain fish .
When they would go on camping vacations --- they would have me feed all those fish --- I slowly began to hate fish tanks . The humidity and stench in that garage was overwhelming

I could relate to the smell. The old days when you walked into a fish store they always stank. Changing water frequently remedies that. Fish tanks are a lot of work and can be stressful at times. Especially with Discus,
They stress out really easy and once they are stressed it seems they get sick easy. The die hard Discus folks have microscopes and medical tools to determine what worm or bacteria is causing the sickness.
I mainly take a wag and medicate.

I use Prime for conditioner and a PH of about 7.4-7.7. I do not breed Discus so my fish will tolerate a higher PH. The 10 little fellas in the tank I purchased from Discus Hans and
they are over nighted. The two bigger ones were purchased from a company called ifish and I purchased 10 and only 5 arrived alive. They sent 10 more and 3 arrived alive.
So, I stopped dealing with them. All of Hans' discus arrived alive and very active. It really is who you buy from. When we purchased our current house 11 years ago the tank
was already there. So, I have only been keeping Discus for 11 years and it has been very frustrating at times because they got sick and I was buying from people who's quality
wasn't good but where cheap in price. I frequent a form called simplydiscus.com. These folks are a wealth of information.

The last two years I have been making changes to the filtration system. I had four sponge filters that are about 1 - 1 1/2 foot tall. I removed two of them and replaced it with a
Fluval FX6 canister filter. Changing to the FX-6 made a huge difference in water quality. I have another FX-4 that I will add when I remove the other two sponge filters.

I am experimenting with a shell called "Wonder Shell" that helps replenish minerals. I haven't put one in the tank since the little fellas arrived. Hans put together a 10-pack
of discus for $250 which brought them down to my spending budget. I also buy the beef-heart mix that he sells to feed them. I feed them twice a day. supposed to be three
times. but I work.

If you decide to keep Discus I will help all I can. Clean water and beneficial bacteria is the main thing. Most Discus keepers do not have plants and substrate. My cleanup
crew ended up being little pooping factories so, I will be changing them for something new. but, they do not mess with the discus. I will also add, I will use around 50 gallons
of RO/DI water every month. I also do not chase the PH level. That is a losing battle for Discus anything below PH of 8.0 is okay.

We are doing a lot of the same.
Ive also been using Prime for a while and it works well, plus I add aquarium salt for my fish w the water changes. Also not a fan of messing with the pH, mine stays in the low 7's and fish seem happy, also heard of horror stories when people try to change the pH w chemicals and the fish can't adjust and just die. I have a FX-6 on my 225gl and will be adding an FX-4, my current stock is growing like crazy and I added a Spot and Guad Bass this month, so extra filtration is needed. Going to look up these Wonder Shells as I'm not familiar. As far as me keeping Discus, not happening right now, I don't have a tank to devote to them. My other big tank is full up w Koi, Goldfish, Orangespotted Sunfish and a few minnows..

Are the Spot and Guad Bass in their own tank ?

Those FX's are nice. They will go on sale Black Friday at Pet Smart half off.

They are in with my Sunfish, Albino Channels, and 2 other Bass.

Here you go Sir.

How do you perform the frequent water changes- what's your process? Do you have plumbing and a drain in the wall itself? I use Prime as well- it's probably the best conditioner I've ever used.

I have 250 and 190 gallon tanks with overflows and 40 gallon (home built) sump wet/dry filters with a canister backup filter on each- it's always good to have redundant filters.
A few years ago when I finally tired of weekly water changes I added LED lights above the sumps and began adding plants to the sumps. In the end, the only plant that really thrived were the common house Ivy which tends to grow like a hedge and requires trimming every few months. I do water changes every few months now.

I keep tropical fish in both tanks- the 250 has a Pacu that's almost 20 years old and roughly 24-26" inches long. The Pacu always behaved stressed for a day or so after water changes- so he's benefitted the most from the new process. The Pacu eats a mixture of a homemade flatpack that I make with veggies and some kind of fish meat and grapes/strawberries/romaine lettuce. He can knock out an entire peeled banana in around 5 seconds when hungry.

Sounds like you got a nice setup and a great routine. I do have cold water and a drain underneath the tank. I have a 45-gallon trash can under the tank. I will age the 45 gallons and
then just fill it up and pump it out into the tank. It's a tedious routine but it works. I have thought about going the sump route. but, I am hesitant because if it fails and floods the office and living room.
I have thought about getting a new tank and setup to handle auto water changes. I also have a tendancy to way over-engineer things.

I think NaconaBrian has some older threads with wilds. He as some really cool fish.

That’s very nice BT

I envy you having the drain and water supply under the tank- it has got to help so much. I can't imagine managing water changes that frequently without those. I had the dragging water hoses into and out of the house routine and tapping into the kitchen faucet headache. I will say though that my trees around the house really benefitted in the early years from getting that weekly fertilizer.