12-02-2002, 06:02 PM
As you know I spent the weekend at Cary's place and stole all of his available fish. I wanted to jot some notes down here before I forgot. These are just some observations that I made while in Detroit...
- anal is the last word that would be used to describe Cary regarding his Discus. He sets up good systems to do the necessary tasks and then lets the systems do the work. His water changes are done by overflowing tanks rather then drain & fill. It wastes water but saves time and from what I saw, time is precious in his life so it's a worthwhile compromise. He even overflows his breeders with RO/tap water.
- he feeds his fish 3x a day, mainly live cbw, frozen bloodworms & beefheart. His feeding is pretty haphazard, tossing worms into tanks as he dashes down the row but all of the fish get fed and all of the food is eaten. I never saw him siphon a tank bottom but I was only there for 2 days and the tanks were never dirty so something must be happening, maybe he was doing it while I slept, maybe Jack did it (not likely).
- he has very few lit tanks. All of the breeders are on the top rack and only get ambient room light. The other tanks have tiny 30g canopies stretched over 3 tanks. The fish don't care and the algae doesn't build up so the glass stays cleaner. His fish don't act scared no matter who approached the tank, that's probably because they're used to him knocking his knuckles on the tank to see how they're doing (a bloody annoying habit, I felt compelled to save as many fish as possible from that ritual :P ).
I'm certainly not knocking the guy or his methods. It was amazing to see how commonplace it was to have pairs breeding. There had to be about 12 tanks with pairs in them and most had eggs or wrigglers. He'd walk by & notice that one pair had laid eggs while another's eggs had hatched and keep walking to the back room to slam a pound of bloodworms flat on the floor so he could open it & pick out the broken pieces. He's basically letting the fish do the work and he's merely a spectator. That sounds logical but the ease at which he's accomplishing this task is scary. It makes sense that if you provide clean water, good food and start with healthy fish then you'll be successful and he's a good example of how that strategy works. It helps that he does all of the background research, gets his fish medicated properly when required and analyzed at a lab if necessary but once the fish are stable & eating they do all of the work. Something to copy for sure.
Thanks for the opportunity Cary.
Dave
- anal is the last word that would be used to describe Cary regarding his Discus. He sets up good systems to do the necessary tasks and then lets the systems do the work. His water changes are done by overflowing tanks rather then drain & fill. It wastes water but saves time and from what I saw, time is precious in his life so it's a worthwhile compromise. He even overflows his breeders with RO/tap water.
- he feeds his fish 3x a day, mainly live cbw, frozen bloodworms & beefheart. His feeding is pretty haphazard, tossing worms into tanks as he dashes down the row but all of the fish get fed and all of the food is eaten. I never saw him siphon a tank bottom but I was only there for 2 days and the tanks were never dirty so something must be happening, maybe he was doing it while I slept, maybe Jack did it (not likely).
- he has very few lit tanks. All of the breeders are on the top rack and only get ambient room light. The other tanks have tiny 30g canopies stretched over 3 tanks. The fish don't care and the algae doesn't build up so the glass stays cleaner. His fish don't act scared no matter who approached the tank, that's probably because they're used to him knocking his knuckles on the tank to see how they're doing (a bloody annoying habit, I felt compelled to save as many fish as possible from that ritual :P ).
I'm certainly not knocking the guy or his methods. It was amazing to see how commonplace it was to have pairs breeding. There had to be about 12 tanks with pairs in them and most had eggs or wrigglers. He'd walk by & notice that one pair had laid eggs while another's eggs had hatched and keep walking to the back room to slam a pound of bloodworms flat on the floor so he could open it & pick out the broken pieces. He's basically letting the fish do the work and he's merely a spectator. That sounds logical but the ease at which he's accomplishing this task is scary. It makes sense that if you provide clean water, good food and start with healthy fish then you'll be successful and he's a good example of how that strategy works. It helps that he does all of the background research, gets his fish medicated properly when required and analyzed at a lab if necessary but once the fish are stable & eating they do all of the work. Something to copy for sure.
Thanks for the opportunity Cary.
Dave