12/27 - Has it been over a week already??

[KJoFan]

Apparently time flies when you're having fun because this past week sure has gone fast. Everything is going great, I couldn't ask for it to be going any better really. I swear they are growing already! :) I realized how much they like their water changes over the holiday. They got a 90% change Saturday night, a 90% change Sunday morning and then nothing until a 90% change Tuesday night. They were starting to show some stress bars and not as on top of their eating as they normally are. But now after getting back to daily 90% changes for the past 3 days they're as spunky as ever!

Seems you've all been enjoying the webcam. I haven't been very on top of their feeding schedule lately, so until I get my act together you can view the red melons I got from Al (courtesy of Elite Aquaria Dan) for a couple days. We'll get back to the challenge fish but I thought a change of scenery was in order for a little bit.

So their routine consists of daily 90% water changes along with a siphoning of debris. They get somewhere around 6 feedings a day generally. Mostly consisting of Ocean Nutrition Formula One pellets, frozen bloodworms and frozen mysis shrimp. I tried some ON Formula One flakes but they weren't totally into those. I'll keep trying a flake once in awhile though and probably add some frozen brine shrimp on occasion. I doubt their diet will stray much from the things listed so far.

Alright, enough blabbing and lets get to the pictures shall we? I tried the quarter idea like....Brian I think, did. Neat idea. :)

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj134/eleventhdiscus/DSC05468.jpg
http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj134/eleventhdiscus/DSC05470.jpg
http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj134/eleventhdiscus/DSC05471.jpg
http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj134/eleventhdiscus/DSC05475.jpg
http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj134/eleventhdiscus/DSC05478.jpg
http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj134/eleventhdiscus/DSC05479.jpg

And a video of tonight's bloodworm feeding. The video is kind of cloudy but that's the tank, I need to move them to one that's a bit more clear...stupid hard water:

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj134/eleventhdiscus/th_MOV05481.jpg (http://s271.photobucket.com/albums/jj134/eleventhdiscus/?action=view&current=MOV05481.flv)

[alxjss]

Wow Karen. Real nice. They r coming along great. Keep it up:)

[phidelt85]

What the hell did you spike your bloodworms!?! :D They look great!!

[AADiscus]

They look very good. Keep up the good work! ;)

[Kenny's Discus]

Karen, I can see they're doing very well already in your tank! Great job.:thumbsup: I did notice that some seem to have more faint looking bars than others...not sure if they're just being moody there. Though I've seen this trait in some of the Red Cover/RGD spawns I had in the past.

Keep up the great work and all the best! Now your next job is to turn them into monster discus.:)

Kenny

[seanyuki]

Hi Karen,

Great job with the discus, how much have they grown since you
got them? Just curious.

Cheers
Francis

[KJoFan]

So....the appearance of bars is good or bad with these? Some have them sometimes, some don't. It all depends, but as you said Kenny I usually just chalk it up to their mood. But I do wonder if I should be seeing bars or not.

[KJoFan]

Jose, I swear they cleaned up that entire cube of bloodworms last night in about 2 minutes, not a scrap to be found! You'd think they were growing or something. ;)

[KJoFan]

Francis, I'm not sure how much they've grown since I've gotten them. They ranged from about 1.5" to 2" last week, I will have to try to get a measurement on a couple and let you know. :)

[phidelt85]

Hey, Karen, I really like your webcam. I have it up at work and we've been watching it all morning! :D Those red melons are sweet but we wanna see your babies :D :D :D

[KJoFan]

Ask and you shall receive. :D

[phidelt85]

Sweeet!! :D Thanks!! I need to get a web cam now so I can watch mine from work. :D .

[phidelt85]

Oh, man! Did I miss the feeding at 3. I had to go do some actual work. :D

[KJoFan]

haha, yep you missed it. They'll get pellets at 5 and frozen probably at 7 again.

[Kenny's Discus]

So....the appearance of bars is good or bad with these? Some have them sometimes, some don't. It all depends, but as you said Kenny I usually just chalk it up to their mood. But I do wonder if I should be seeing bars or not.

:) No Karen I don't mean to say it's a good or bad thing...I just found it interesting it's all. It's probably genetically built-in that some have more obvious bars than others. Now that I remembered I had the same observation in my previous Turks batches as well. I do believe the intensity of their bars is proportionally related to their base color as they grow. Again interesting!

You're doing a great job Karen!:)

Kenny

[KJoFan]

Ok, good to know! And thanks for the compliment. ;)

[KJoFan]

Alright, so when are we starting the fundraiser to help us all feed these guys? Mine can now polish off two cubes of FBW in one feeding in...probably less than 10 minutes. I cringe to think of the future! :D

[phidelt85]

Alright, so when are we starting the fundraiser to help us all feed these guys? Mine can now polish off two cubes of FBW in one feeding in...probably less than 10 minutes. I cringe to think of the future! :D


I feel your pain most definitely!! :D

[fredox]

Just don't make your web cam pay per view or I'll be skint in a week.

[KJoFan]

Oooh good idea! ;)

[Ryan]

Karen,

I think they look awesome. These babies are gonna grow quick with all the good food and fresh water :D

Ryan

[brewmaster15]

Alright, so when are we starting the fundraiser to help us all feed these guys? Mine can now polish off two cubes of FBW in one feeding in...probably less than 10 minutes. I cringe to think of the future! :D Thats good Karen, it gives you a very good sense of what to expect when you try your hand at breeding..... I feed an average 1 lb of Blood worms a day here+5 lbs beef heart and thats just 2 feedings!:D

-al

[Ardan]

I cringe to think of the future:D
They look great!!:):):)

Ardan

[Elite Aquaria]

Karen,

They are looking great...Keep up with the water change and feeding schedule you are doing and you will see them grow into monsters.

[mench]

Am I counting funny??? In some of the first pics I would swear I counted 8 fish in there...
They all are looking sweet...

Mench

[seanyuki]

Mench,

I noticed 8 discus also.

Rgds
Francis

[brewmaster15]

Karens first shipment of 6 alenquers came in in bad shape...3 were DOA..the remaining 3 were very chilled....I sent her a second batch of fry.....

I ended up sending a second group out to Scott who lost the whole first group due to shipping delays.

I also sent a group out a second time to Jose.....

All said and done we wound up with everyone having between 5 and 10 fry to work with... not ideal ., but keep in mind... the second shipments were also the second time thru the pool of availible stock.


I sent out a total of 64 juvies for this contest... we lost
6-scott
3-karen
2-jose
1-jason
total of 13....not great but for christmas time I guess we are lucky

-al

[alxjss]

All said and done we wound up with everyone having between 5 and 10 fry to work with... not ideal ., but keep in mind... the second shipments were also the second time thru the pool of availible stock.

-al

ok, so how does this get judged w/the people who have more fry to work w? How do u judge someone who has 5-6 fish, to someone who has 10? Does this person pick out the best out of ten? Really, what i am asking is how will this be judged?

[brewmaster15]

Eileen,
If I picked the top 50% of the 100 fry I had and sent them out to everyone...anyone of those original 50 fry had the exact same chance of being the best....given the proper care.


If someone has a few more from the second groupings set out its not going matter a whole heck of a lot...I've raised many many fry and its really not a big deal in terms of how it affects chances..all things considered...The winner of this contest is going to be judged based on the best fish they raise....not the numbers...

It would not have been fair for those entering this with a smaller group, would it?... shipping fish is expensive if I sent exactly what they lost.. and some die in transit, as it apt this time of year.... we are where we were before, but its cost us more money....so I sent out a few more.

The idea is for everyone to have a good group to work from.

I hope this isn't going to be a problem for anyone...if it is please let me know now... I'll give everyone involved the opportunity to drop out and keep the fish they have...no questions asked. Who ever is good with it we go on...

hth,
al

[alxjss]

Ok Al. THanks for straightening things out. Was just curious, thats all. U no i have no problem. I trust u totally. I am more than happy and willing to keep going., I find i have a better advantage because all my fish were in great condition. All is fair to me....:o
I think u r very generous for doing this so Discus Challange, comeon........

[Kindredspirit]

I sent out a total of 64 juvies for this contest... we lost
6-scott
3-karen
2-jose
1-jason
total of 13....not great but for christmas time I guess we are lucky

-al

Al, are you surprised at this? Would you be more surprised if none were lost? If it was summer, the fatalities would be lower?

Do you think that this challenge will happen again or is this just a one time deal?

[brewmaster15]

Marie,
I've shipped many fish, including many adult wilds... fatalities occur.... you do the best you can ....but it happens... In the winter it can happen more...we shipped these out the worst possible time...the christmas holidays and after a series of severe storms.... Am I surprised some died...not at all. but once I ship them...I am at the mercy of the shippers and have no control over the way they are handled... These are young fish.. I had wanted to do this earlier in the year but it was not possible.


Is this going to happen again...I hope so.. If I have fry I can part with I will again......I hope others such as Darren did in Australia do it as well here...international groups would all be welcome......I'd love to have this a yearly thing here... with as many groups as possible... I think theres a tremendous amount of information to be learned from these kinds of events.....hobbyists learn by doing...and others learn by following...

Like all things this contest will have to evolve...Next time around I think a group of 8-10 will be better...and we'll set the cut off at 6 fish to start.......of course I have to find people willing to giveway away thier hard earned FRY and any money they may have made off them first, ,,who knows Marie...maybe you'll be one to do some day...or one of these contestants this time.

So to recap...surprised no....another contest absolutely..if possible, I think this is the kind of contest we can do real well here..



-al

[wolvy]

My hats off to Al and Darren and all those involved.But we must remember this is also a salute to a fellow hobbyist and good friend to us all BARB.This is exactly what makes simply great helping each other.NEXT YEAR CANADA EH!!!!!!!

[KJoFan]

Also, having more to work with may not necessarily be an advantage. I now have 9 fish in the same amount of water I planned to only have 6 in. At some point they will outgrow the 40 breeder they are in and have to be moved. I can't just easily move them into a standard 55 or even a 75 really. So I will either be getting another even larger tank to house them all or splitting them up. However, splitting them up isn't really ideal either because...I'll end up with 4 and 5 probably. Having only 4 won't be the ideal situation. So...having more to work with seems fun now but I'd say those with only 5 or 6 or even 10 to split evenly will have it easier when they get bigger.

[KJoFan]

I'm certainly not complaining about having 9 fish but....I don't think I see an advantage here. :)

[brewmaster15]

Karen,
my advice....pick the best 6 to work with...and if you have any hobbyists near you that would like some ...either give them away...or sell them to buy food for their siblings:)


actually I advise everyone with a few extras to do that...6 is a very decent number to work with for discus social dynamics., IMO
-al

[Ryan]

I agree with Al -- if you want to have the original six fish, those with extra could give them away to someone or put them in another tank. If you have multiple tanks, you can wait until a QT period is over and move some of the fish around.

I don't think it's the numbers that really matter in this challenge. Numbers may affect things like the pecking order or how secure a discus feels, but if they're receiving the proper level of care they should all grow at roughly the same rate regardless of how many you have in the tank. Whether you have 3 discus or 9 discus, you are going to care for them accordingly with tank size, feedings, and water changes. In every group you'll have a runt, in every group you'll have a big bully, etc.

The challenge is to see what you can do with the fish you have in the allotted amount of time. The only real difference, most likely, is that those with more fish will have to use more food and possibly need a larger tank.

Ryan

[KJoFan]

yeah, I will probably end up picking the best six or whatever. I was just...giving an example of how numbers isn't necessarily an advantage. True, I may have more to choose from to pick my favorite or best 6, but I think everyone's fish are pretty equal to start with so it shouldn't be an advantage or disadvantage really. Eileen's came in in great shape and have been doing great from the start, 3 of mine started out barely alive but...you can't tell that now and I couldn't begin to tell you which three it was. So, it all boils down to the care you give them I think.

[brewmaster15]

Exactly Karen!:)

-al

[mench]

Nope I don't have any problem at all...I got 6 sweet lil fish to grow out and they didn't set me back a ton of cash....I just have to think about tank space...I think after the Q period is over I might move the six test fish to the 75 gal and move my butterfly crosses out of the 75 and into the 125....I still have some time before that happens,so things could change a lot by then....Sounds like everyone is doing ok with thier fish...can't wait till they get larger and we can see some color in them

Mench