New Heckels...what to do?

[illumnae]

I just brought home a batch of 5 newly arrived Heckels which I got at a steal (equivalent of US$26 for 3-3.5 inch body size). They were introduced to their QT tank 1.5 days back and as of this morning when I went to work, they were still huddling at a back corner. Some have their fins still clamped while i think 2 of them are erecting their fins, but still huddled in a corner. I intend to go back to the store and grab 1 more this weekend. I have a few questions as to what I should be doing.

Firstly, is it ok that they are "huddling", or should I be worried?

Secondly, I intend to put them through a course of Furan-2 followed by Jungle Labs Internal Parasite Guard (Prazi + Metro) followed by Waterlife Parazin (external parasites). Is this ok as a preventive measure?

Thirdly, in light of the 6th heckel i intend to add, is it ok for me to wait a few more days before beginning my medication so that I won't have to do it twice, or should i begin immediately?

Fourthly, one of the heckels seems to have a whitish patch on its tail. Its one of the ones with clamped fins. In altums (which I recently quarantined), this is usually a sign of columnaris...should I be worried?

Fifthly, I know they are eating as the frozen bloodworms I put in before I sleep are gone in the morning. However, I don't like feeding them exclusively on frozen bloodworms and live foods are limited here. How should I get them on a diet of NLS discus formula?

Sorry for the multitude of questions and thanks in advance!

[illumnae]

I put in 6 harlequin rasboras as dithers to make the heckels feel more comfortable...hope they work!

[Apistomaster]

You should begin the deparasite thing right away. These young Heckels should be quarantined for a month or more. Adding a 6th fish will not matter if it is going to be in there a month.
Do provide them with soft acid water and keep them under dim lighting. I would include a couple pieces of wood for them to hide around. It is normal for them to stay in a tight group.
Feeding them only frozen blood worms exclusively at first is fine. Be glad they are eating them and not insisting on live foods. Begin introducing your preferred discus pellet type food in small amounts along with the frozen blood worms after a week. Gradually increase the prepared food and decrease the blood worms. I would always make the blood worm 50% of their diet since you don't have any live foods. I keep them warm at first. 88*F for the first 10 days, then lower it to 84*F.
Begin increasing the lighting 10 to 14 days to whatever is going to be normal for them later on.
The blemishes should heal quickly since you say they are eating well. They always get banged up during the time spent in the distribution chain. Don't use the antibiotics more than 10 days. I never use them on wild discus. Getting food and deparasite drugs in them does more good. Presently, you are only effectively treating for external parasites like gill flukes. try to get some PraziPro or UltraCure PX, medications that you can add to their prepared foods so you can more effectively treat them for internal parasites. That can wait because it can be done both in quarantine or in their final home. What you have started is basically sound.
Heckels are high strung and yours have been through a lot before you got them. They need time in a quiet, darkened environment at first to avoid unnecessary panic attacks. They will always be prone to them. Even once they have acclimated and become quite tame, they will still panic for the slightest reasons once in awhile.

[illumnae]

Thanks for the detailed tutorial Larry :) I've started the course of Furan-2 as I noticed 2 of the 5 were literally hugging each other and huddling at the corner. One of these was the one with the whitish patch on the tail, and he and his other huddler have developed white patches on their body too...that's bad right? The other 3 looked fine, fins started to erect and while they were hiding, they weren't huddling (hope you get what I mean). It seemed similar to when my altums got columnaris (minus the gasping) so I went ahead and started the Furan-2 course. When I add the 6th, I will do another Furan-2 course.

I intend to QT these guys for at least 2 months and do a full course of meds before introducing them to the main tank. They are currently in a very dimly lit tank with floating bogwood and fine sand. Every few days I'll soak some Ketapang leaves (I'm not sure what the American equivalent is, but it's a leaf that releases acids and stains the water brown...similar to peat but it apparently releases other beneficial minerals/vitamins as well...I think they may be called Indian Almond leaves or something like that) in the water to tint the water brown and lower the ph/softness of the water.

The Prazipro equivalent I'm using is Jungle Labs Internal Parasite Guard. It contains metronidazole and praziquantel. i've used this with success to treat my altums for internal parasites. The external parasite treatment will be my last treatment, and it's Waterlife Parazin. For now, I'm scared to mix medications, so I'll finish the Furan-2 course first before starting on the rest. What I'm intending to do is to introduce the 6th guy on Day 3 of the Furan-2 course. The Furan-2 course is 4 days...and I'll run Furan-2 for 6 days. That way, the 6th guy will get the full 4 day course, while the other 5 will get an extra 2 days...is that ok?

I really hope those 2 sickly ones pull through. What's the standard recovery time for heckels before they start behaving fine/normal?

[quix]

I think other than curing them of whatever sickness they may have, providing an environment they are comfortable with is important too. Lower PH, and shade on top may help calm them down more I think. :)

[illumnae]

I've done all I could to make them comfortable. The QT tank was set up from scratch just for them.

Furan-2 seems to be working as they are not so huddled up anymore when I got home from work today. Added the 2nd of 4 doses and will add in the 6th guy Sat or Sun, hopefully Sat. Will either do the 6 dose course, or redo a 4 dose course at the end of the de-parasiting (internal and external) if needed. Hopefully by the end of the 4 doses, the white patches will disappear and the discus will be more active!

[Apistomaster]

Hi illumnae,
I have followed many of your posts on finarama.com and aquaticquotient.com regarding your altums so I have a good idea of what you have been through with them and the good advice you have received.
You may be relieved to learn that your Heckels are actually the much easier species to acclimate. Their scrapes, bruises and white edged fins are mostly shipping and handling damage. The fact that you say they all eat frozen blood worms and given the quarantine tank conditions, your Heckels will recover from most of the damage within a couple weeks.
They will take a few months to more or less fully recover from their ordeals within 3 months.
I think by then they will have regained all their body weight they may have lost and will have grown some.
The Heckel Discus is an odd mixture of both being delicate and tough. They have a long term survival rate many times greater than that of Altum Angelfish.
Your use of the Keta Pang leaves is a good practice, especially at first. They will add substances to the water that will alter it in favor of being more similar to their native waters.
I think it is well established that Keta Pang promotes healing perhaps from it's bacteriostatic properties. The white edge on the discus' fins is not Piscolumnaris. It is the beginning of the regeneration of their damaged fins. The white patches on their bodies are bruises and scrapes which are healing as long as they are eating. Usually, the first hurdle is to get them to accept nonliving foods and it sounds like you are past that point. You should see a great deal of healing occur in the first 2 weeks. I think you will be amazed at how fast your Heckels will rebound. Young Heckels normally stay very close to each other. They will not fight as much nor as violently as Domestic Discus of similar size tend to do. They will always remain wild and their flight instincts are easily triggered. It actually may increase among adults; adults tend to be more cautious than subadults. I think you have a pretty good idea of how their tank should be furnished, the layer of fine sand, some wood and a few floating plants. Try to keep in mind they need large areas of open swimming space and areas of sand to hunt food in. They love to search the sand between feedings for bits of food, similar to your familiar Apistogramma spp.

[illumnae]

Thanks for sharing your experience Larry :) I look forward to my heckels recovering! Haha, I guess I'm just really cautious about newly arrived wild cichlids after my long struggle with altums!

[illumnae]

great news! After the full course of 4 doses of Furan-2, the Heckels are no longer cowering at the back...they swim forward to the front to investigate my presence more often now, and they aren't so scared by my face in front of the tank observing them. The white patches seem to be getting better too. However, they're still skittish when I put my hand in the tank to pick out leftover worms...which brings me to another concern...it seems that their appetite has decreased. They used to finish up 2 cubes of frozen bloodworms twice a day...but now I see lots of leftovers. Is this a bad sign? I have my final dose of Furan-2 today (doing 6 doses instead of 4 due to the extra guy who came in on dose 3...want him to get the full 4 doses so that any bacteria will not develop an immunity). Thereafter, I will start medicating for internal parasites with metro + prazi. Should I be concerned/worried?

[plecocicho]

Glad to here your heckels are starting to aclimatise. Heckles are known to be skittish when it comes to feeding them. They are also, regarding blehers research, least carnivore when you compare them wth other two discus species. Try to feed them fruit with high vitamine content like banana, mango and blackberries. Extra vitamines wil help them enhance their immunity. Post some pics.

[Moon]

I've had my Heckels for about two years now. They go through bouts of feeding habits. Some days they gobble up every thing I offer and some days they just pick on it. I leave uneaten food for about 3 hours. They do eventually eat all of it.
Good luck with yours.

[quix]

A quick question, in terms of feeding fruits, how do we feed? Chop up the fruit into small pieces and throw in?

[Moon]

I tried feeding all kinds of fruit to mine. They wont even look at it. It just lays in the tank and the plecos eat them. One way of introducing fruit is to mix it with bh.

[illumnae]

I was about to ask the same question about fruits quix. Mine have gone from gobbling 2 cubes of frozen bloodworms at a sitting to eating only 1, to now not even eating any even after leaving the worms overnight. I'm getting worried

[blue acara]

Not eating could be a few things... I would get some live food, try them on that. Do they have places to hide? If none of them eat live food then you need to med, some others on this forum can help you better in this.

[Moon]

As Larry mentioned in an earlier post I find Heckels are hardier than domectic discus. I rarely have to treat mine for any kind of ailment.
Sometimes they go off food for a day or two. Let them be without food for a couple of days. Watch them carefully for symptoms of Hex.

[illumnae]

I'm going down to my LFS tonight so I'll see if they have a bag of brine shrimp for sale...if so i'll try it to see if they eat that. I do intend to start treatment for internal parasites tomorrow anyway as part of my preventive maintenance treatment for newly arrived wild fish. Hopefully they start eating properly soon so i can start training them to eat my NLS discus formula!

[illumnae]

Furan-2 course completed...however, I noticed tonight that one of the Heckels has his mouth swollen on one side. When viewed on one side, he looks normal...when viewed on the other side, his lip is white and swollen. Anyone can diagnose?

[AlexR]

Illumnae,

here are some "wild" advice from the European continent :-)

1. Don`t feed to much bloodworms to wilds
2. Try frozen Artemia (defrosted) and some Daphnia
3. Dont`t try to much different food like fruits to early. They will not accept it quickly and the waste pollutes the water
4. I would NEVER use medicine without exact examination AND diagnosis.
5 Discus are able to recreate from transport when they have perfect water condition, a quiet place, no sand on the bottom (may cause scratches when they panic), slow rising and dimming light.

To reduce the amount of floating bacteria I would use
- a UVC clearer
- or some PH reducing ingredients like peat (best way would be to treat the water with peat separately first, then using it in the tank)
- or/and EasyLife, it is perfect to help the wilds to get off their scrathes and marks (they often have scrathes on the eyes from the inner side of the plastic bag on the transport)
- 30% water change every 3rd day

The "broadband" medicine treatment over long terms will harm the discus.

You will never be able to reach every parasites, the wilds will be re-infected in a short term. And they are not able to fight against the parasites (or bacteria) after weeks of heavy medication.

When there are specific problems it ist ok to use it, no question. But not to use it like chemical weapon. The discus is healthy when there is the right balance between parasites and his own ability to keep it under control.

To reach this point the wilds will need to get perfect very soft water and high quality food (6-8 times a day, frozen food not in a block but defrosted + rinsed) and stable, quiet conditions.

All the best!

Alex

[AlexR]

here are some images

first young wilds after 1 week

[AlexR]

the same wilds after 7 month :-)

no medication, just a lot of (soft) water to change + 60% frozen artemia/brine shrimp, 20% granulat, 20% mixed frozen food

[illumnae]

Lovely wilds you have alex...thanks for the advice!

[plecocicho]

I agree with Alex and add these:
1.Garlic mixed in your food blend helps to supress nematode and bacterial parasite inside discus. That was proven in an old discus brief article in which one month garlic was mixed in bf food. Water was changed only once during the treatment to deliver stress and better prolification of nematods in weaken discus. After the tratment discus were killed and looked for eggs and adult nematods. Treated discus had no eggs an adult nematods, while discus in control group all were infected with nematods
2.Alternative to protein rich bf mix are earthworms familly Enychtrididae. Those are small, an ich sised white worms which can be easilly kept and breed. You feed them either bread or cornflakes cooked in milk. They are rich in fat and proteins so they make an welcomming change in discus diet. And the best thing is, they do not pollute your water as bfmix do.
3. Termilaia leaves and tree bark (even better because it releases tannins and humic acids longer than leaves and also build down longer) are antibacterial, wild discus love them. Also by putting them in your aquarium (app. 1 leaf for 56 l) your tank looks even more natural.
PS. Alex your discus are stunning please post more pics of them and their aquarium.

[Genirous]

Ηι illumnae,

my thoughts differ a little bit. I believe that there are three basic things that can make happy and healthy heckels:
Correct water parametres (as near to the biotope as possible with extreme low pH and minimum TDS)
suitable aquascape (with many woods, shadows, floor-space with sand and low light) and
good nutrition! (live food or frozen food at least in the beggining)

Of course there are many more things that someone must take into consideration. Personally I give importance to these three above, because they work for me...prevention and not suppression. Unfortunately heckels are the most shy and most coward discus there is... They become very stressed, very easily and this leads to sicknesses...

Can you upload some pictures from your tank?

[illumnae]

They are currently in quarantine and won't be transferred to the main tank till January. I'll try and take some pictures of the QT tank (which is hopefully modelled after their natural habitat), but it's likely you won't see the discus in the photos as they are always hiding and dark

[Eddie]

Sorry in advance for jumping on your thread Illumnae. :o


All I can say is DAMN Alex those are some amazing discus and pictures. Your tanks look SPOTLESS, like you clean them all day long! Totally flawless. :angel:

Eddie

[aquadiva]

Beautiful Discus!! They look very healthy and I have to compliment your tank too! It looks PERFECT! Where did you find that nice piece of root-like wood to put in there? Everything looks great! :fish:

Anna

[AlexR]

Thank you for your comments, this weekend I will put a new thread with photos + informations here in this section to keep Illumnae's heckel thread "on track".


Alex

[Apistomaster]

As Larry mentioned in an earlier post I find Heckels are hardier than domectic discus. I rarely have to treat mine for any kind of ailment.
Sometimes they go off food for a day or two. Let them be without food for a couple of days. Watch them carefully for symptoms of Hex.

I did not say Heckels are hardier than any other discus.
What I said was that they are much hardier than altum angels.
Heckels are probably the least hardy of the wild discus and all wild discus acclimate to new conditions easier than new altum angelfish imports.

[illumnae]

Sorry for the silence thus far, the swollen lip guy passed on...his whole lip became like 3x the normal size and he floundered for awhile before going stiff.

The good news is that I added 2 more heckels from another source, but the same size. That batch was more stable than the ones I got initially, and they spurred my remaining 5 to be more comfortable. They are mostly still hiding at the back, but they're less dark now. The 2 new ones are almost never dark except on occasion. Fins wise, they are sometimes clamped and sometimes erect. They are also feeding like pigs! Prior to the new guys, the pick at frozen bloodworms...1 cube per feeding. Now, the new guys lead the charge and they fight for 2 cubes per feeding which finishes in under 3 minutes...they fight over the worms too.

Now my headache is how to get them to stop hiding so much and to venture around more openly "for my viewing pleasure" so to speak...and also to get them to start eating NLS pellets. Attempts to train them to eat pellets so far have been met with failure.

I'll try and take pictures soon

[illumnae]

Original plan for these guys was into my 4x2x2 120 gal showcase planted tank with altums. However, I may be bringing forward my plans to set up a 3x2x2 85 gal biotope tank (Christmas + Wedding present from my parents! :D) so these guys may go in there instead. The 85gal tank will be using a sump filter (which I've read is more suitable due to its wet/dry nature compared to canister) and will be having fine river sand, hanging branches and possibly leaf litter.

Can anyone provide me with a list of fish that would co-habit with heckels in their natural environment? I'm trying to be as purist as possible, so hopefully i'll be able to create a specific river biotope (e.g. Rio Orinocco for Altums) for these Heckels with the appropriate tankmates. If possible, suggestions for a charachin school (hatchets would do too), dwarf cichlids and corydoras would be good!

[Apistomaster]

As Larry mentioned in an earlier post I find Heckels are hardier than domectic discus. I rarely have to treat mine for any kind of ailment.
Sometimes they go off food for a day or two. Let them be without food for a couple of days. Watch them carefully for symptoms of Hex.
Just a small clarification about what I said earlier in this thread about the ease of keeping Heckels or more to the point, the acclimation of newly imported Heckels.
I told ilumnae that his Heckels were much easier to acclimate and hardier than his newly imported P. altum angelfish. Altums have broken many more hearts of their would be keepers. maybe because they are intrinsically more delicate than any wild discus or that those involved with collecting and selling wild discus have got their techniques down better. Maybe a little of both.
I rate newly imported Heckels the least hardy, then Greens and S. haraldi seems the most adaptable in all respects.

I used to use chloramphenicol for the treatment of bacterial diseases in wild discus but This drug has not been available in water soluble capsules for several decades in the USA. It is an extremely potent antibiotic. FDA now only allows the intravenous form to be used as a drug of last resort because about 1:40,000 patients treated with chloramphenicol develop irreversible and usually fatal aplastic aenemia.
It has been pointed out to me by a knowledgeable colleague that Nalidixic Acid may be a suitable substitute but I have not had the occasion to try it and form an opinion. If it is very similar to chloramphenicol it would lack the nasty habit of rapidly breaking down in water like tetracyclines do. tetracycline has been so over used by the ornamental tropical fish trade that it no longer works on many diseases on which it formally was effective.
Nalidixic Acid can be purchased by prescription through a vet; maybe even OTC.

With regard to the inclusion of vegetable or fruit matter in the diet of Heckels in aquariums they seem very fickle. Some specimens will sample those foods but mine have never been enthusiastic about fruits and vegetables. Still, I believe they should receive some and I accomplish it in a few ways. I add 1/2 tsp of Spirulina powder and a few sheets of the dried green seaweed sold for feeding reef fish/cup of beef heart blend during formulation.
I also add about 1/2 tsp of CyclopEeze/cup at the same time. Heckels and other wild discus that have become used to eating earth worm sticks will usually accept Spirulina sticks.
I only feed Heckels my beef heart blend a few times a week. I tend to feed it more often whenever I'm out of live black worms. Even the Earth Worm Sticks contain a percentage of Spirulina. These 2 stick foods may contain a small amount of kaolin, a naturally occurring clay mineral that many creatures actively seek out. I think it is a portion of the inert binder but it is a fact, based on the stomach content analysis of wild discus, that some mineral grains are present. These are some of the reasons I encourage the inclusion of these foods as part of any balanced diet for both wild and domestic discus. If introduced to the stick foods early in life, domestic discus become rather fond of these foods and it seems to contribute to good growth and color development. They are not very expensive foods since they were originally developed for commercial aquaculture application; primarily as breeder conditioning foods. Expensive as aquaculture foods go but cheap as tropical aquarium fish foods.
The way the stick foods slowly soften and lie on the bottom suits the way discus like to continuously feed. I have safely fed portions of a size large enough to take the discus several hours to consume. The exact amount to feed must be based on your own empirical experience. Having a nonliving food that lends itself so well to the slow grazing habits of discus is very helpful. My Heckels and Blues will sift the sand substrate in their tanks until they find nearly all these foods. I is a happy circumstance that the various Hypancistrus and Peckoltia spp of plecos I keep and breed are also kept with Discus and they will find any food from the softened sticks that the discus may miss.

[mckchu]

ilumnae, how are the heckels now???

From reading the posts - sounds to me your first batch of heckels might have some unknown "illness" or might be shock from the transportation (might be water differences wasn't handled well at LFS, etc) that caused them to hide at the back and turned dark. Whereas your new additions, obviously more healthy to begin with, encouraged the others to join them.

In HK, there is a "Fish Street" where a whole street is full of fish stores - you can find "bag fish" of tetra for US$0.2 to rare black-white stringray Potamotrygon leopoldi for US$3000! They also have 2" discus in a bag - for US$2 each... as well as wild discus import, but I never buy from there as they never take care of the water conditions, nor the fish. I have seen a whole tank of wild blues turned black and slowly wasted away in a store.

I am fortunate that my wild discus supplier sells all his fish as soon as the boxes are open, but he quarantines all his fish for 1 month before he let them out.

When I introduce new fish to my tank - I keep the light off for a few days. The fish settle in much quicker, and come out of the hiding place much sonner. Typically, I only turn my tank lighting for an hour or so a day anyway.

[illumnae]

Thanks for thetips mckchu :) My heckels are doing very well now. I think you're right in that the 1st batch wasn't all that stable. They touched down in Singapore on Friday night, went straight to the LFS on saturday morning and I bagged them home on sunday afternoon. I was too anxious to grab the nice ones and let my eagerness override my good sense. That being said, I'm quite glad I took my time (over an hour) to observe the fish and pick only the best ones...I think that helped me not lose the entire batch but only 1 piece from that batch.

The next 2 pieces I got were very stable and had been quarantined at the supplier's side for a couple of weeks before going to the LFS (a different LFS...my regular one). Hence I think they were in better shape when I bought them. Like you said, I think these guys coaxed the original batch into better shape.

Now, all of them are venturing around the QT tank and showing relaxed colouration...at least 6 of the 7 are definitely taking dried food already.

[illumnae]

I've been doing some surfing around and it seems that I got some Marimari red heckels. Mine look almost exactly like the first picture in the link below, except that there are more striations:

http://www.amazon-exotic-import.de/Gallerie/Diskuswildf%E4nge/Seiten/Heckel_Mari%20Mari.htm

I like the red bars on the anal and dorsal fins...haven't seen them in other heckels before

[Eddie]

Wow, I saw those on a site last week and they are my favorite. You have any pictures of your tank?

Eddie

[illumnae]

Unfortunately not. My digicam's batteries went kaput (ie. can't take a single shot even after full cahrge), and I haven't had the impetus to replace them yet as the fish are still in their QT tank.

Those red fins are awesome aren't they?

[Eddie]

Oh yeah, super gorgeous fish I thought when I saw that link. Out of about 50 different wilds, that particular heckel was my favorite.

[illumnae]

I didn't even know they existed till I saw my own fish destress and colour up! Then I went searching online for photos and found that link. However, they do show varying degrees of red, some are less than others and i think 1 or 2 may look like normal heckels, much like the Marimari heckels below the top photo. However, I'm glad I took my time to choose carefully so that at least I ended up with at least a couple showing full red and the rest some red to varying degrees! very lovely

[illumnae]

According to Heiko, these Rio marimari heckels are naturally occuring wild hybrids between heckels and blues. Given his recent slipup about asians and wild discus, i don't know how much of that to trust, but it's something to explore

[Eddie]

Right, He knows alot about fish...but nothing about people. ;)

I can't wait til you get some pictures of them.

Take care
Eddie

[illumnae]

I'll try and get less lazy and get new batteries :) I went to do a count last night...i have 4 showing obvious red, 2 showing obviously no red and 1 that was "blending into the blackground" so i couldn't see for sure..looked like it was potentially red though

[mckchu]

I saw similar heckels at our wild discus importer in HK couple of months ago ... basic body color is light yellow, almost golden, instead of the usual brown. There were 4" to 5" each but the price was between US$180 to US$250 a piece!

Of course - didn't get any. They were too expensive when "normal" heckels are typically US$60 or so, and my tank is already too full!!!

[illumnae]

wow your importer was trying to cheat you...i got mine at S$40 for the 3.5" ones (conversion is US$1 to S$1.5) and the 4+" ones were S$58! The basic body colour is light yellow, with most of them having red anal/dorsal fins! so pretty

[illumnae]

My heckels just made the trip to their permanent home...last I looked they were hiding at the back, as would be expected in new (much larger!) surroundings. Hopefully they get used to it soon and swim about...I'll get pictures in then

[Eddie]

Hey illumnae, can't wait to see the pictures of the heckels in their new home. I'm excited!

Eddie

[illumnae]

They're still skittish and hiding in the corner when people approach...only when i'm on the couch watching tv for an hour or so, then i see them start to venture out. Once I move, they hide again. The good news is that they're eating. I see them picking at the ground searching for food!

[Eddie]

The good news is that they're eating. I see them picking at the ground searching for food!

Thats great, look forward to seeing you setup.

Eddie

[illumnae]

Here we go, some pictures! My fiancee decided to get trigger happy and take pictures today...sorry if some are repetitive :) We're really excited that the Heckels are in the main tank finally!

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x110/illumnae/Heckels/IMG_0401_resized.jpg

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x110/illumnae/Heckels/IMG_0402_resized.jpg

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x110/illumnae/Heckels/IMG_0403_resized.jpg

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x110/illumnae/Heckels/IMG_0404_resized.jpg

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x110/illumnae/Heckels/IMG_0405_resized.jpg

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x110/illumnae/Heckels/IMG_0406_resized.jpg

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x110/illumnae/Heckels/IMG_0407_resized.jpg

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x110/illumnae/Heckels/IMG_0408_resized.jpg

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x110/illumnae/Heckels/IMG_0412_resized.jpg

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x110/illumnae/Heckels/IMG_0413_resized.jpg

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x110/illumnae/Heckels/IMG_0414_resized.jpg

[plecocicho]

Those heckels sure look nice! Can you say something more about the size of the tank (lenght, height, wide), water parameters, filtration, lights, plants and stock?

[illumnae]

It's a 4x2x2 120 gallon tank. I don't measure my water parameters so I can't tell you those I'm sorry. ph from the tap is usually 7.6, but the water is very soft and I have peat under the sand, so it is probably lower.

Filtration is via 2x Eheim ProII 2028. Lights are 2x54w t5ho for 8 hours a day, but with a noon burst of 2 hours with an extra 2 bulbs (so 4x54w for 2 hours within that 8 hours). No co2 and plants are mostly low-tech plants...crypts, cyperus helferi, hygrophila, anubias, bolbitis. The tankmates of these discus are cardinal tetras, rosy tetras, corydoras sterbai and duplicareus, bristlenose plecs and some juv altum angels (not added yet)

Here's a picture of the tank (as you can see, it's still rather messy and raw. I'm hoping the plants will grow in soon and the tank will actually look nice and not so ugly):

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x110/illumnae/040109-2.jpg

[Dan S]

Hello Illumnae,

They look great. Already showing some lovely blue striations.

Dan

[plecocicho]

Nice aquarium, not bad at all.:) I would ad some floating plants like limnobium, hydrocolytle or such. Love the roots.
Heckels are still a bit shy, arent they?

[illumnae]

Thanks :)

Yup they're still shy. I just moved them into this tank from QT less than a week ago. Plus this tank is in my new house, and I haven't moved in yet. So 90% of the time there's noone in. They're happy enough in the tank that whenever I first enter the house, I see them swiming about in the front...however, when they notice a human has arrived, they move to their favourite corner behind the plants

[Eddie]

Hey Illumnae,

Totally missed those pictures...they look great. Those are the same as mine. They look exactly the same.

Goodluck with them

Eddie

[Heiko Bleher]

Hi,

this is Heiko Bleher and I just wanted to suggest:

1. Plecochicho's advice to ad some floating plants - to give to those nice young Heckel discus a shade-possibility...

2. To give them fine (white) sand as they would live (and need) it..., and

3. Feed them at least 3-times daily a variety of foods, as they are in full stage of growth - otherwise they might stay back.

Friendly advice from one who should know...

Best regards

Heiko Bleher
www.aquapress-bleher.com

[illumnae]

Hi Heiko, thanks for the suggestions. I am currently growing lots of amazon frogbits which I will add for shade. I'm also currently feeding them 3 times daily with NLS thera+a, NLS growth, earthworm sticks and algae wafers. It's not what they eat in nature, but it's the best I can do. I can't change the substrate as it's sand capping a base fertilizer. It would create a huge mess to change.

[rowedder]

They look great! They will also start coming around, not being so shy, in a month or two. They take much longer than domestic discus to adjust to us but they do adjust. Have you tried hand feeding? I hand feed my heckles frozen blood worms, they come right up to my hands, it's taken about two months to do this but if you keep at it they will figure out that you mean feeding time. Good Luck with'em.

[Eddie]

Any updates Illumnae? Love pictures of beautiful heckels!

Eddie

[illumnae]

They're doing good :) One has turned really blue while the rest are slowly following suit. I'll try and find some time to take more pictures :) Work's been a killer lately

[Eddie]

They're doing good :) One has turned really blue while the rest are slowly following suit. I'll try and find some time to take more pictures :) Work's been a killer lately

Cool, sounds great. Can't wait to see them!

Thanks for the update

Eddie

[TankWatcher]

Hi illumnae

Nice heckels. They look just like mine. I've had mine around 12months now and they are still the shyest discus I own.

I like your tank setup. Very nice arrangement. You grow cyperus helferi without C02? For some reason, I thought it was a plant that needed C02?