calihawker
06-03-2010, 03:07 AM
I want to thank all the members here at simply for participating in this contest with your posts throughout the year. A big thanks to all the contestants for doing such a great job raising these fish and keeping up with updates all year. Most of all a huge thanks to Al, Kenny and Forrest for making this whole thing possible.:D:D
One of the best things about this contest is it has given me a much better understanding of how to raise these beautiful fish. Being a relative noob to discus, I typically don't have much to add to the wealth of knowledge that is diseminated every day on this forum so I hope that some of the members were able to get something out of what I have learned in the past year as I went through the process.
To summarize my process I started with a 60 gallon bare bottom tank with a couple of sponge filters. I setup an auto water change system and was doing 90% water changes daily. I fed up to 10 small feedings a day with various foods including a seafood/beefheart mix ON prime reef flake, tetra color bits, frozen blood worms and frozen brine shrimp.About 8 months into it I moved them into a 90 gallon tank with 2 canisters, smaller feeding intervals, 50% water changes daily.
In retrospect I can't think of anything I'd change. I'm very happy with how my fish turned out. I'm looking forward to putting some of them into my display tank and I would like to pair a couple up for breeding. I'm excited to see the results of the judges and while I didn't enter my biggest fish for judging, I entered one that had the best shape and color.
So I guess thats it!:) Here's one last video for you all!!
:D:D:D:D:D
http://i499.photobucket.com/albums/rr356/calihawker/SD_Challenge/th_MOV02669.jpg (http://s499.photobucket.com/albums/rr356/calihawker/SD_Challenge/?action=view¤t=MOV02669.flv)
One of the best things about this contest is it has given me a much better understanding of how to raise these beautiful fish. Being a relative noob to discus, I typically don't have much to add to the wealth of knowledge that is diseminated every day on this forum so I hope that some of the members were able to get something out of what I have learned in the past year as I went through the process.
To summarize my process I started with a 60 gallon bare bottom tank with a couple of sponge filters. I setup an auto water change system and was doing 90% water changes daily. I fed up to 10 small feedings a day with various foods including a seafood/beefheart mix ON prime reef flake, tetra color bits, frozen blood worms and frozen brine shrimp.About 8 months into it I moved them into a 90 gallon tank with 2 canisters, smaller feeding intervals, 50% water changes daily.
In retrospect I can't think of anything I'd change. I'm very happy with how my fish turned out. I'm looking forward to putting some of them into my display tank and I would like to pair a couple up for breeding. I'm excited to see the results of the judges and while I didn't enter my biggest fish for judging, I entered one that had the best shape and color.
So I guess thats it!:) Here's one last video for you all!!
:D:D:D:D:D
http://i499.photobucket.com/albums/rr356/calihawker/SD_Challenge/th_MOV02669.jpg (http://s499.photobucket.com/albums/rr356/calihawker/SD_Challenge/?action=view¤t=MOV02669.flv)