Friends raising a single batch of Red Turqs, a group experiment.

Hello everyone!

Recently a bunch of us were lucky enough to get some baby red turqs from Rich T, a member here that has some of the nicest Piwowarsky Red Turqs around! Since almost, if not all of the babies went to members here, we tough it would be fun and informative if all of us posted about the growth and development of the fish under our care, each using our personal fish keeping methods, thus giving people a chance to see them develop under different conditions.

This is very much in the spirit of the original discus challenge, where everyone got fish from the same parents, and brood, with the only variation being the attention they receive while under the care of the various keepers involved.

To the best of my knowledge, the members who got fish from Rich are Ashay, Jim G., Peter, Al, Rich kept some for himself, and me. A nice sampling of members, and discus keeping methods!

This is not a contest, no winners or loosers, just friends posting about their fish, and hopefully a look at many different approaches to raising fish, and what they turn out to be like in the future. There is no end date, and no rules, just fun! I am inviting all the people mentioned above to post their personal set-up information, and husbandry practices, along with fish data.

Everyone is welcomed to ask questions at will, please direct them to a specific keeper, or to the group as a whole if you choose. Most of all, let's have fun with this! Rich produced some of the nicest babies for us to raise, let's try to do them justice!

Rich, can you please post parent data, as well as free-swiming date?

My set-up:

30 fish, in the spirit of the contest, I will not cull any of them intentionally so we can see how they all turn out. Size varies from almost 3 inches to 2 ¼ inches; average is around 2.5 inches.

Water: NJ Tap juice! 7.5 pH and 300µS/cm out of the tap.

90gal bare bottom tank, filtration handled by 2 moving bed bottle filters (Thanks Josie), 90% daily water changes straight from tap using SAFE. Temperature at 84 degrees maintained by 2 Sera heaters. Tank is located in the living room, a high traffic area.

Feeding: Up to 6 times a day using Beefheart Flakes with Pro Grow, and Freeze Dried Blackworms. I feed them directly and with an Enheim auto-feeder. Once a week they get some frozen bloodworms since I have them laying around here.

Photos 02/20/13:

http://i760.photobucket.com/albums/x...psf242f3fe.jpg
http://i760.photobucket.com/albums/x...psa1fe001b.jpg
http://i760.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps41c5f0b6.jpg
http://i760.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps15aad331.jpg
http://i760.photobucket.com/albums/x...psd08f92b4.jpg
http://i760.photobucket.com/albums/x...psf4b6f217.jpg
http://i760.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps64662e17.jpg
http://i760.photobucket.com/albums/x...psbf80a975.jpg
http://i760.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps57611370.jpg
http://i760.photobucket.com/albums/x...psf3a90637.jpg

Hope everyone enjoys this thread!

Rodrigo

Everyone's Stats so far:


Rod's Set-up:
30 fish, in the spirit of the contest, I will not cull any of them intentionally so we can see how they all turn out. Size varies from almost 3 inches to 2 ¼ inches; average is around 2.5 inches.
Water: NJ Tap juice! 7.5 pH and 300µS/cm out of the tap.
90gal bare bottom tank, filtration handled by 2 moving bed bottle filters (Thanks Josie), 90% daily water changes straight from tap using SAFE. Temperature at 84 degrees maintained by 2 Sera heaters. Tank is located in the living room, a high traffic area.
Feeding: Up to 6 times a day using Beefheart Flakes with Pro Grow, and Freeze Dried Blackworms. I feed them directly and with an Enheim auto-feeder. Once a week they get some frozen bloodworms since I have them laying around here.


Peter (PAR23):
8 juvies 2.5-3" (guesstamation) in 40G breeder BB tank.
1 Jager heater
1 AC 70 filter
1 Airstone
Straight Long Island tap water aged and heated to 82F. Treated with Safe. TDS 90-100. pH 8.0 (after aging)--mainly kH which is 5-6.
2 90% WCs a day
Wipe down 2X a week
Mainly 3 feedings a day with BH/Seafood mix (compliments of Al)--Occassional flake/FDBW in between.


Rich T:
I used a 50 gal tank for this spawn
Free swimming 11/21/12.
BBS started 11/26/12. Their main food was BBS for 4 weeks. They literally swam with BBS 24/7 for that period. During this time I introduced them to my seafood mix, Discus Bio-gold and Hi-Pro Growth flake from Angelplus. Currently the get seafood mix 2x daily and the flakes to wash down the seafood.
All this time I did twice daily 80% water with 12hr aged tap water. No declor. I use a matrix carbon filter.
Temp 82 F
PH 7.2
TDS~ 100
The rest ain't got a clue.
I picked 10 and tossed them in a 29 before they all went bye-bye.
Conditions and feed hasn't changed still 2x daily water changes I can't get out of the habit.
Most are pushing 3in +


JimG:
I have 8 of them now in a 29 bb, ac 50, sera 125w, airstone.
water is tap/ro mix with 1/16tsp safe. 400us, ph 7.5, kh 5, gh 4. temp 84. my water changes as I am in the middle of the reservoir and catskill aqueduct so sometimes 70us sometimes 450+us hence why I use ro/tap, at least I can keep changes close.
wc 95% 1X a day aged water. My tap is run through carbon,1 micron and uv.
feed, sera discus granules in am. bh/pro growth flake in auto feeder 3x a day, fdblkw or super veggie kelp flakes 1x after auto feeding, rich's sea food mix at end of day before wc.
I had 9 all are about 1.75". I culled one it was dark and darting, scoped found 0 parasites,worms or protists but overstuffed intestines with sea food mix. I believe a larger piece of spinach blocked intestines and it was a matter of days before bacteria set in and bloating. I will be taking all spinach out of any feeds from now on. These fish eat like pigs. I just think one over did it but spinach does not seem to digest well in them anyway.


Al:
6 fish
I initially had placed them in a 29 Gal tank, but then opted to move them to a 55gal. Currently they are in a bare bottom 55 gal tank. I am running 2 cycled sponge filters...no power filters at this time. temp 84-85F. 50-75% water changes per day. Foods.. Beefheart seafood mix, Freeze dried Australian Blackworms (feedings 3-4 times a day).
My water is well water, aged, pH 7.6-7.8

Ashay:
6 fish
It's great in a first place to acquire fish home bred by a dear friend, meet up with another great buddy and then be part of this fun exercise that allow us to compare notes and enjoy.
In the spirit of theme, I acquired 6 fish about 2" in size. Unlike my plans earlier, they are in a 29g tank.

Water parameters :
PH from the tap : around 5
Ppm : around 85

Food: FDBW with Pro Growth
Sea food mix (salmon +cod + shrimp ). I remember old friend Sriangel said Wayne Ng calls this seafood burger mix

Water changes : I have done a good job past week of doing 35-40% water change all week since I acquired them.

Challenges :

Irregular feeding intervals on weekdays
On weekdays - I feed the fish the seafood mix before I leave home around 7:30am. At times wife feeds them in between but when my older son comes I have a deal with him to feed every 2 hrs on the clock after he enters the home. What he wants in return is a camera for himself (BTW he is 10 yrs old) and now I have a new entry in a list he tagged with his younger brother (5 yrs) and they both want a hamster
When I get home, I do a water change and feed them one more time to make sure they all are eating
This brings to challenge #2
Aging Water
As u saw water from tap is great but very high on chlorine and dissolved gases. I found our water department changes water reservoirs mid winter to spring and that this new reservoir after shift has some treatment early part. Point in time, I don't age water.
I have noticed these smaller fish get impacted negatively for first 2 hrs after the water change. Second day when I did a water change, they all turned dark. I was shocked. I am not sure what you guys do Rod, Jim, Pete and especially Rich, but it looks like for the spirit of these fish I will be forced to invest in 20g water storage to age water.
Any of your observations friends on these?

Now here is my second hypothesis. I have also got 5 blue knights from dear friends The Jersey Boyz - Rod 'n Bob. My goal is all remain the same, see how great these 2 fish from 2 great breeders grow. Again, point to mention here is these fish after a water change ( they are in a 55g - because feeding is on 2 tanks, kids have bumped their deal to 2 things I guess) on blue knights tank - they are whistling and giggling. No impact what so ever. Again, water change, aging of water is directly related to age of the fish and its so true.

This is great! Really looking forward to seeing all the different grow out methods and results!

Thanks!
-jim

Quote:

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Originally Posted by yim11

This is great! Really looking forward to seeing all the different grow out methods and results!

Thanks!
-jim

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Thanks Jim! I believe there is enough variety of keepers involved! Should be fun!

Rodrigo

Great idea Rod. I was going to keep the thread I started 2 weeks ago with recent updates but this brings all of us who were lucky enough to obtain some of the juvies into one common thread. Comparing our different methods should be very interesting and informative not to mention just FUN. Thanks Rich for providing us with such beautiful fish.......

My stats:
8 juvies 2.5-3" (guesstamation) in 40G breeder BB tank.
1 Jager heater
1 AC 70 filter
1 Airstone
Straight Long Island tap water aged and heated to 82F. Treated with Safe. TDS 90-100. pH 8.0 (after aging)--mainly kH which is 5-6.
2 90% WCs a day
Wipe down 2X a week
Mainly 3 feedings a day with BH/Seafood mix (compliments of Al)--Occassional flake/FDBW in between.

The following pics were taken on 2/4/13 (I think they were around 7 weeks old at this point)

http://i1176.photobucket.com/albums/...psb9ac35dd.jpg

http://i1176.photobucket.com/albums/...ps9e453187.jpg

http://i1176.photobucket.com/albums/...ps09719db9.jpg

http://i1176.photobucket.com/albums/...pse29f4e21.jpg

http://i1176.photobucket.com/albums/...ps36767a4e.jpg

http://i1176.photobucket.com/albums/...ps6779f6f1.jpg

I will update pics this week

This looks great. When all the participants post, it would be great to have a single post with a brief cart with each method side by side so we can go back to that single post as the weeks go by for comparison. Instead of trying to track back to each grower. Thanks for starting this.

Nice Peter! Welcome to the thread!

Rodrigo

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SMB2

This looks great. When all the participants post, it would be great to have a single post with a brief cart with each method side by side so we can go back to that single post as the weeks go by for comparison. Instead of trying to track back to each grower. Thanks for starting this.

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Thanks Stan! Love your sig by the way!

Rodrigo

This will be fun and I will learn a lot :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by roclement

Nice Peter! Welcome to the thread!

Rodrigo

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Thank you. Good to be here. Very excited to take part in it.......

That Laboratory is bringing out some really awesome threads! Thanks guys this will be a lot of fun to!

Awesome.. I will be posting photos soon. I have ordered the camera but fish got in sooner than the camera ;)


Cheers - photos coming up soon

Awesome.. I will be posting photos soon. I have ordered the camera but fish got in sooner than the camera ;)

Cheers - photos coming up soon and all other details.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ashaysathe

Awesome.. I will be posting photos soon. I have ordered the camera but fish got in sooner than the camera ;)

Cheers - photos coming up soon and all other details.

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Shayness, you can start with your tank stats, etc if you want! Welcome aboard, don't be a stranger!!!

Rodrigo