Hello Everybody.......nice site

Nice to see such a great site to help me w my new endeavor.

I'm new into Discus, but have been into fish for fifty years, Koi ponding for twenty, and am a retired biology teacher. KOIUSA Magazine published three articles from me and I have three Koi ponds. Outside are a 6,000g rubber lined with an attached 250g waterfall mini pond and a 450g basement pond for my Koi in the winter. Yep....I'm crazy, but I'm not leaving my tame fish out in our harsh winters here in north central Illinois. I am kept busy with all my hobbies.....insect collecting for fifty years, camping, fishing for muskies, chess, violin/fiddle playing for decades, gardening, and woodcarving. I'm married w two grown daughters and spend time with my best friend....a Collie.

My Discus set up is a 75g tank w live plants and polyresin driftwood. These fish are awesome and give me plenty of pleasure to maintain/watch from my nearby recliner. I also have a 55g with Angles, Gouramis, school of Neons, and a few platies with Cory cats. Also have three other tanks...two of which are as QT and Hospital.

Lastly....I look forward to interacting here at this resourceful site and all it's members. Happy "fish" ing to all.

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HI 14Discus and welcome to SD!!! You seem to have lots of experience with fish and have lived a very interesting life. I hope you find lots of information here, but likely you already know most of what we may have to offer. Do you have pictures of your koi ponds? I would love to see those!!

Welcome to SD! Your tank would make another nice entry in to our current biotope photo contest. Check it out under "Current Affairs."

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Originally Posted by jmf3460

HI 14Discus and welcome to SD!!! You seem to have lots of experience with fish and have lived a very interesting life. I hope you find lots of information here, but likely you already know most of what we may have to offer. Do you have pictures of your koi ponds? I would love to see those!!

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Thank you Jacklyn and Steve,

I am forever learning and picking up ideas........could never know all and, besides, I like taking other's ideas and forming them to my needs.
Just today, I changed the black background of my Discus tank to a lighter one because someone much more experienced than I w Discus mentioned that a dark background may cause fish to
be a bit darker thus not showing as much color. I want the color and thus changed it.

This Koi pond pic is a few years old....gotta do more pics this summer. I just 'had' to fall in love w two of the more pricey varieties of fish.:p Of the 27 Koi I have, several are
6-8 lbs. and 12+ years old. Even had fry a ways back and raised to adulthood several really nice butterfly Koi. My b-day gift two years ago was a very pricey b/w butterfly Koi
from my wife. My daughters have all of them named......of course.

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Welcome 14 and you have some very nice fish, discus that is. Also I have heard that some of them koi are priced into the $10,000.00 range, whoa trigger, that is some expensive fishy's lol.

Beautiful pond. Do you have to worry about predators?

love your pond!!

Thank you.....I'll take batter pics this summer. It's really clear and a number of years ago, I went in the pond with snorkel and mask to swim among the Koi. That was really neat....except my wife still teases me.

About predators......several things were done to address. The pond is tiered to four feet deep in the middle and the shallowest tier is 2 1/2 ft. deep around the edges so as to keep herons out. There are motion sensored spotlights installed. And.....just in case....a motion setup for a machine gun-like spray that sprays water all around the pond should an animal get close. This is fine until I mow the lawn and forget to turn it off.....lol.....I often get sprayed as I pass by on the lawn
tractor.

The Koi know me and will eat out of my hand. Even did the Japanese thing where one holds food in ones mouth and the Koi take it from the mouth.....it sounds like a kiss when they do it. This, too, I have stopped doing as my wife thinks I'm totally crazy to do it. I probably am crazy anyway, but I have tons of fun in all I do. Probably should not have told you all this as I'm not helping to make a good first impression.........

If thats CRAZY then it's not so bad!!!!!!!!!! Harry

Haha, welcome to the site and thanks for posting pictures