My name is Adam, and this is my Homestead here on Simply Discus. I started this homestead mostly to help support Al, the owner of the forum - who puts up with sooo much from the folks here. I suppose it's a double edged sword - there are great people here and I've met several of them, then there are some not so great people if one is to judge by the personality that comes out in their posts. I suppose you get a little of both in the world - and that's just the way it is here.
So a little about me: I've been keeping some type of fish off and on for over 25 years. I've had only freshwater tanks, mostly cichlids but I did keep a nice community tank for a few years while I was in grad school and my kids were young enough to enjoy it. I had oscars for quite a while when we lived in Kentucky - and a 10 gallon goldfish tank in my oldest sons room (he never knew they were feeder goldfish, he was just happy to go get new fish every now and then - he was pretty young then!).
Years later, after having sold off everything, my three sons bought me a 29Gallon setup for Father's Day. I was on a motorcycle trip at the time with my wife so my middle son sent me a picture of the setup that the other two had done at home - you're probably going to think this is cute - but this was done by a 18 and a 21 year old...
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I thought I would do a nice tank of African Cichlids since my well water was fairly hard up here in the Granite State of New Hampshire. I had read extensively on Discus years before and had the common perception that they were really hard to take care of and that they absolutely needed soft, acidic water.
After a bit of searching, I found SimplyDiscus.com and Al Sebetta. After reading quite a bit but not much in the forums - mostly just on the SimplyDiscus Site - I realized that my perceptions where not quite accurate. So I took the plunge, contacted Al and picked up two Red Turquoise discus from him after an impressive visit to his fish room. These were my two first discus:
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Very shortly after bringing them home, I had serious problems with water quality - read the forums, read some more - went bare bottom, had water tested etc. etc. etc. Lost the fish on the bottom of the picture above - put in a heavy metal filtering system for my storage tank and everything settled down. I was using reconstituted RO water to get everyone healthy and then switched slowly to just filtered water. Headed back to Al, much wiser, and picked up two more fish and a whole bunch of advice and understanding. Upgraded to a 55 and a little pool filter sand (which didn't last long), shortly thereafter and all has been well since.
I managed to pick up 2 of Kenny's Pearl Pigeons from Al at a NEDA meeting in CT and while I was growing them out in the 29, one of them decided to go crazy and crashed itself into the tank cover - it died shortly thereafter. Not wanting to stress out the single PB - I moved it to the 55 before it was fully grown - knowing full well that it would likely never reach it's full potential with the adult fish. It's actually grown quite a bit and looks pretty good - still a little small for a PB though. I picked up a beautifully colored golden based Red Diamond from Al that my wife just fell in love with at a NEDA meeting - couldn't say no to that! Got it for her for Valentines Day - she's a little small but my wife loves her!
Recently I got 2 of Kenny's PEs from Prabhu - and they are growing out in the 29 and doing quite well. Here's one of them:
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There are some other pictures in my album here : http://forum.simplydiscus.com/album.php?albumid=479
So - that's the haps around here. I'm lucky enough to be working at a College where I have access to some experts in both marine and freshwater environments. I have had a foremost expert in protozoans look at scrapes from my fish under high powered microscopes and I've received advice from a marine expert as well. Our chemistry department can, and does, test water for me as an exercise for students. I'm pretty lucky!
Thanks for dropping by!
Adam
