Hi everyone,
Soooo... it looks like I'm raising the control group of fish for this year's challenge. I've already chewed off all my fingernails. This is nerve-wracking. :laugh:
I've been here since day one as a co-admin but I realize that I don't post as actively about my fish and some of you may not know me very well. I have been a discus enthusiast for a long time but it's not always been practical or possible for me to keep them. I recently bought my first home and now I have the room and the resources available to actively get back into the discus hobby.
I've always been a cichlid keeper and spent a lot of my time working with angelfish. Lately I've been keeping severums, festivums, angelfish, uaru, and some other smaller cichlids.
I'll be raising out the control group in the same way that I raised my last batch of discus: bare-bottom 55 gallon to start (I'll probably upgrade to a 75 in a few months), sponge filters and an AquaClear filter, 85°F water, five or six small feedings a day on a variety of frozen and dry foods including bloodworms, beefheart, mysis shrimp, and ONF1, and daily water changes of 50% - 100%. This is the most recommended method on Simply and a variety of other discus sites, so I'll be sticking with this method. As our last contest proved, though, you don't need that particular recipe for success.
It's a real pleasure to be offered a chance to raise out the control group for this contest and I look forward to watching everyone's fish grow alongside mine over the next several months. Let's have some fun!
Ryan