This are Keith's goldens
Here is our first spotlight member for 2013 CozyKeith.
Q - Please tell us all a little about yourself, what makes you tick? Single, married, attached? What do you do for a living? Other hobbies? Any significant non-discus achievements you want to brag about?
A - I’m 53, my wife Cindy is younger. March 22nd is our ten year wedding anniversary. I’ve got three step children: Cassie 28, Vanessa 26, and Grant 22. Cassie is married to a LCMS pastor, Matt, and they have 4 children; Reagan, Noelle, Brooke, and Aaron.
I’m a corporate accountant for one of the largest vegetable canning companies in the world. We sell mostly to “Store Brand” customers. When you’ve step into the canned vegetable aisle in the grocery store and seen all those different brands, yea we actually canned most of them.
My main “hobbies” seem to be extensions of my job or compliment it. First I’ve been the treasurer of my small church for the past nine years. The church eliminated term limits after I took the job. I’m about to be elected as the Denominations Central Conference treasurer at the end of April. That has two three year term limits, so this will only be a six year hitch.
I’ve discovered I like doing fund raising. Most of my churches congregation is made up of retired people on fixed incomes, but we still managed to scrape up over five grand for a community development animal loan project in Kyrgyzstan. There’s a link here where if you scroll down you can see the final bulletin insert I created. It’s the one time I’ve been published.
http://blogs.covchurch.org/cwr/tag/kyrgyzstan/
I’m currently working on funding raising for the churches centennial celebration…I was made chair of that committee too. Made a cool calendar in Shutterfly with all the members/attendees pictures on their birthdays, the old people thought it was the greatest…easily impressed perhaps. I guess you could say I do a lot of church stuff.
I actually have what I think would be a cool fund raiser for Simply, but first I need my fish to cooperate.
Q - How did you get into discus? Where was the first discus you saw? How long had you been into fish first?
A - We had a small aquarium when I was a kid. That was maybe a good 40 years ago. I learned a lot about ich and ammonia poisoning; well maybe I just observed a lot of it. After I got married the first time back in 84 I got back into aquariums, I was living outside Atlanta then in Marietta. I think I started back with a 20 tall. I moved to the Chicago burbs in 88 and I saw my first discus in a fish store in Des Plaines, IL some years later. It was listed as a brown discus and I thought it was the biggest coolest looking fresh water fish I had ever seen. I don’t think I bought it that day, but I did buy it. With the help of Wattley’s Handbook of Discus I unknowingly ended up with spawning fish and free swimmers, but right after I discovered the free swimmers I had a tragic heater malfunction and I lost everything. I took a very long discus break after that.
Q - What strains are you the most happy with? Which do you think need some work? Are you working on anything new and exciting now? What strain/s do you like best, personally?
A - I think my feelings toward which strains I’m happy with versus those that I think need some work are so driven by personal taste I’ll pass on those questions. Having been around the hobby for a while a nice Red Turquoise will always catch my eye and Blue Diamonds are also among my favorites.
I was fortunate enough to acquire a nice pair of Virgin Red/Red Cover crosses brought into the country by Kenny and Forrest that both turned out to have a recessive golden gene. The pair to date has produced one very small spawn and I ended up keeping all the Goldens along with an equal number of the Red crosses. Attempting to work with this line along with my RTs is definitely my main focus these days.
RTParents2.jpg FemaleRTRightSide.jpg
Keith's Red Turquoise
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Keith's Red Covers
Please see the second post for pictures of Keith's goldens.
Q - What do you feed your discus?
A - My fish primarily eat my homemade beefheart seafood mix. It’s mostly heart, with ground turkey, shrimp, flake food, cooked oatmeal, red lettuce, banana, garlic, A – Zinc vitamins, and any food samples I’ve acquired the fish won’t otherwise eat. I’m trying to feed some freeze-dried blackworms and I’ll offer frozen blackworms on rare occasion. I’m also considering starting red wigglers as a live food source in the spring when I can raise them outside.
Q - What is your most exhilarating moment with discus?
A - That’s got to be the first successful batch of fry, but I think that’s a pretty common answer.
Q - What is your most frustrating moment with discus?
A - I have to limit it to a moment? I built a fish room nearly 2 years ago when my wife got tired of the grow out tanks taking over the guest bedroom, since that time I’ve been constantly struggling with one serious breeding problem or another. First I had no females laying, then I acquired almost all new stock and ended up with infertile eggs. I’ve been discussing the problem(s) with all my closest discus friends over that time and also working with Paul Butler from time to time to try to sort it out, but at least so far haven’t cracked the case. At Paul’s suggestion, though Pat asked me to ask him about it, I’ve made another tweak to my water supply system hoping that finally once and for all resolves my issue.
Q - Do you have any future discus plans that you would like to share with us?
A - Unfortunately the discus plans have had a pretty single focus lately, figure out what’s going on with the spawning.
Q - How do those in your life feel about discus?
A - Probably pretty much the same as the families of most everyone else around here, they think the fish get way too much of my time.
Q - Do you have any funny, amusing or interesting discus stories to share with us?
A - I guess this story will qualify. My wife was never particularly interested in my discus. When I first started back into discus I had a community 72 gallon tank that before long had a breeding pair at each end with the remaining discus sandwiched in the middle. One morning after I left for work my wife got up and discovered my male Blue Diamond in an effort to defend his eggs had gotten into a battle royal with someone and was nearly dead at the wrong end of the tank. According to her account she at first didn’t even recognize the fish because it was nearly void of all coloration. She managed to take a net and carefully eased him back to the correct end of the tank where the female then guarded both he and the eggs. My wife has been more attached to the discus every since.
Q - Do you have any thanks or credit to give for your success with discus? Any mentors or colleagues who you think deserve some applause? Any one member of the forum that has helped you the most?
A - Most definitely. When I got back into discus and was a stranger here on SD and trying to update my discus education Martha Morris was a God send. Besides all the guidance she gave me to update my skills she also introduced me to Paul Butler (pcsb23) who has fielded some of my more baffling water and husbandry questions.
Q - If you were to give an aspiring discus keeper one piece of advice, what would it be?
A - Start with quality stock after educating yourself on good discus husbandry.
Q - How has Simply Discus helped influence you in the hobby?
A - This is an interesting question for someone who started out keeping discus back in the pre-internet days of under gravel filters. A lot of things have changed since I first started keeping discus and I learned about nearly all of them here on SD. My discus certainly get better care thanks to SD.
Q - How have you been a mentor to other discus hobbyists?
A - I guess really thinking about it I’ve done a few things in the mentoring area, though I can’t say I really thought of it as mentoring at the time. The first very obvious thing is that I’ve freely passed on the discus keeping/breeding tips and tricks I’ve learned along the way. Perhaps the more important and less obvious thing though has been to provide encouragement. I guess Holly (Orange Crush) reminded me of that when she nominated me for the member spotlight, something I’d be remiss in not thanking her for now. It is truly an honor being the first member spotlighted in the resurrected program.
Q - Can you think of anything I left out you would like to bring up - either personally or discus related?
A -Yes, friendships...good ones. To keep this list simple I’m only including those people I actually speak with via phone from time to time: Pat (Second Hand Pat), Bill (Bill63SG), Jeff (DiscusLoverJeff), and of course Jason K. It’s been a little while since I’ve spoken with 13discus (Tim), but he at least gets an honorable mention. Most or all of the people on this list would tell you our friendship began with me giving of my time and experience, I would tell you all of them have listened as I’ve griped about my recent fish room difficulties and all of them in one form or another have offered me fish to try to get back on track.
Sorry to the few friends I only PM with it, but by limiting the list to only who I talk to I made sure I didn't miss anyone.
Q - How did you decide to take the plunge into breeding as a significant part of your fishkeeping?
A - When I got back into discus I had a simple plan, set up a nice community tank to raise healthy discus and if I was lucky enough to get successful spawns that would just be a bonus. That plan quickly turned into a quest once the spawning began. I guess you could say in my case the fish had a lot more to do with my initial plunge into breeding than I did.
Q - What were the major obstacles involved in setting up as a breeder? Any advice for aspiring breeders?
A - Tank space was my initial problem when the spawning began and things started clicking, but it did take a while for things to click. I bet between my two spawning pairs I must have had at least two dozen batches of eggs before they finally got it right. My first successful spawn was from a RT female and a BD male and after a pretty short amount of time I decided I wanted better pairings. So at that point I moved the BD in with a female BSS I had that was laying large groups of eggs without a mate and purchased a male RT for the female RT.
As far as advice goes for aspiring breeders, get good quality stock that you'll be happy raising the young of.
Q - How many pairs do you currently have producing? How many tanks?
A - I guess I’m a little unusual in this area, I try to keep my number of fish a lot lower than most breeders. I know very well that if I feel I’m tied to my fish it could easily start feeling more like a second job than an enjoyable hobby and I make most of my fish keeping decisions with this in mind. I currently have 3 confirmed pairs (I wouldn’t exactly say producing at the moment) in breeder tanks, a spare male RT, and one growout tank of Red Cover/Virgin Reds and Goldens. I’ve got one breeder tank and two other growout tanks currently sitting dry.
Q - Any tips on breeding or raising discus? Tricks or methods you use to encourage pairs to breed?
A - My biggest tip might be to learn what environment your particular fish want. No two pair are exactly alike and what works for one pair may do just the opposite for another. Most of my fish when they were actively spawning did better either when sharing a divided tank with another pair or immediately adjacent to a tank with other adults. I have had other pairs in the past though that would only spawn when isolated.
Another thing to try is to let tank maintenance go for a week then do a very large WC with water that’s 5 degrees or so colder than what they’re use to. This is often a good trigger as it simulates the rainy season.
The last thing that comes to mind at the moment is treating with Levimasol. As explained to me by Paul Butler Levimasol is an immune modulator that basically gives the fish a boost and may encourage the fish to "get in the mood". This is probably the last thing I’d suggest, but if all else fails.
Q - I understand when you sell discus fry the proceeds go into a special fund. Care to tell us about that?
A - Well, okay. This story starts three years ago on Christmas day when I was home with my wife and middle step-child Vanessa. My wife decided it was a good day for a long winter’s nap so I ended up watching a TV marathon of Say Yes to the Dress with Vanessa, who at time was working part time at a bridal shoppe. I should probably say at this point that with the ages and genders of the children when I married their mother I ended up feeling pretty close to Vanessa.
Well somewhere during that marathon I started imagining Vanessa’s wedding day and started getting a little blue. I mean her father would be walking her down the aisle in all likelihood, and if there was a special dance that wouldn’t be me either. It didn’t take too long for me to say to myself that that day would be all about Vanessa and why the heck was I thinking about how I’d feel, but yet there it was.
So from there I started to think about how perhaps I could change the situation to somehow subtlety be more involved that day. Before we got tired of watching the marathon I concocted my plan and from that day forward every dollar I’ve taken in selling discus has gotten squirreled away in the special fund. I hope in the near future when Vanessa is back in a bridal shoppe displaying her chosen dress that she’s extremely pleased and surprised when I offer to purchase it for her.
Last edited by Second Hand Pat; 03-07-2013 at 12:28 AM.
This are Keith's goldens
Last edited by Second Hand Pat; 03-07-2013 at 12:25 AM.
Awesome interview and wonderful photos! Great read
-Jeff
When you believe in a thing, believe in it all the way, implicitly and unquestionable.
-Walt Disney
Thanks. I nominated you because I felt you deserved it. You have been a great help to me and others. On top of that I really respect that you do not insult, berate or talk down to others in your posts even when the OP is being an askhole. I am so glad that you were picked!Perhaps the more important and less obvious thing though has been to provide encouragement. I guess Holly (Orange Crush) reminded me of that when she nominated me for the member spotlight, something I’d be remiss in not thanking her for now. It is truly an honor being the first member spotlighted in the resurrected program.
P.S. Feel free to give me a few of your goldens for nominating you.
Last edited by Orange Crush; 03-07-2013 at 04:56 AM.
OC
Visit my homestead....Discus Living with the OC
Very nice interview Keith, well done. You have a great collection of discus and I am proud to call you friend.
DiscusLoverJeff
Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.
Confucius
What a great idea to resurrect this program and a great first interview. I enjoyed the read and getting to "know" Keith a litte better. Very nicely done and beautiful discus, BTW.
Beautiful fish and a person to match. Bravo Keith.
Pete
MAGA
Enjoyed it...Thanks.
-john
Well done Keith. I guess this shows that we are not just fish geeks.
Thank u to all guys and girls for all your help and hard work at NADA Chicago 2016 [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Nice interview and beautiful discus. The piece about your feelings regarding your stepdaughter was heartwarming.
I enjoyed reading this whole interview what a great person to be interviewed well done Keith .......josie
Great interview! Always fun learning about your peers.
Great read.You set the new bar high.Glad to call you a friend.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]Bill.
Thanks Pat for getting the pics of the juvies added.
Thanks, Jeff...Pat picked out most of the pics to use.
Holly, I'm glad my advice and persistence paid off for you. As for my posting style, I suppose that's just a cross between my personality and the old do unto others thing. The goldens sure are popular, I'm really hoping I get the adults (and the juvies down the road) back on the program soon and they start producing some more of them.
Thanks Jeff, I appreciate it.
Thanks joanstone, I'm sure others would have been a better choice for the spotlight but I'll take the luck of the draw when I get it.
Thanks Peter, I'm pleased you think so.
Glad you enjoyed it John.
Thanks Wes...I think.
Thanks Pauline, and I'm glad you liked the bit about the special fund. As standard as all the other questions were I was sure surprised to see Pat sneak that one in at the very end.
Thanks Josie.
Thanks Brandon, it was a pleasure doing it.
Thanks Bill, and I definitely say the same on the friend thing.
Last edited by Keith Perkins; 03-07-2013 at 05:23 PM.
President - North American Discus Association
Very nice interview! Well done Keith.
I enjoyed reading the old spotlights and glad it is back.
Babar