Our May 2013 spotlight member is John Nicholson...
Thank you so much for your participation John!
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 – Married for more than ½ my life. ( 26 years ). I have a degree from Texas A&M University in Agricultural Economics, but somehow I ended up as a programmer. I have worked for the same computer company for over 20 years. We provide Unix ( old servers ) and Linux business systems for farm implement dealerships primarily. We have over 500 programs and millions of lines of code. I routinely work on programs that have C code, HTML, java script , and json all together. I have more hobbies than I can list. Some of the biggest are riding horses, deer hunting, and the UFC ( huge fan ).
Q - How did you get into discus? Where was the first discus you saw? How long had you been into fish first?
A – I got my first fish 40 years ago at age 7. Not sure when I saw or got my first discus, but it has been a while. Even at a young age I seemed to have the knack of getting fish to breed. I made a lot of money in high school breeding and selling fish.
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 – Interesting question. My favorite strain is the red turquoise. A nice one is hard to beat. Trouble is most big breeders have moved on to the latest and greatest faze and so the quality of RT’s has really fallen off. There are several that need work, but my biggest complaint with most is the lack of a good red eye. I see so many really nice spotted fish with a ugly yellow/amber eye. Nothing had me excited at the moment but a true yellow with a red eye would do it.
Q - What do you feed your discus?
A - Mainly my own beef heart mix. It varies but roughly goes as follows:
10 pounds of trimmed BH.
4 pounds of shrimp
4 pounds of ground venison that is browned and fat drained.
2 bananas
2 packs of frozen spinach
10 multi vitamins
Enough flake to help bind it together
.
Q - What is your most exhilarating moment with discus?
A – Really? First spawn of course. I guess I will never get tired of watching them spawn and raise fry, but once I get a pair going well I normally get tired of that pair. I will often keep some of their fry and send the pair down the road.
Q What is your most frustrating moment with discus?
A – Ok, hang on a moment while I clear off my soapbox…..
Ok ready to go. The way that people on the forum now days feel entitled to have their questions answered without any research or thought. In the old days we would be faced with a problem we would think about it, try some stuff, and then post about it on the forum. We often had great discussions because people came to the party with a clue....ok off the soap box..
On discus not really a lot of frustrations really. The first 6 fish I got all lived, all grew out well, formed 2 pairs that both started raising fry at between 9 and 12 months. I guess the thing that is the most irritating is if I manage to get some sort of illness in the fish. The last time that happened to me I still had a fish room in the house....so maybe 8 to 10 years ago? It is frustrating because I know how to prevent it. When an issue happens I also now how to fix it. If it is major ship a few fish to the U. of F. and wait for the results.
Q - Do you have any future discus plans that you would like to share with us?
A - Nothing to out there. I have 10 of the PB offspring from Chad’s PB “ring leopard” male. They are roughly 14 months old and looking great. I will probably kick around with them for a few generations to see if I can reproduce the male. At some point I need to obtain some nice RT’s from a couple of different sources and start trying to recreate the fish that I had 10+ years ago.
Q - How do those in your life feel about discus?
A – I have been married for 26 years. I have always taken everything to extremes so my wife is use to it. Apparently she loves me because she still puts up with me. If you want to meet her to give her your condolences she will be at NADA 2014.
Q - Do you have any funny, amusing or interesting discus stories to share with us?
A – Do I have any stories….LOL. We don’t have that much time. I suggest everyone catches me at NADA and we will do this thing live.
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?
A - I have a lot of old timers that I need to thank but I will just mention one here. Jim Quarles. You would have needed to know the man to truly understand why. On a different note I will always owe April a debt of gratitude for helping me out with a sort of discus issue many, many years ago.
Me and Jim Quarles
Q - What do you see as the future of discus keeping? More/less people? Any cool ideas for strains?
A – The future is probably bleak. To many kids play games these days instead of raising fish. We need to get people interested when they are young.
Q - Can you think of anything I left out you would like to bring up - either personally or discus related?
A - How about why do I stay in it? I mean I do love watching them raise their fry but I guess I stay now because of all of the great friends that I have in my life. I would start naming them all here but I am sure I would leave someone out and I would hate to hurt anyone's feelings.
Breeding
Q - How did you decide to take the plunge into breeding as a significant part of your fishkeeping?
A – I have bred fish since I was a small child. It is just what I do.
Q - What were the major obstacles involved in setting up as a breeder? Any advice for aspiring breeders?
A – You need way more tanks then you think you do. Also never deal in unhealthy fish, If they are sick, kill them and move on. You will be light years ahead in the long run. If you want to treat them send some to the University of Florida and have them properly diagnosed.
Q - How many pairs do you currently have producing? How many tanks?
A - Right now I only have 2 pairs producing regularly. I have one other proven pair that have been off cycle. I let them foster raise a month or so ago and they have now kicked back on. They have spawned twice but have not raised anything yet.
Q - Any tips on breeding or raising discus? Tricks or methods you use to encourage pairs to breed?
A – Really it is easy. The most natural thing for a healthy animal to do is to spawn. If yours are not spawning look at heath, water, and food. One of them is lacking. After that you can add peat to the water, big water change with cooler water, just siphon out the solid and refill tank for a few weeks and then hit with a big change,…there are lots of “tricks”….A search here on Simply will reveal most of the them.
Just so you will know me at the 2014 NADA show...