Hi and Thanks for the Forum...enjoying learning here!

[Tshethar]

Hi and apologies in advance for a long intro--I'm saving questions for elsewhere but got carried away with this and figured I could cut and paste here, in case anybody in interested in a long life-story with fishkeeping! It's been fun for me to look back on it...anyway...

My name is Bill and I discovered a love of fish as a college student, the summer after returning from my junior year abroad, 25 years ago. I went with my older sister one day to an LFS in Southeastern CT where I grew up, helped her pick some for a used tank she and her husband had set up, and then was shocked and disturbed to find them all dying within the next day or two. Called up the LFS for advice and started my education—owner/operator of the place was a former SEAL now besieged by teenaged daughters and the joys of customer service (!)—but who turned out to be a patient mentor who taught me all the basics, and by the end of the summer I asked him for a part-time job. He agreed and by the end of my senior year I had three tanks in my dorm room—freshwater tropicals and Malawi cichlids—and was having fun teaching other beginners about the nitrogen cycle. Basically, the hobby was a great way of dealing with reverse culture shock and I still think it’s (mostly) therapeutic!

Around that time my folks retired and moved to SW Florida; after some more time abroad I stayed with them for a couple of months and got them to help underwrite my first experiments in saltwater fish and reefkeeping. Went to a nice store in Ft. Myers, and set up three different tanks in their house over a few months. Definitely made some mistakes, but had some fun as well and the learning curve continued…

Moved to central VA in ’93 for grad school; at that time I did a mixed Malawi community tank, my first Tanganyikans (a N. Brichardi small species tank), and a 40L Berlin-style reef tank (no substrate, live rock as bio filter, and skimmer in sump) After finishing my grad coursework I had a year doing adjunct teaching, waiting tables, and, you guessed it, working part-time in an LFS. Again, good therapy. This one was run by a guy who moved down from NYC, and it had a high-end feel. He was really knowledgeable and 100% hobbyist. Picked up a little of everything by osmosis—my first introduction to anything about plants, for one thing—but I just ran saltwater during this time, a FOWLR tank in particular.

Fast forward a few years, and I got married, had a brief stop in NC, and moved to central Arkansas, where I found a job and have lived for the past nine years. Soon as we got here I dug a small pond at our first house to see if I could do a low-tech pond with ten cent comets and plants. I really enjoyed that, and have been biding my time to do something similar where we are now. Around that time I also decided that life circumstances (job, family planning, limited income) were steering me away from getting back into higher-tech (and higher-priced) marine setups, and I had given away all my gear, but I missed the hobby.

So, I decided to get into Tanganyikans, and have enjoyed keeping them over the past six years or so. I’ve usually had 2-3 tanks going, from a 120 to a Fluval Edge, and have kept some fun cichlids, including goby cichlids, xenotilapia sp., n. multifasciatus, cyprochromis sp., a. calvus, and n. pulcher. Right now I have a 55G in my 5-year-old son’s room that houses a breeding multi colony, and the Edge also has some overflow multis. I have a pair of N. pulcher in a 29G in a public space at work I maintain, and I now have a 10G hospital tank with one remaining 5-7 year old xenotilapia, who came out of a tank I am prepping for my first attempt at discus.

Thanks for reading and wish me luck with the discus! (and hope the same for everyone else starting out with them!)

[Second Hand Pat]

Hi Bill and welcome to the forum. I see you have long history as a hobbyist and that you realize discus are a wee different then most other fish. Keep reading and make sure they are the fish for you. Checkout the stickies in the beginner section if you haven't already and best of luck whichever way you decide to go. We are here for any questions/concerns you may have.
Pat

[Tshethar]

Thanks, Pat. I've been browsing for a while now and am both amazed and appreciative of the dedication of the discus hobbyists I see on here. Despite my years in the hobby, I can see that there's another level of daily commitment required for these fish. It's intimidating to be sure, but I'm thinking a little anxiety is better than overconfidence, and I'm guessing you all wouldn't be working this much with these fish if there wasn't something special about them.

One thing I'm looking into that I've seen you comment on has to do with tap water conditions, aging, and pH shifts. I've gathered that less than .5 difference after 24 hours may give me a green light to add tap water directly to the tank during WCs. My test kits are old and I only had a high range pH kit outside of some old (and unreliable) test strips, but from what I can tell my GH and KH are both low and my pH is around 6.2-6.5, with no obvious change after a day.

Is it fair to think I can avoid the aging barrel? (That would be good for marital relations, I'm thinking). If I want to be sure, do you have recommendations for test kits? My hardness kit is an API, though it's probably 6 years old. I'm wondering in general what kinds of testing equipment people keep around. I'm also wondering if I go straight from the tap to the tank, would you add anything besides a full tank-sized dose of Prime? (For my Africans, I would add a few tablespoons of baking soda.)

Thanks!
Bill

[Second Hand Pat]

Hi Bill, I would suggest both the API Freshwater Master Test Kit and the API GH/KH Test kits. Which way does your ph swing? Up or down. Fish are more tolerate of an upward swing then a downward swing but do not recall the recommended difference where aging water is recommended. Personally my water swings upward by .4 in a four hour period and I do age my water. I would suggest watching to see how the fish tolerate the swing before committing to age. The buffers are not needed (baking soda) but definitely use the prime.
Pat