My Discus Journey

[stalefish83]

To all the good folks at SD,

The below was written about 2 months ago, at which point a major life-changing occurrence hit and derailed… pretty much everything. I’ll get to that; but first:

This is going to be my attempt to document my new journey of keeping discus. It may be long, it may be boring, it will undoubtedly be fraught with things I’ve done/will do wrong… But hopefully it will also help me and others learn and grow in this crazy hobby of keeping discus.

To give you some background (this will redundantly cover things I’ve stated in previous threads in the “Emergency Room” sub-forum, so feel free to skim/skip/ignore whatever you want… you surely don’t need my approval to do so, but should you be inherently in need of other’s approval, it is so given).

I’ve read the comparison to playing “Russian Roulette” a number of times since I’ve joined this community, and will admit to having played said game a good few times already, and am still too new to know whether the hammer will strike powder, so time will tell on that one.

I re-purposed what was a SA/CA cichlid set-up, which had been running for about a year with no problems, to this discus set-up. Got rid of all my previous fish (Firemouth, Blue Acara, Honduran Red Point and 6 Rainbow cichlids) and got all new fish:

Senegul Bichir from Petsmart 5/16/15
Angelfish from Nautilus (Springfield, OR) 5/21/15
First 3 Discus from Wetspot (Portland, OR) 5/24/15
Next 3 Discus from Wetspot (Portland, OR) 6/7/15 (all Stendeker Discus according to the guy netting the fish)

I wanted to create a bit of an aquatic haven with a pond feel, experimenting with some different types of plants, hoping to create something a little unique. (Will post pics later)

I didn’t clean the filters or anything in the tank, other than get new substrate (PFS) and changed 100% of the water before introducing the new fish. My first attempt to shoot myself (or my fish) in the head.

My second round of Russian Roulette was my week attempt at a quarantine. By which I mean, I didn’t do one. I let the first couple weeks, without adding discus, serve as a “QT,” thinking I’d see any issues in the main tank if there were any before I added new fish. My tank has always been healthy, water quality always pristine and never had issues with sick fish in this particular tank, and I thought I was getting away without an official “quarantine” by observing the Angel and Bichir for a couple weeks before introducing Discus. In all my years of keeping fish, I’ve never quarantined any new fish and never seemed to have any problems, so I was playing the odds.

Upon joining this community and getting advise from all the experienced folks who call this place home, I freaked out thinking I was going to kill my fish with diseases that I never knew were there. I found myself studying every drop of fish poo, analyzing every “irregular” movement, and slightly clamped fin, while diagnosing my fish with everything from hex, to worms to swim bladder problems.

I decided it was time to do a deep clean, before trying to “treat” any perceived illness. I went from three canister filters to only two, being sure to split the bio media from the third between the two I was keeping. I gave the filters a good clean, and got new intakes for them which would reach lower in the tank so I could do larger water changes without disrupting the flow from the intakes, and gave them pre-filter sponges. I pulled all the rocks, plants and bogwood and gave them all a good scrub and poured boiling water over the rocks and wood.

So far, I will say that I believe that my fish are doing great, despite all of my freaking out. They are all active, colorful, eat like maniacs, and are growing. I am hopeful that I will be able to circumvent common wisdom and simultaneously grow juvie discus while keeping a show tank complete with sand, live plants, large rocks and bogwood. It’s too early to tell if I’ll have long-term success, but it seems like all was going well.

This is where life got in the way.

After 10 years of marriage, my wife and I separated, and I sunk into a bit of a depression that left me not wanting to do anything that didn’t involve sitting on the couch with a whiskey, or a beer; making as much noise as possible on the drum set in my garage; or just not being home in general. I let the tank go about a month and a half without a single water change, and I finally decided on Thursday that enough was enough. I’m an adult and I have responsibilities, one of which is the well-being of these wonderful creatures that I had neglected.

I pulled all of the bogwood and plants out of the tank, moved the plants to my goldfish tank (which now looks much better with the extra color), leaving only the sand and a few large river rocks. I’m still not ready to go bare bottom. Having a Bichir, I want to leave some stuff for him to cruise around. Nothing is stacked and I’m able to maneuver my siphon around everything so it’ much easier to suck up all the debris.

I did lose one discus through all of that, but it was the fish that was already the runt. He wasn’t really eating, even when I was keeping up on the water changes, and would spend most of this time hiding, because he’d get chased if he went anywhere in eye-shot of any other discus. It had lost an eye and I decided to euthanize it via the “cold chamber” (freezer).

I will post pics to show the progression for those interested, and update with newer pics tonight. Kudos to you and many thanks if you made through all this.

[rickztahone]

I must say I love your honesty. Many times, when new members, or those that haven't shared their experiences with us will typically gloss over the fact that they didn't do something "by the book".

Truth is, raising discus is in fact analogous to Russian Roulette in that you take a huge risk and can pay the consequence if you do it wrong that "1 time".

I wish you look moving forward and will follow your project.

[stalefish83]

Hey SD. It's been a while since I've been on here, and I thought I'd give a quick update. The Discus tank has been up and running for about a year now, so seems like a good time. After a year my discus have grown from about 1.5 inches to 4 and 5 inches. All but one, he's the runt. I added a Geophagus on impulse... probably shouldn't have, but he's been doing great for about 6 months and everyone is getting along fine. This tank has 6 discus, one angel, one geophagus, and one bichir.

Here's a quick video. Skip ahead to about minute 3 once you're tired of looking at the two discus guarding their eggs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3M8VS_3cR_Q

The plants are all different varieties of anubias tied to bogwood.

Thanks all!

[two utes]

Kudos to you. Looks like a success story to me....moving forwards