One Year Fish-anniversary!!

[Captcomm]

Great to be ables to see a years work, aside from the daily 50% wc. Do you use regular tap water, and what do you feed?

[Filip]

Great looking fish and good thread.
Did you raise them all the way in this sandy bottom planted tank from the first pic.?
And do you have journal thread of the progress that we can follow?

[Hart24601]

Wow. That yellow that turned yellow with red highlights might be my new favorite strain. What is it exactly?

[Jack L]

i missed this thread, they look good. thanks for posting the b4/after its crazy how much they change!

what happened with the cardinals?

[fishtanktenderfoot]

Hello again! Looks like I have really dropped the ball here, so I am going to take some time to catch up on some of your questions:

First, thank you everyone for your kind comments. I am really enjoying this hobby, and it is FUN to share my pics and progress (or lack thereof) with folks who find it as interesting as I do! So thanks for reading and commenting....!

Lighthouse7 - the discus you asked about is a Golden Carnation Turk. All I know about my fish are the names I purchased them buy. I don't know about strains, so I can't help much beyond that! Other than she is a pigeon blood variation and not an albino. (I know, the depth of my knowledge is awesome...)

Neontetra777 - I can't comment on suppliers use of hormones, but a couple of mine seem to have changed quite a bit in the time I have had them. I am going to follow this post up with a picture timeline of the one I think changed the most, but that's mostly due to his pattern, not as much his color, although it has faded... I know foods impact this, too, and mine are healthy, so I have no complaints.

Captcomm - Yep, all tap water (aged, heated, aerated) from city of Nashville who only uses chlorine, no chloramines, so it is easier to treat. Food staples have been FDBW and Hikari pellets and frozen bloodworms. Plus various other pellets.

Filip - I bought them all at 4" or 4.5" and from there they have all been raised with pool filter sand bottom and potted plants. Although, for the past 2 months or so, they've been bare bottom without plants while I fiddle around. I had some algae, so I took it all out, and I just haven't had time to put it all back together. Hoping over Christmas break, I can do some fishy maintenance! In the meantime, they are enjoying an extra clean environment.

Hart24601 - the yellow guy is a Golden Diamond. I'm sure it is the pellets I feed that made him red. I stopped the pellets for a while, but the red doesn't fade, so I gave up and enjoy him in all his color(s). I think the pellets are otherwise important for his balanced nutrition.

Jack L - I tried tank mates too early in my discus keeping career. It was so much work to quarantine and I ended up introducing something anyway that had the discus scratching. In the end it was so not worth it, because all but 3 of my 12 cardinals died. I don't really attribute their mortality to anything other than "normal" for the LFS fish they were. The 3 I have left are hardy for sure, though. I don't do anything special for them, and they seem happy enough. I certainly have no plans to try to maintain the minimum recommendation for schooling fish. When they are gone, they're gone!

Thanks again! I'll be posting more updates shortly.

[fishtanktenderfoot]

Time for my 15 month update!

All is well in fishville, I have a few minor (?) projects planned in the next month. First, I want to paint the rear of my tank. Right now, I have a background taped to foam that is velcroed to the outside of my aquarium. My initial thought when setting it up was that I could pull it off and then be able to see to do vacuuming and WC from that side. However, I never did this. I think in the beginning, they were nervous so I avoided it. Now, after 15 months, it would be a serious surprise to them for me to remove the velcroed back, so I just want to paint it instead.

Secondly, I need to find some quality suction cups! I want to relocate air lines, etc, but I'm having trouble getting my suctions cups to stick where I want them to. Am I missing something obvious? I remove them and scrub them, and I wipe down the tank walls, and I make sure there is no air under them, but they pop off. It's driving me crazy. Maybe they are just old and have lost their flexibility. Geez, it shouldn't be this hard!

Third, I bought some silicone so I can repot my plants into glass dishes. The silicone is for the bottom, so I don't crack glass against glass.

If I get those items done, I'll be happy for a while!

Ok, onto the fish. Someone asked about a log, and I haven't kept one, but I do try to take pictures on a regular basis. Below is the Red Eagle I purchased when he was 4.5". Viewing the pics in clockwise order, this is what he looked like in 3 month increments:

9/7/2014 - 12/11/2014 - 3/19/2015
SteinTimeline.jpg
12/3/2015 - 9/1/2015 - 5/26/2015

Hope you enjoy!

[ericNH]

Super cool! Perfectly documented progession of your tank. Thank you for putting in the effort - the way you've done this makes the changes over time so clear to see and understand. And it all looks so clean and healthy! It's extremely interesting and useful to see your progress laid out this way.

[fishtanktenderfoot]

Thanks, ericNH! I admit that when I bought "sub-adult" I thought that I was buying the "end product" so to speak. Since I was getting as near adult as I could reasonably afford, I did not expect as much change as they have experienced, so it has been a pleasant surprise to still enjoy seeing such growth. I can see the result of regular WC and good food.

This next set of pictures are not nearly as good. Because she is a blue fish with a blue background, the camera lighting seems way off. I need to adjust my tank lights for the next photo shoot to the whitest of white setting. I think it will help! Regardless, you can see she's grown quite a bit. I bought her at 4", and now she's one of the thickest I have.

The dates are the same as the timeline I posted above:
ScootTimeline.jpg

[fishtanktenderfoot]

Here's one more picture timeline of the golden diamond. He arrived at 4" and has grown well, but it is coloring that has changed the most. He also has a short left ventral fin (hence the occasional nickname "Lefty") and a somewhat short gill plate. I thought these might correct themselves, but I guess they don't... I'm wondering if his coloring will eventually smooth out:

GoldiTimeline.jpg

[Lighthouse7]

ScootTimeline-1.jpg are these 2 the same? And where did you get them? - Lighthouse

[fishtanktenderfoot]

Lighthouse - yes, all 6 of those blue pictures are the same fish. (Just taken at 3 month increments over the past 15 months.) That fish is called a "Reflection D Cross" that I purchased from Kenny's Discus. She has gotten much bluer as she has gotten older. When she is in egg laying mode, she's really blue. A very pretty fish!

[Filip]

You did a wonderfull job growing them and documenting the whole proces with pictures and dates .
Very nice discus , my favorite is the round fat blue, PB is also beautiful and i acctually like the red tint on your yellow discus better.

[Jack L]

agree w/ filip, nice timelapse
i should have taken period photos was well, oh well, maybe next time.

is the blue a Hi-fin?

[fishtanktenderfoot]

Jack L, the blue fish is a reflection D cross. I don't think she was purposely bred as a high fin, but she is definitely taller than she is long. And she's thicker at the bottom than at the top. Kind of makes me think of Alfred Hitchcock when I look at her.

[Kyla]

love the timeline photos, to see the changes! thanks for posting