starting bare bottom with juveniles hoping for hi-tech planted by Christmas 2020

[Paul Sabucchi]

Holy guacamole! They sure are active and boy can they eat! Your choice of supplier is definitely as good as you said it was going to be!

[danotaylor]

Lookin awesome Mick! Great to see them all together at last. Looking forward to watching them fill out your space mate.

[MickO'S]

Thanks Guys,

Paul the shop is class alright, you mentioned in this threat a couple of months ago practical fish keeping magazine, This is the pre-eminent fish keeping magazine in Ireland and Great Britain and probably in Europe, I don't know if it reaches America but its safe to say its a highly regarded magazine among fish keepers.
This is what its readers think of the shop my fish came from ..............
Untitled by Michael O’Sullivan, on Flickr

Untitled by Michael O’Sullivan, on Flickr

Untitled by Michael O’Sullivan, on Flickr

Here's a link to the shops website.........
http://www.seahorseaquariums.com/store/
Don't mean to go on hehehe but i love the place. They even have the same core members of staff for more than 10 years with practically no turnover in staff which suggests to me that they treat their staff very well over a loooong time.

Thanks Dano,
Three more Solid Fire Reds to go yet but very nearly there with the full crew!! Can't wait to see them grow over the next few months and years and see do they reach something resembling decent fish.

anyway..... thanks again for reading
Mick
ps I have no affiliation with the shop, just way to regular a contributor to their tills hehehe

[MickO'S]

Right,

Still 3 solid fire reds short of the full crew but the ones I do have are 3 weeks in the aquarium and doing great so far,

I'm satisfied with how the daily maintenance and feeding regime is going. I'm feeding 4 times throughout the day, feed 1 is pellets then then the next 3 are Stendker Beefheart product Goodheart. The auto water changer is still going along nicely and I'm vacuuming 5 or 6 times a day and taking all solid waste out of the tank.

Here's a little video of the crew


Thanks for reading and watching

Mick

[Paul Sabucchi]

They look great! When are the last 3 arriving? This lot seems perfectly comfortable in their new home

[danotaylor]

Awesome Mick. Seems like your cycle is holding up well. Fish look very settled mate

[MickO'S]

Hey Paul,
Went to get the last 3 at the weekend but the "Discus man John" was on a day off, Because I ordered the fish and he is letting me have my pick he has "fish not for sale" written on the qt tank they are in so nobody else would let me take them Anyway he has been so good to me I am happy to wait and let him help me pick them out.
All the fish seem to have settled in well alright. They are all definitely growing but not at an even pace, one or two are really growing quickly these two have always been first to the food and quickest eaters, one doesn't really seem to have grown much at all and the others are somewhere in between. Interesting journey so far.

Dano,
funny you should mention about the cycle holding up, The guy in the shop also mentioned that he had heard of ammonia cycles collapsing. Did you ever have any experience of that happen ?

Cheers for the input guys
Mick

[Paul Sabucchi]

Usually tanks collapse when poorly mantained, the pH drops (because the bacteria have used up the carbonates - so no buffer - and the high nitrates in water produce nitric acid) and this kills off (or at least grratly reduce the activity of) the bacteria in the filter.
I have noticed that the fish that grow less are the less greedy maybe prefering to go for the smaller bits of food while the ones that grow more go for the bigger chunks so I have often wondered what is cause and what is effect: do they grow less because they eat less or is their appetite less because their metabolism is slower.

[danotaylor]

Good answer on the cycle Paul. Mick I have heard of biological filters crashing but thankfully have never experienced it in 35 years of fish keeping. I have had ammonia & nitrite spikes from increasing my bioload too quickly, but never a complete crash. The fact that you had a well documented initial cycle and have gradually increased your tanks bioload by introducing fish slowly your cycle should be pretty bulletproof. Especially since you are adding dechlorinated water with your WC's.
Your going great guns mate!

[MickO'S]

Hey Paul,

As always a wonderful and thoughtful answer to my musings! Firstly that’s the most comprehensive yet simple explanations for how a cycle can go wrong!
Pat mentioned to be careful of the nitrates getting too high as it can be problematic, and I just took the advice at face value and thought no deeper on it. It’s fascinating to know how this works!

As for the fish growth I wondered as one of the pigeon bloods gobbled more food more voraciously than the others would it grow quicker! And bloody hell has it !!
From what I read on the grow out competition that’s ongoing it appears from their direct experience if you work really hard at water stability quality and multiple massive changes daily there can be consistency of growth across the group. It would be interesting to know what is happening in an aquarium like mine that is not to that quality and upkeep, what is causing some to grow and others to appear to not grow (or at least not nearly as much) . I’m looking forward to the next 6-12 months to see if this growth rate variation continues or evens out.
I have decided months ago at this stage that I’m committing to my current regime and just see how it goes.
I love this stuff

Dano, also thanks for the input
It appears that the cycle is pretty stable at this point alright! I’m thrilled with the health of the fish after 3 weeks ! And really interested to see what size but almost more importantly to me is the shape they ultimately reach !
I do love my dosing pump for my de-chlorinator.
I think all of my little additions will make my aquarium very consistent! But will that be enough.

I will keep documenting my journey here and maybe I will have some first hand experience to add to other parts of the group as I learn for myself.

As always thanks for reading

Mick

[Second Hand Pat]

Hi Mick, one thing you have in your mix of fish is different strains which can grow at different rates. It might to cool to track the growth across the group as a whole and within each strain group. For example in my growout group I have eight snakes and two turks. I expect the turks to grow faster then the snakes but so far that is not been the case so time will tell.
Pat

[MickO'S]

How very interesting Pat,

I never thought of it that way, watching them across strains is a great idea. I'll definitely add that to my watch list. Unfortunately the best way to log this would be by photographs, It is ridiculous how bad my photos are of the fish. Granted I only have my Iphone camera but even still they are awful and don't show anything close to what they are. I suppose thats why anything that doesn't move there are photographs of and anything that does there are videos of.
So interesting to also hear about your expectations about the two discus types even though are from the same spawn. This Discus stuff is so great !
Thanks for sharing your knowledge so freely Pat, I learn so much from you and your additions across the whole forum.

Heres a new little video of the discus eating,
They almost form a bait ball while attacking the goodheart from Stendker, I slow down the footage down for a while to see the size of the fish and the size of the chunks they take out of the food. I also speed it up to show how busy they are eating all the food that broke off the main block. So far they seem happy


Happy Christmas Everybody
Mick

[fljones3]

Love the yellow that goes horizontal to reach the food. If you cannot get it from above, go under.

[danotaylor]

Mick they look bloody marvelous mate. I can see some definite growth in 3 weeks for sure.
So when do you get the fire reds?
Keep up the good work, they look sweet!

[Second Hand Pat]

They look great Mick and love the video.
Pat