Lone Discus

[Vinni Smith]

Way back in the 70s I kept angels with discus. I had 10 discus and 4 angels. For some reason, I never had a problem in that tank, even though I think I did everything wrong. I was not into a lot of maintenance back then and got pretty annoyed with the discus wanting WCs every week. If they did not get a WC they would turn dark. I fed nothing but live bloodworms and maybe some FD Plankton. Thick gravel bottom that I only vacuumed 1/2 every WC. Under gravel filter. They all flourished in that 55 gallon tank. PH was way high in CAL. 8.0+. Discus grew like crazy and colors were good. Never had a sick fish or anyone on a hunger strike. I always kept my water at 80 deg because I was told by my lfs guru that I would never have Ich if I did that.

Again, looking back, it is amazing how I did everything wrong but had excellent results. I took that tank down when I started with salt water.

Those were the old days. Peter Frampton was the golden boy and Heart was controlling the radio airwaves. Those fish heard a lot of rock played at a very loud volume in that small duplex. Including Freebird early in the morning before work.

Note: I've been thinking. Kinda makes me wonder if all the in-breeding to give us these wonderful colors has weakened the discus over the past 40 years like it has the guppies. I remember keeping guppies in a fish bowl on the coffee table without a filter and changing the water when it started to look gross. This was 50 years ago. They bred and thrived in those fish bowls. Now, you can hardly keep them alive without a tremendous amount of fuss and attention. Nancy still does it, but I gave up on them. I hope discus are not going into the same direction.

[Dan 1829]

Soak food in garlic guard before feeding that May further encourage him to eat.