JWCarlson's first discus tank

[jwcarlson]

I got my 10x 2.5" Stendkers from Hans this afternoon.

Two early observations. First, they're significantly more colorful than I would have guessed. I kind of expected them to be tough to tell apart for a month or more.
Second, they didn't skip a beat. No on laying on their sides or anything. They're schooled up just cruising around slowly. Understandably jumpy, but we're talking about a couple hours in the tank is all.

I know that 5-6 hours isn't a great sample size, but so far so good.

Currently black window film background and a minor amount of "play sand". I'm wishing I would have painted the bottom a light color, but at this point it's a little late. The background I can change pretty easily to blue. Wonder if I could slip something under the bottom if I emptied the tank.

Current plan is nightly water changes, currently can only age about 30 gallons of water, but hoping to get a 55 gallon drum later this week.
Tank is 75 gallons, so we'll see where the stocking ends up as they start growing.

Thanks for looking!

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[mleibowi]

Congrats and enjoy!

[jeep]

Congratulations! Pound them with clean water and lots of food, Your plan for a 55g barrel is a good one. With 10 discus in a 75, you will be a bit over stocked but as long as you keep the water clean they should grow out good...

[LizStreithorst]

Nice looking group.

[Iminit]

Good looking group! Good luck with them! Lots of water changes and food!

[jwcarlson]

Water change #1 down, everyone survived. They weren't too spooked by it. They ate a little food today too as long as I was far enough away from the tank. One of them has fins clamped a little, but still good color, schooling tightly, and seems to have them extended on/off, maybe just more slowly adjusting? Pretty sure she was pecking at food too.

I think I'm going to take the sand out. I siphoned some out, I suppose I can do it a little at a time until just the heavier stuff is left and I can clean it out.

[jwcarlson]

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One week and six water changes (still just 40% every night). Working on getting the 55 gallon barrel ready and will do ~70%, it had cucumbers in it... in what the label said was something like a light pickling solution. Basically smells very weakly of pickles, sounds like maybe it's used for temporary shipment for use as fresh or nearly fresh? Not that it matters. I've been soaking it and probably need to give it a good scrub still.

Thankfully they've ended up liking Al's FDBlkW cubes. I don't know how to gauge how much I should be feeding them, so still learning there. They don't consume the cubes particularly quickly, but most of the cubes hold together pretty well. Occasionally one will unravel and float. They don't seem to eat as well on floating stuff, but do clean up a decent amount of the floating worms.

One thing that's got me scratching my head is I'm not seeing a lot of poop at all. That's not to say I'm seeing no poop, but just very little. It's all been good, brown (not white parasite looking stuff) seeming to fall off quickly. The stuff I've seen on the tank bottom has looked the same. Should I be seeing them cruising around with strings of it hanging off of them? Or is it probably just crumbling up too quick for me to see? Perhaps it's because their guts are still getting loaded up as it's only been about three good days of eating. Not terribly concerned about that, was just wondering.

I've got praziquantel and levamisole powders to start doing "Al's Quarantine", but I have no vodka to dissolve them. So I might brave the ice storm after work to get a bottle of the stuff.
Either way, bellies are certainly getting full. I've been feeding them about 6-7 of those cubes per day. And sprinkling in some Vibra Bites (that they will peck away at off of the bottom).
Got some beef hearts coming so I'll make them up a (straight) mix of that as well. They are curious enough to peck at just about everything that falls to the bottom, but they've only seemed excited to eat the FDBW so far.

[jwcarlson]

Processed about 30# of a 60# box of beef hearts. The beefhearts came butterflied and were missing almost all of the "inside" parts of the heart, so I got about 50% yield (just short of 14#). Much easier to deal with than full hearts I've done before for people or for raw dog food. Basically had to lop the outside fatty part, skin the outside, lightly 'skin' the inside, and then it was good to go. Double 'fine' ground it, froze it in sheets, and then I'll cube them up as I use them.

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And a video my daughter made the other day...


Later this week or this weekend I'm going to fully drain, spray paint 'textured' bottom (on the outside), and then change the background window film from black to blue. They fish seem to be doing great, one was a little sulky during levamisole, but that was pretty short-lived. They're swarming to the front when I walk over looking for food, even when they look full. Also will eat out of my hand or swim into my hand when I'm doing water changes.

[jwcarlson]

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Couple updated pictures. Had a mishap that took down one of the blue diamonds, he was 3.25" after a bit short of a month. Thankfully it was just that one and after some tank flipping and flopping... everyone has been back and doing well for a couple of weeks. The one who was lagging behind is now the first one to the beef heart or worm cubes. Is growing... finally. Hopefully that holds. They sure are interesting fish to watch.

They missed their first water change Saturday night as we were out of town.

[Willie]

Except for that one turk, everyone is looking good. With discus, not every fish is going to turn out. When I buy 10 fish, I'm counting on getting 2 really good ones, 4 average ones and 4 that I'm not going to keep. If I get 3 really good ones, it's icing on the cake. When you see pictures of beautiful discus, it's often 1 out of 1,000.

[jwcarlson]

I have a totally uneducated eye and I don't plan on breeding anything, so as long as they grow up and don't look stunted, I'll be happy.
The turq has been a strange little thing and my inexperience with discus probably hasn't helped him. But he is at least eating and filling his little belly up now. Will be interesting (to me) to see how much that sets him back overall. If after a year he is still noticeably smaller or if it will end up looking weird/stunted. Right now he's kind of a neat measuring stick because he is basically the size they were I got them still. So it's really obvious to see how much they've grown. He is now pretty obviously larger than he was.

I experience a similar distribution in my queen bees. Out of ten or so I'll get one that might be worthy of breeding if she survives a couple of winters and has similar temperament and production as her mother. On the flip side there's usually one or two that just never take off. They might sustain a small colony, but they're 'useless' for anything. And the balance of them are good, serviceable queens. They are usually suitable for honey production, but they will be a little 'hotter' than I'd like or maybe her worker bee daughters are really runny on the combs or something. Or they might only last one (or zero) winter.

I'm happy with how they're coming along and am astonished daily by how much food they can put away and still want more.
I have observed that they don't seem to ever get really full looking on beef heart, but when I feed Al's FDBlkW they look more full. I'm not concerned or anything, but I do find it interesting. I am considering turning on my auto feeder to give them a couple small doses of pellets/vibra bites during the day. I feed them at 5:30 and then again around 6:15 when I walk out the door to work. And then they don't currently eat again until 4:30 or so when I get home. And I feed them pretty heavily (most days) until about 7:30 or 8 when I do my nightly water change. I don't *think* I'm missing out much on potential size gains by how I'm feeding them because they seem to be growing well.
I've been nervous about doing the auto feeder because the tank is still in the process of cycling. But in ~48 hours without a water change this weekend there were zero nitrites when I tested. So it might be closing in on cycled. I would obviously start really small on the auto-feeding whenever I do press the power button.

[jwcarlson]

Tomorrow marks two months. I just fished the two biggest out last night and they are right at 4" or maybe a hair bigger. They weren't happy and my tank light timer shut off so no pics. Of the other seven still living, five are probably 3.5" and the turq and flachen are still quite small...for whatever reason the flachen has joined the turq being whatever. They eat but not as aggressively as the others.

[jwcarlson]

Here's a couple of two month pics, it's pretty wild how quick they seem to be growing.

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Thinking about adding my rummy nose from community tank. But am nervous enough about doing that that I probably won't... we'll see. Also really want to see rummy nose in a 4' tank. Actually a 40' tank would be cooler yet.

[jeep]

They're looking good.

[jwcarlson]

Forgot a pic of this guy.

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