Ammonia, nitrites and nitrates

[brewmaster15]

My tap water is pretty much perfect and I don’t notice a spike in my water bill, of coarse that was 10 years ago, I have never tried to breed but I have had pairs lay eggs in my community tank. I use a 55 gallon tank. Once a day I siphon about 95% to where the fish lay flat on the bottom then I use direct tap water to fill the tank adding a chlorine neutralizer. The fish are very comfortable with this. My goal is to raise big 6 1/2 plus fish. Stunted fish do nothing for me. I have visited Kacy a few times and I have bought his beautiful fish. I can’t get them as big as he does. I wonder if Kacy is still around, I haven’t seen him in years and I don’t have his phone number anymore. He was a popular poster here.
I admit I was over feeding them but to get them to the size I wanted you pretty much have to power feed them, I thought my water changes were good enough. At 6 months old they were already 5 inches. I have been thinking about this for 10 years, I’m just about ready to retire and I’m ready to try this.

Actually you dont have to "power feed" . You can actually really mess up your fish if you power feed and its not a balanced diet. It can lead to deformities like beaky discus, weak chins, growth marks on their gill plates and heads. You also risk exactly what happened to you, overloading your biofilter. I have done this as well.. its not the best way to get good growth. Far better to focus on quality of food vs quantity... that and patience.

Just to be sure we are all on the same page.. define "Power feeding" as you see it. For me its feeding fry and juvies 4-6 x a day as much as they can eat. They end up looking like a pufferfish they ate so much. It used to be a thing recommended 10-15 years ago as needed to grow big discus.

No powerfeeding done here..




I really think that.you may want to take a step Back Steve. .. Theres alot of ways to grow big discus but some ways are safer than others. I'd really hate to see you disappointed the next try.

Al

[brewmaster15]

I miss Kacey. He was a great guy and awesome member here.

Al

[Steve_Gurule]

Steve, the big breeders in Asia don't use filters at all. The only way to make this work though, it to do do a flopping on the bottom WC twice daily. They can do it because their labor is cheap and they work their helpers hard, plus their water is either dirt cheap or free. It's not practical here in the States, so we use filtration as well as daily WC's. What seems to have happened with your batch from Kenny is that you must not have done enough WC to keep the nitrogen cycle working as it should.

Yes that is the best way, tons of water changes would solve the problem. I was talking on the phone one time to Kenny asking him how he handled the nitrogen cycle with so many fish, he said he never worried about the cycle because he sterilized his tanks once a week because he had new shipments coming in continuously, which made perfect sense but I’ve been thinking about that for years now, if I sterilized my one tank at the first sign of nitrite every time, probably around every two or three weeks I would never have nitrite in my tank which means I would never have nitrates in my tank.

[brewmaster15]

Yes that is the best way, tons of water changes would solve the problem. I was talking on the phone one time to Kenny asking him how he handled the nitrogen cycle with so many fish, he said he never worried about the cycle because he sterilized his tanks once a week because he had new shipments coming in continuously, which made perfect sense but I’ve been thinking about that for years now, if I sterilized my one tank at the first sign of nitrite every time, probably around every two or three weeks I would never have nitrite in my tank which means I would never have nitrates in my tank.

Kenny was an importer .. he wasnt growing out big fish. He gave up keeping discus ,breeding discus and growing them out. I knew Kenny like a brother and I am positive
he would not recommend anyone growing out discus to adulthood to sterilize their tanks every few weeks.

He sterilized his tanks between shipments snd then did lots of water changes for the 1-2 weeks he had the shipment. It wasnever a long term thing.

[Steve_Gurule]

Oh wow what an awesome video, that’s exactly what I want to achieve. I guess I need to take a step back and look into this a bit better, thanks Brew

[Steve_Gurule]

Steve, Do you mean Kacey? I don't think that's his real name, he was breeding the spotted awhile back. I think he is or was around the Seattle area.

Yes! I loved going to his place, yes, Seattle

[brewmaster15]

Oh wow what an awesome video, that’s exactly what I want to achieve. I guess I need to take a step back and look into this a bit better, thanks Brew

Im glad that helped Steve. Good stock .. good food and lots of good water.. ask lots of questions and be patient.