Discus hobby 2.0 - a restart and a reset

[Jandiscus]

For those of you who are wondering about the significance of the painting above the aquarium, it is a magnification of discus poop under a microscope. Sorry...couldn't resist. Ill-advised humor. My apologies.

[Jandiscus]

Dang...I had a scare today. Woke up to my water temperature being 93F (34c). Glad I don't have fish in the tank yet. Turns out that I connected my secondary (backup) heater to the cooling outlet of my Inkbird controller. I am wondering what else I am capable of screwing up after so many years of being in this hobby. Maybe I should just stick with an empty tank

[Jandiscus]

I keep having issues with algae growth on the manzanita wood. I took it out again today scrubbed it and then washed it down with rubbing alcohol (iso-propanol). Let's see if it will come back. Water is crystal clear, ph sits at 7, TDS is 195 and the tank is staying cycled. I was gone for a few days and the 4ppm NH3 I had added before leaving was gone upon my return with nitrite and nitrate also being zero.

I bought a new Ink bird controller as I lost confidence in my old ones. They require calibration in excess of 8-12 degrees F.

I now have both of my heaters attached to just one Ink bird. One of the heaters does not have a thermostat, the other one does. Would it be safer to have two separate controllers, or will this be good enough?

[Jandiscus]

Found 2 woolly aphids today on the pothos. I knew that they are hard to eradicate. Will watch it closely but am worried about my upcoming travel which will span from Dec 14-Jan2.

[Adamski77]

travel coming for me as well... equally worried. Have my sitter but he doesn't know how to vacuum the gravel... so will be interesting two weeks...

[Jandiscus]

I just returned from a 2 week vacation. I added a bunch of ammonia prior to leaving and found that it was still very high when I returned. I hope the high concentration didn't stifle the bacteria. Did a 95% water change and brought it back down to 0.5 mg/l. Nitrite was zero and nitrate was around 10-15 when I got back. My r/o system takes a full day to produce the water needed for my intended water changes. Would you recommend doing water changes every other day to allow it to air off and stabilize? Or just use it the minute it is done? The tab water would have aired off already for a full day anyway.

I was worried that my pothos plants would be covered by wooly aphids since you can never know if you got them all. I did find a few but it was far from being an issue. I noticed however that the established roots died off and developed fresh ones in sufficient quantity. I'm wondering if this was caused by the high ammonia levels.

I will be driving to Chicago to pick up my discus from Chicago Discus on January 20th. Until then I'll just practice my water routine and clean out the filter as it gets closer to the big day. Miranda is bringing in mostly 4" sized fish. A bit smaller then what I was hoping for but I can certainly go with that. How exciting!!!!

[Jandiscus]

Bacteria survived. Converting approx. 0.2mg/l in 24 hours. 8 more day until I get my fish :-)

[mleibowi]

Wow- amazing piece of wood. I have the same algae problem on my wood. I scrubbed it off yesterday but I do t think it’s an issue! I can’t wait to see your discus!

[Jandiscus]

Wow- amazing piece of wood. I have the same algae problem on my wood. I scrubbed it off yesterday but I do t think it’s an issue! I can’t wait to see your discus!

Thank you! Tomorrow I will start my water change routine. I will be replacing the entire water column with water that has been aged for a week. On Friday I will do the same with water that has been aged for 36 hours. With that I will stop adding NH3 to feed the bacteria, starving then for 20 hours or so before the fish will go in.

[Jandiscus]

Fish day baby! It is finally happening. My alarm went off at 4:30am and by 5:15am I was on my way to Chicago to pick up my fish. A 4.5-hour drive from Saint Louis. It was freezing cold, but the roads were clear. Still, I took it easy to ensure that I don't hit any black ice. Today is the first day that the fish at Chicago Discuss became available for pick up. Miranda kept them for 10 days to ensure that everything is ok and that they get acclimated. Shipping would start on Monday.

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And here I am, arriving at 9:50am thinking that I am the first and only one who can look at all of the new arrivals. Picking and choosing fish all day long with no one else snapping the fish away that I laid my eyes on. Oh my, was I wrong. There was already one gentleman by the name Andy who was just finishing up paperwork. He had a thermo backpack loaded with fish. Now I became a little anxious. I hope he didn't buy any of the fish that I am in the market for :-)

But fortunately, I had already placed an order a few days earlier for three 5" panthera leopards. And, the whole batch of pantheras was still there, so I was able to pick the ones I liked the most. They were all gorgeous. I was set on adding four more fish for a total of 7. I fell in love with some 6-6.5" classic leopards, emerald leopards and a 5" blue cobalt. The classic leopard male that I picked was actually mating up with a nice fine line snakeskin leopard. I would have bought that one as well but unfortunately it was already sold. I hated to break up the romance, but it would have happened anyway. While I was picking out fish, the next group of people arrived. Luckily, they were more interested in the pigeon bloods :-) Miranda then showed me her calendar for the day. It was filled with appointments all day long. And here I was, thinking that I would be the only one today.

I brought an ice chest which Miranda quickly filled up with 5 bags of fish and then went to fetch a thermo bag she had somewhere to accommodate the remaining 2. Two heat packs ensured that the fish stay warm. And off I went to take my babies home. Believe it or not, I was able to do the trip back home in less than 4 hours :-)

Finally home and I carefully set up the ice chest and the bag next to my aquarium. One last look at the fish tank. A look I have grown so familiar with since I had been starring at the empty tank for months now.


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Next, I opened the ice chest and the thermo-bag.

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I was tempted to just cut the bags open and throw the fish in the tank. But I knew better. I cut the bags open and started to add tiny amounts of water from the fish tank. This to help regulate the temperature but also to ensure that there won't be any ph shock. Just being extra cautious. In reality Miranda's ph is at 7.6+ and mine is sitting at 7.5 or so. The temperature in the shipping bags was 81 and my tank sits at 84. Now was the time to transfer the fish. I washed my hands and then disinfected them with 91% iso-propanol. I reached into each bag to carefully cup the fish with my hands and once I was sure that they won't slip I put them in the tank. Lights off!

[Jandiscus]

I was so excited to finally see 7 healthy discus in my tank. A 4 yearlong fish draught finally came to an end.

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The minute all fish were in the tank the blue cobalt started to establish itself as the leader of the pack. That surprised me a bit as the larger leopard was fighting with one of the emerald leopards over the snakeskin back at Chicago Discus. Not anymore I guess, once the female was no longer in the game. While the lights were off, there was still plenty of day light coming from the windows to the left to illuminate the tank. And there I sat watching my new fish. Now I had to refrain from thinking to feed the fish since the guidance is to leave them alone for the rest of the day and start feeding the next day. Right! That lasted about 2 hours and out came the brine shrimp. I tried to reason with myself that the fish were only bagged up for 4 hours. No tranquilizers were added to keep the fish calm as some do for a 24 hour shipping journey. So, how bad could it be? They seemed to be adjusting to their new environment just fine. And there they were eating all of the brine shrimp with no issues at all.


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Next I was practicing with my iphone to take some decent pictures without scaring the fish. Not as easy as it sounds. I didn't want to mess around with pulling curtains or lighting to not scare the fish on their first day. So I used the zoom function on most of these to at least get some passable pics. And yet every time I look at the fish I find them to be beautiful and of good shape. Then I look at some of the pictures and I go:" Dang, that one is not as round as I thought it was." :-)

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Since they were doing all fine, I wanted to try one more thing before the day was gone. Feeding them Tetra color granules. Will they touch the dry food? Yes they did. All of them No problem! What a relief. I remember from my past that that is not always a given.

The next day I fed them 4 times. Beefheart, Al's freeze-dried blackworms, Hikari brine shrimp and granules. And I performed a 60% water change. All went well. The way I have the water circulation set up, the food just drops down to the bottom and stays there as the circulation in the tank tends to drive anything suspended to that part of the tank. Also most of the feces accumulates there, making it super convenient to clean.

Day 3 (today). Sheets of ice on the roads.


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There is no way I can make it safely to work. Oh well, working from home it is I guess. Bummer :-)

Here is a short video I took yesterday:

https://youtu.be/5ezCcE1yEAg

[AquaticNerd]

Top notch looking group of fish you've managed to pick up!

[Jandiscus]

Top notch looking group of fish you've managed to pick up!

Thanks Jake! Couldn't be happier....

[Jandiscus]

Day 3 - no aggression in the tank. The blue cobalt is no longer picking fights. Still on top of the pecking order but not being aggressive. Actually, that had already stopped by the next morning. The bigger fish are getting along with the younger ones which was another unfounded worry of mine. I suppose the difference between 5" and 6.5" isn't that big of a deal.

[Jandiscus]

I need to confess to a major mishap last week as I was getting my setup ready for the fish. I did a 100% water change and was in the process of refilling one of my storage barrels with tap water from the shower hose. This takes a long time. I'd say 15-20 minutes or so. This was the third barrel that was not sitting inside the shower but in front of it.


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All of the sudden my wife called, having issues accessing our house back in Michigan. You guessed it. I got distracted and while talking with her on the phone, someone knocked at my front door. When I opened it, I saw my distraught neighbor who lives a floor below me asking me if I had a water leak somewhere. I must have turned pale as I realized what was happening. I turned around and saw not only my bathroom but also 1/3 of my living room being flooded with water. I ran to turn of the water, yelled at the phone that I would call back and started to throw any towel available at the crisis. I took me a good hour to soak everything up. One of my area rugs, closest to the aquarium was drenched and I had to move the desk that is sitting on it and move the rug to the main bathroom to have it sit in the bathtub and drain/dry.

The only damage caused by this is the bottom of the aquarium stand which absorbed some of the water and the cheap particle board it is made of shows some quelling. When it was all done I went down to my neighbor's place to apologize for the mishap. He had water coming down his walls and they were going through a towel routine as well. I gave him my number and told him that I will pay for any damage that might have occurred. He was very kind and understanding. I have not heard back from him. So maybe all is good. Fingers crossed.

I used that 3rd barrel one more time for the last water change the day prior to the fish arriving. Needless to say, that I stood right next to it for the whole time. I have removed it since then using only the two sitting inside the shower tub. That gives me 80+ gallons of water to serve my 125gal tank. Plenty of water and peace of mind restored.

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