Your wild discus tanks

[GrillMaster]

Hey Dan! Your tank is looking great bud. Glad to see you over here posting again!

[bavaria36]

Hello Plecocicho, I have 9 Canumas in total to go in the new tank.

You also mentioned feeding fruits, also after getting inspiration from Heiko's book I have tried many different fruits & vegetables, I chop them up and you very quickly find out what they will and wont take. Ive tried raspberries, strawberries, blackberries, bananas, grapes, blueberries, spinach, broccoli, tomatoes and peas.
The majority of the diet is a mixture of frozen food and I add abit of flake which oddly enough they love from these guys http://www.ta-aquaculture.co.uk/ as they make all sorts of types of flake, including spirulina flake, earthworm flake, brineshrimp flake and beefheart flake.

Dan

Dan,

what were the results of your experiments with fruits and veg ? I have also tried this with my greens but they never touched any of it . The only way I have been able to add greens to their diet is by adding spinach , carrots etc to the BH mix that I make.

I have never been able to understand why my wilds show so much reluctance to eat greens and fruits in my tanks when Heiko's reports on stomach analyses clearly indicates a high level of vegetable matter in their diet. I wonder if they specifcially need detrital vegetable matter as opposed to fresh vegetable matter.

Aaron

Aaron

[Dan S]

Hey Dan! Your tank is looking great bud. Glad to see you over here posting again!

Hello Mark,

Thanks for the kind words, Im much happier with it now!!!!

How come you Tank isnt in this thread, yours is beautiful to!!!!

Dan,

what were the results of your experiments with fruits and veg ? I have also tried this with my greens but they never touched any of it . The only way I have been able to add greens to their diet is by adding spinach , carrots etc to the BH mix that I make.

I have never been able to understand why my wilds show so much reluctance to eat greens and fruits in my tanks when Heiko's reports on stomach analyses clearly indicates a high level of vegetable matter in their diet. I wonder if they specifcially need detrital vegetable matter as opposed to fresh vegetable matter.

Aaron

Aaron

Hello Aaron,

Its all abit hit and miss really, mine certainly favour frozen bloodworm, brineshrimp, mysis etc and the flake I feed them.
The times I feed the veges and fruit are usually after a couple of days of not feeding them anything, the bits Ive had most success with are chopped peas, cucumber (i forgot that earlier) and bits of banana and I can feed this reasonably regularly.

I have given up with spinach and broccolli, they just dont want that, mind you I cant get mine to take frozen beefheart either or granules like Tetra prima.

The best way I have found of getting the vegetable content in thier diet is this companies frozen food http://tmc-ltd.co.uk/aquarium/aquarium-food.asp and in particular the cichlid diet and the vegetarian diet, it contains a whole host of vegetable matter.

I understand your comment about how difficult it is to get them to eat the vegetable matter when thats the majority of thier diet in the wild but I wonder whether thats because in the wild they have to eat vegetable matter and in our tanks we spoil them so they can afford to be selective? Whether thats the case or not I dont know but possible I suppose?

Dan

[Heiko Bleher]

Hi,

this is Heiko and I just wanted to add: on another forum (Germany's diskustop.de) we talked about the vegetable material, flowers and fruits, etc. in the discus diet – about which I wrote after yars of study in nature in my book - and many are taking it serious now, around the world.

The latest news (after Banana, Strawberries, etc) is that one guy in Germany is feeding successfully Mangos. He said his wilds are going crazy for it.

In my work I also anlaysed of the the fruit and vegetable contents (and other foods) discus had eaten, their nutritional value of the same (wherever I was able to) and those can easily be compared with vegetable material from elsewhwere, as the nutrional value is also found in fruits, etc. outside of Amazonia, like here in Mangos.

I thought I should tell you this. This all is very exciting, and I am glad people starting more and more to pay attention to what I wrote – worldwide – and are feeding their (wild)discus better... This makes me very happy and I am sure even more though your discus...

All the very best

Heiko Bleher
www.aquapress-bleher.com

[Apistomaster]

Let's move our discussions about simulating wild discus diets to another thread.
This is supposed to be about our wilds' set ups but we have diverged too much. I'll begin it with some things I do and experiments I am trying..

[GrillMaster]

How come you Tank isnt in this thread, yours is beautiful to!!!!

I dont want Heiko chewin me out!!

Just kidding Heiko!

[Harriett]

You're cracking me up, Mark!
Harriett

[Apistomaster]

I dont want Heiko chewin me out!!

Just kidding Heiko!

Ok, just for you Mark, I had not posted any photos because I figured everyone might be getting tired of photos my Heckel tank set up. I really should take some new photos but things don't change very much in their tank. The only really big change I made was to remove the old basalt substrate I laboriously sifted from a local stream. It was too dark and some minerals were dissolving causing the pH to rise to 8.0 and the TDS increased from 340 ppm to 45O ppm.
I replaced it with quartz sand. It has been set up since May 2006.

[Dan S]

I had not posted any photos because I figured everyone might be getting tired of photos my Heckel tank set up.

Hello Larry, Your Heckles and your setup is stunning, we can never have enough photos of them. One day Heckles are my dream and if they are half as beautiful as yours I shall be very pleased!!!!


Mark, Your fish look beautiful and healthy so you must be doing something right!

Dan

[pinkertd]

Larry...your fish are unbelievably gorgeous!! If you need someone to take care of them while you're out fishing with Ed, let me know! I'll send you my address!

[GrillMaster]

Youre Heckels look great Larry!!

[Apistomaster]

Thanks everyone for your compliments. I really do appreciate them.
I love all wild Discus but there is something about Heckels I find particularly appealing.

I think I will be getting a 100 gallon tank this Summer and I am torn between leaving a definite pair alone in the 75 gal and slowing re-adapting them to a pH of ~4.0 and conductivity of ~20 microseimens.
This pair has been increasingly behaving like they want to spawn. It has gone beyond mere cleaning their favorite site on a piece of wood to making mock spawning runs. Never have I seen any of my Heckels in the past go beyond site cleaning. It is such a long shot to hope for a planned spawn.

I haven't seen the Heckels eat them but by the third day after I place Lilac blossoms on an end branch in with them all the blossoms are gone.

I plan to buy to buy six or eight AA or AAA Grade wild Red Spotted Greens. I know I can breed wild Green Discus because I have done before. I am selling my three H. zebra plecos to use on buying the Greens.
If I do that, then all the Heckels will go into the 100 gal tank and the greens get the 75 gal.
Each of these have an additional 25 gallons in the system due to the over sized sumps I use for my DIY wet/dry filters.
I have entirely farmed out the Red Turquoise breeding to a friend. He lacks grow out tanks so that will be my responsibility. My focus is entirely on breeding wild Blues and Greens.

Anyone interested in three Hypancistrus zebra can PM me.

[Kevin22]

Hi, my tank is 90 gallon, 48"x18"x24"
one Eheim canister, one emperor HOB, Eheim 250 watts heater, 2 spot lights from homedepot
two 50% WC, one 25% WC
Brazilian pennywort is the only plant
silica sand from Target, some driftwood, will add more.
7 of 5" to 6" wild Ds one Bushynose L144
pellets, flake, BH, prawn, just fed them strawberry, will try banana and mango
age? 2 weeks, lol

[Apistomaster]

Kevin,
Your tank and discus are looking good.

You have one that demonstrates that the typical pattern of nine bars does vary among wild fish.

[bavaria36]

Kevin,
Your tank and discus are looking good.

You have one that demonstrates that the typical pattern of nine bars does vary among wild fish.

Larry,

it's interesting you say that. I had a wild green ( died a few weeks ago when I treated with levimasole ) that had 11 stripes / bars. I always wondered whether this really was a wild green because Heiko is quite adamant in his book that no greens have ever been found with more than 9 stripes.

Aaron