Canada - British Columbia

[Kevin22]

Hi, breeding wilds or mix wild and domestic is certainly the future.
IMO, domestic discus are reaching to a dead end like angel fish.
while getting more colorful, lost their strenth and size.
it's time to bring in the wild blood to rebuild the foundation.
one reason the domestic Alenquers and Rose red are getting popular.
Heckel x Heckel is still the biggest challenge in fish breeding.
hope you can make it. even breeding some blues or browns will be very exciting for local community. wish you all the best.

Hi Kevin22 That is sweet! we can talk about the wild discus. I am very interested in to breed with heckel and cross with domonics discus. It would be awesome offsprings

Hi Francis, I would do that we can make plans

thank you Kim.

keep discus community grow in the future

sometime i will be online at simplydiscus.com the best is you can connect me email at aquatec@shaw.ca or pm me
I promised i will come back to simplydiscus.com more often i can.

cheers
Duncan +the boys!

[Northwestcoastdisc]

i agreed with you

my location are not popluar alancer or red rose etc. Everyone likes to have colorful Discus. expect anyone knows about discus very well they would be interested in wild discus.

But i like to breed with wild discus and domotic discus. it would be fun.

cheers
Duncan.

[riffraffxl]

Nice to see fellow Canadians and British Columbians.

I've kept african cichlids successfully for over a year (there's always at least a couple fish breeding and holidng it seems in my tank) so I'm giving discus a shot, starting with two big ones that have paired off. In fact, they should arrive TODAY!

Rather nervous because I've never spent so much on a single fish before. I don't know many fishkeepers so feel free to pm me if you ever want to talk shop

[April]

starting with a pair isnt the easiest way to go...its really best to start with small ones and raise them up to learn discus keeping. but....it may work out..bear in mind they can be a "pair" there..but never when you get them if they arent happy with their situation etc. or..sometimes they can have a marrital spat. did they produce wigglers or carry fry before you got them?
did you get them from sunrise tropicals?
do you live in vancouver?
your welcome to come by and see my discus if you do. or if you have questions. im on dunbar.

[riffraffxl]

starting with a pair isnt the easiest way to go...its really best to start with small ones and raise them up to learn discus keeping. but....it may work out..bear in mind they can be a "pair" there..but never when you get them if they arent happy with their situation etc. or..sometimes they can have a marrital spat. did they produce wigglers or carry fry before you got them?
did you get them from sunrise tropicals?
do you live in vancouver?
your welcome to come by and see my discus if you do. or if you have questions. im on dunbar.

Hi April,

My thinking was to go with these ones because they were really big--the size of small plates, about 5". I've read that juveniles are more difficult to take care of, so I though they might be more tolerant of any mistakes I might make. I simply don't have a free tank big enough right now for a colony of 6 or so.

Haven't seen wrigglers, only seen then do "shimmying" which looked like courtship rituals to me. Got them from Fraser Aquariums, who said they got them from a local breeder, but don't know who. I stared at them a long time to try and get a handle on their personalities--though of course cichlids can be infuriatingly unpredicatable at times.

Btw, I've seen your store...me and my gf brought our dachshund in for a clipping. Great stuff you have, we'll probably swing by again.

I hope we didn't start off on the wrong foot.

PS Do you have any NLS flake food? Was thinking of using that for the cardinals, which have already started accepting my rather old flake food.

[April]

hi there.. welll hopefully they do their thing. if not..two bigger sized fish to enjoy. just keep the water clean..thats all they ask for.
i normally have nls flake.i have it ..but in a big bucket. but i can give you some in a bag .
i also have cones..if your discus so wish for a cone to lay their eggs in. shimmying is a good sign. if you do a bigger wc with a bit cooler temp..they may lay for you. not all males are fertile or good males. what colour are they ?

[riffraffxl]

hi there.. welll hopefully they do their thing. if not..two bigger sized fish to enjoy. just keep the water clean..thats all they ask for.
i normally have nls flake.i have it ..but in a big bucket. but i can give you some in a bag .
i also have cones..if your discus so wish for a cone to lay their eggs in. shimmying is a good sign. if you do a bigger wc with a bit cooler temp..they may lay for you. not all males are fertile or good males. what colour are they ?

Hi April,

got some pics. These discus are orange. Surprisingly, the pair we got had laid eggs, in the tank in the store! I asked to see the eggs and they were laid on a massive anubias plant, which we ended up buying. We brought the eggs home...you can see them here, on the middle leaf.

eggs.jpg

Unfortunately the discus decided to eat them after the move! You can see them being chomped down on here. Oh well; many animals do something similar when under stress.

eating eggs.jpg

Here is a shot of one of them swimming around.

swiming.jpg

They're REALLY different from africans; getting them to eat has been a little frustrating. Both discus ate some FBW, but only after spitting them then re-eating them. The larger one is often pecking at rocks and gravel in the "feeding area" and is usually out in the open; she looks HUNGRY, which is good. However, the smaller one is currenly hiding behind some plants and only ate 1 or two bloodworms. I took them away after 15 minutes.

I'm watching them closely and hoping they do okay. Today the larger discus ate some of the flake food which the tetras missed; the other one kept hiding. I think they are healthy but I was hoping they would "attack" the food more, and watching them spit some of the food makes me feel wary.

I'll probably drop by Pets Beautiful some time this week. Thanks for the tips; any other advice would be great.

[April]

i would remove those big rocks. if discus get jumpy they can crash and hurt themselves..not to mention the more tank surface and water the better. the fish look nice.

[riffraffxl]

Rock = removed, thanks for the tip.

Thanks for the metro April. Currently treating one of them that has had white, liquidy poo. Day 1 and already problems! I've set up a 10 gallon with an air pump and trying to get the temp to 90-2 or so (right now hovering at 88). I'll try giving some food tomorrow and see how it goes. Doing daily wc of 50% thus far (1 day).

Fed the big one today...at least he/she is jumping at the food, snatching it in mid-water and eating it all.

It's quite torturous watching a discus unwilling to take food.

[April]

keep going..hopefully the other one will get better. 88 degrees. is fine. just keep an eye it doesnt shoot up too high. hopefully a couple of days she or he will begin to eat.

[riffraffxl]

She laid a big brown turd last night, lol. Did another 50% wc today. Will try feeding again later tonight. Last night I tried feeding and she ate 1-2 whole bloodworms, but only after spitting and re-eating. After 10 minutes I removed the rest of the food, so she's not attacking the food like my other fish yet.

I'm not sure what I saw earlier was stringy poo...it might have been some of her slime coat coming off; the tetras ate it like crazy. Perhaps this was spurred by laying eggs or a water change? The thing is, it was in the shape of a thread, and she's still not eating enthusiastically. I didn't actually see it come out her anus. I hope I didn't mis-diagnose.

Anyways, thanks for reading. I'll return the metro soon; I saved a lot of it by using the 10 gallon tank. After tomorrow it will be three days of treatment.

Edit: Couldn't wait, tried feeding her. Saw her eat a small amount without spitting. Heat and metro seem to be working, though a lot of food is not eaten.

[April]

dont return it...keep going for 5 days. sounds like shes on the mend. a brown turd is good sign. but dont stop the metro too soon..or it might regress. same as if we stop antibiotics too soon after a lung infection or whatever..it dulls it and it returns in vengeance if its not all dead. so continue for 5 days to be sure you got rid of it all. make sure shes eating well before you return her to the other tank.

[KimR]

welcome Riff....I see your already in talks with April, she is OUR master!!! so you are in good hands!!

[ltgoof]

Hi Master April,

Just to let you know that I got a pair of Red Melon from the 9 stocks that I got from you. They already have fries after the first unsuccessful attemp (dad chomped the eggs... maybe unfertilized).

I got a question though as the fries are hanging on the PVC (filter intake tube) slime instead of their parents. Is this normal? This is already the 2nd day after they were hatched.

[bigfry]

Hi all, another British Columbian here; just joined SD last week.

I have been reading up many of the threads here in the past weeks. There are so many beautiful discus and setups to admire.

I got my fish from April earlier this month. They are 3" altum floras and are doing well so far in their new home.

Hope to learn more from you people. Cheers!