help setting up a heckel biotope tank

[Heiko Bleher]

i Fishworm,

thank you very much for your nice comments, I am very happy when people can learn from my book, that is why I wrote it, not for the money...

Larry is definitely correct in keeping Heckel discus in groups and by themselfs (should never mix anyone of the 3 species natural discus species and even much less with tank breeds). His water (chemical parameters) which work for him, might not work for everyone, as water is NEVER water. In addition if you want to try to breed them, it will almost positively not work in such water.

Anyhow plecochico: in the flooded rain forests discus NEVER live alongside cardinal or Apistogramma, discus never venture in such shallow waters and Apistogramma as well as cardinal NEVER ventre onto deep waters were discus live.

best regards and thanks again,

always
Heiko Bleher
www.aquaporess-bleher.com

[Fishworm]

thank you very much for the information and the great book.

my usual supplier just told me that he is getting a bunch of them in on friday. only problem is that he is not sure where they were collected. he is trying to get the info now. but I am having him reserve me 12 of them.

[Apistomaster]

Fishworm, mostly you can find in discus habitats carnivore and herbivore piranhas, acestrorynchus, cichla, mesonauta, pterophyllum, heros, satanoperca, geophagus cichlids. Only a handfull of small catfish (mostly lorricarids), small tetras and apistogrammas can be foud there. When discus move to flooded forests they live alongside wide warities of fish species including cardinal neon, apistogramma, etc.
Apistomaster nice fish! Is that dicrossus near apistogramma agasizzi in the first picture?

Yes, Dicrossus filamentosus are often present in my Heckel tanks. They are relatively inexpensive and beautiful, always been one of my favorite fish.
Heiko is correct, of course, dwarf Cichlids and Tetras usually aren't found side by side Heckels.
I make no pretense that I can accurately duplicate the dynamic biotope of Heckels in a closed system of an aquarium.
I like having a few small fish with my wild discus because they add to the interest of the set up and make direct contributions like eating tiny bits of food the discus often create when tearing into their favorites or find the bits that discus can't reach.
I agree with Heiko that "water is not just water', it's among the most complex substances in existence.
Successful captive breeding of Heckels is rare. I would attempt it in only water similar in chemical composition to their habitat. But breeding is so rare, regardless of how hard we try to duplicate their enviroment, I do not seriously expect to ever have it happen in my tanks.
I just keep my Heckels in the ways that have worked for me over time. It is very easy to have extreme soft acid water go South in closed systems and the replacement water supply must be kept constant so fluctuations in pH do not occur. I have found it is easier for me to acclimate my fish to my tap water so I never have to worry about any parameters, save matching temperatures when making my ~70% water changes about twice a week.

When someone demonstrate a method that produces successful, repeatable, reproduction of captive Heckel Discus, I am sure to give that method a try. We have been trying for over 50 years and only have a handful of reliable reports of success. We have a hundreds of reports of people having Heckels not thriving in captivity. I have always had the good fortune of having no problems with keeping them. For now, I can accept just keeping them healthy, long lived and in the company of a few small fish that don't get on their nerves.

[plecocicho]

Small apistogramma and tetras do venture in flooded forest, but they occupy only areas that are a few meters deep (it can be seen in BBC documentary amazon: flooded forest or something like that). Discus are then found in much deeper water of course.
A small offtopic: Heiko on diskus talk at Duisburg discus that was streamed live, you mentioned keeping your wild discus in 1000 liters aquarium and never did water change, only poured evapoated water. Could you please tell size of that aquarium, number of wild discus in it and type of filtration. To keep that kind of system you had to have a massive biological filter. What did you fed them in those times?

[Fishworm]

I got the message that my 12 heckles are coming in in the morning. here are some shots of the tank being set up.






I found some nice pieces of driftwood and some fine white sand. I just need the floating plants. but I am going to keep the lights off for them anyway till I get the plants.

I also wandered over to my LFS and he had 3 small surinamensis, so I decided I would grab those to put in with the discus to help keep the sand stirred a bit better. and to make the discus feel a bit more at home.





I'll get some pics up tomorrow as soon as the new fish get settled.

[Fishworm]

aaarrrrrggggggghhhh!!!!!!!

I went and killed my surinamensis

I completely forgot about the different water parameters between the heckle tank and the tank that they were in. so I tossed them right in, came back in a couple hours, and they were dead. I am a moron sometimes.


but the heckles are here!!!

here is a shot of them in the buckets being acclimated:

[plecocicho]

Stupid mistake to make, but wht ia done is done.... Heckels look nice thought. Post some pics of the whole setup.

[Apistomaster]

Too bad about the death of the Geophagus, they would have been very useful at helping to keep the sand aerated. I have lost fish too many times due to extreme changes of the pH, usually by overestimating the amount of acid and not waiting long enough to get a true pH reading after the buffering system attains equilibrium. Always rushing things, even after all these years of fish keeping, I'm not immune to moving too fast to the detriment of some very expensive fish. You can understand why, having acclimating my Heckels to my tap water, I continue to keep doing what is working for me. I have kept large heckels with 4 Geophagus surinamensis and they got along well with the discus.

The sand appears perfect but I would be concerned about that thick of layer of such fine sand could eventually lead to anaerobic zone forming. Hydrogen sulfide is the ultimate by product when anaerobic decay is allowed to occur so you may wish to consider using a thinner layer.
I feed my wild Discus live black worms regularly so I have adopted a terraced bottom for my Discus display tanks where they have a thin sand area where they can hunt down any worms that try to escape. The worms nearly always end up in this lower zone.
I collected similarly fine sand for my most recent discus display and you can see what measures I took to keep my sand oxygenated in my thread:
http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showthread.php?t=66500
This was the first time I ever used sand this fine and the reward has been that I get to see Discus practice their sand puffing behavior better than I have in the past and it is really fun to see them in action. Your Heckels will feel right at home and will demonstrate their puffing techniques they use when searching for food.

I'm looking forward to seeing photos of your new Heckels in their tank. They are a very satisfying fish to keep and easily remind you of why the Discus is still the king of aquarium fish.