Pat's Wilds Journal

[Second Hand Pat]

Decided to start a journal of sorts for noting the progress with these wild discus I'm stupid over. After lurking on this forum for like four months I decided to buy six wild Nhamunda Red discus which reside in the 100 gallon oceanic in my living room which I call my home tank.

The reds are settling in slowly and still spook easy. I can walk up to the tank and touch the glass and sometimes they will stay. They roam the tank quite a bit now and I still admire from afar, hence the sucky pictures

Whole tank (this picture sucks)





They have been in the tank a week tomorrow and are looking better and better. They still show their stress bar abit and soon I hope they look like they did in the QT.

[Second Hand Pat]

Last week I buy two Uatuman semi royal blues and they came Friday. For these guys I'm converted my marine tank into a second wilds tank which I'm slowing cleaning up. The blues are currently in the QT and are doing really well for just the two of them. They even started eating flake tonight. I plan on adding more discus as soon as I figure out which ones I want from John.





I ordered some wood from PC1 and it came today. Here it is in the tank on the right.



As you can see this tank still has a way to go before it is complete. This tank will have a sand bottom and will only be wood. Hopefully this is enough wood to make Bill P. happy. I will be cleaning up the sump over the next couple of nights and will get this tank up and running. Suggestions for background color? Maybe sage green?

[dbfzurowski]

They are gorgeous Pat

[Second Hand Pat]

Thanks dominik, I like them all but really like the blues.

[dbfzurowski]

Green would work. Purple/gray background would go great with the blues

[William Palumbo]

Looking good Pat!...Yes, I'm happy with the wood!...so will your Discus...Bill

[Discus-n00b]

Great looking fish and tanks. That wood is really nice. What type of lighting is over the home tank? Looks to have some spotlighting effect going on (what i personally prefer).

[sergeyal]

Uatuma discus are so beautifull ,
What kind of background is it, in your Nahmundas tank?
Are they acting the same with dimmed lights as they frigtened with full lights?
Mine can grab food from the hands at low light level ,but pretty nerveous at full lights .

[Jennie]

That wood looks really nice pat!!!!!

[lizziotti]

How are you getting your wood to stay put is it just balancing? Just wondering cause I'm working on a similar project.thanks.also I like the sage green idea!

[Second Hand Pat]

Green would work. Purple/gray background would go great with the blues

Purple might work, not sure about gray

Looking good Pat!...Yes, I'm happy with the wood!...so will your Discus...Bill

Bill, I knew you would like it. There are two pieces of wood in there. I turned the leftmost branch around and it now looks like it's part of the rightmost main piece.

Great looking fish and tanks. That wood is really nice. What type of lighting is over the home tank? Looks to have some spotlighting effect going on (what i personally prefer).

Thanks Matt, the lighting is a 48in T5 (2 54 watt lamp) with a pink lamp in the back and 6700k lamp in the front. I have several layers of window screen under the light which is shading the back and middle of the tank. I wanted enough light on the ends for the plants. The discus spend quite a bit of time under the brighter lights.

Uatuma discus are so beautifull ,
What kind of background is it, in your Nahmundas tank?
Are they acting the same with dimmed lights as they frigtened with full lights?
Mine can grab food from the hands at low light level ,but pretty nerveous at full lights .

Hey sergeyal, I really like these uataman blues. The background on the Nhamunda's tank is the slimline background BJ32WA Mesa from this link,
http://www.designsbynature.net/produ.../slimline-bgs/

My guys aren't ready to be fed by hand, working on it.

How are you getting your wood to stay put is it just balancing? Just wondering cause I'm working on a similar project.thanks.also I like the sage green idea!

In the home tank the wood is fully submerged and is wedged against the spillway and it has one branch which extends to the bottom and supports it's weight. It sits against the front glass which I do not like. I like the sage green too. I think it is a more true color for a biotype tank. Like your avatar.

That wood looks really nice pat!!!!!

Thanks Jennie, I am still getting use to your new username.

[YSS]

Love your enthusiasm. Really like the blues, but they look more red than your reds. Go figure. :-) By the way, why don't you put your blues with reds in your main tank? You only have 6 discus in your 100G, and from my experience, group dynamic of discus changes when have 10 or more fish and you will enjoy the fish more, I think. But that's just me. Congrats on nice fish and tanks. I would love to follow this thread and see how much fish really change over the next few months.

[Second Hand Pat]

...You only have 6 discus in your 100G, and from my experience, group dynamic of discus changes when have 10 or more fish and you will enjoy the fish more...

Please do follow along, the more the merry. Two reasons for not adding the blues with the reds. The blues have some growing to do so the second tank is easier (for me) to use as a growout tank with heaver feedings. I'm also keeping my tanks (for the moment) as single strain tanks as Nhamunda tank or Uatuman etc. Also in one of my earlier threads NanDiscus made some valid points about not crowding wilds so I am keeping the stocking light (for the moment).

When you refer to group of 10 or more, are these groups wilds or domestics?

[Second Hand Pat]

The Nhamunda reds have been in the home tank a week yesterday. They are out and around most of the time but still tend to hide when I stand next to the tank or feed the tank. They have gotten way more tolerate of people walking by the tank without hiding and come out of hiding much quicker. They are quite comforable with being where the light is strongest in the tank. They are also starting to pick on each other a bit.

I am playing with ideas to feeding FDBW to this tank. This tank is a drilled tank with two spillways and since the worms float they tend to go down the spillway and into the sump. Not good. So I have some funky screen things which allow the water to enter the spillway while blocking larger objects (like fish and worms ). Also can position some small powerheads near the surface of the water creating a whirlpool to suck the worms into the powerhead which will then push the worms into the water column. The last obstacle is creating circulation at the water surface so the floating worms are deliveried to the powerheads.

Of course it would be far easier to teach the discus to eat from the surface of the water.

[YSS]

Please do follow along, the more the merry. Two reasons for not adding the blues with the reds. The blues have some growing to do so the second tank is easier (for me) to use as a growout tank with heaver feedings. I'm also keeping my tanks (for the moment) as single strain tanks as Nhamunda tank or Uatuman etc. Also in one of my earlier threads NanDiscus made some valid points about not crowding wilds so I am keeping the stocking light (for the moment).

When you refer to group of 10 or more, are these groups wilds or domestics?

Sorry for not following along.

As for the group of 10 or more, it goes for both wilds and domestics. But it also goes for other schooling fish. In my experiences, they school so differently when there are more than 10. I found 15 to be a great schooling number for the fish; discus, tetras, cories, and others.

I know I already said this, but love your blues. I will have to get some.