Pat's Wilds Journal

[Jennie]

Pat, you are doing such good job with these.. I can't believe they are coloring up so nicely so quick

[Second Hand Pat]

Love the colors Pat ! , i had Uatumas blue but the were yellow brown color and permanent bars , i loved their shape

Thanks Vera, you think your were blue-based? I love the colors on these guys too.

Pat, you are doing such good job with these.. I can't believe they are coloring up so nicely so quick

Thanks Jennie, Me either...think about what they will look like in 6 months or a your.

[Second Hand Pat]

For fun I taped a measuring tape to the bottom of the QT. So here is another reference picture of the smaller blue.



I have not been able to catch the larger one next to the glass yet for his measurement.

Here's another picture of the reds. I have adjusted the one pump return and cut the flow a third on the right most side. The reds are using the middle of the tank including the center middle. I have tried turning the pump off a couple times but they go huddle in the corner.

[Dave B]

I am watching your pump return/waterflow experiments very closely. It has me thinking about subbing my weaker eheims in for my stronger FX5s, and potentially using a very weak pump on the sump when I set it up. I wonder if a spray bar would spread out the force of a return too. So maybe I could hide an Eheim spray bar up in the top on the return from it and have a weak pump coming up through the main Y return.

Mine have never actually seemed bothered by my lights or flow though. (Or the music from the speaker right next to them, matter of fact.) But perhaps that's the reason for the bars being visible most of the time in the blues. (The browns are probably more solid than striped at this point, which is cool... they look like big basketballs.)

[Second Hand Pat]

The reds are using more of the tank. Forgive the length of this picture but I'm seeing this more and more. Also four of the six are showing more solid.



The current in this tank flows from the pump returns in the upper rear to the opposite lower corners. My rationale for doing this is to blow the junk on the bottom to the front corners and this worked well until I reduced the flow. I can however increase the flow to push the junk to the front and then reduce the flow again after vacuuming.

[Second Hand Pat]

I am watching your pump return/waterflow experiments very closely. It has me thinking about subbing my weaker eheims in for my stronger FX5s, and potentially using a very weak pump on the sump when I set it up. I wonder if a spray bar would spread out the force of a return too. So maybe I could hide an Eheim spray bar up in the top on the return from it and have a weak pump coming up through the main Y return.

Mine have never actually seemed bothered by my lights or flow though. (Or the music from the speaker right next to them, matter of fact.) But perhaps that's the reason for the bars being visible most of the time in the blues. (The browns are probably more solid than striped at this point, which is cool... they look like big basketballs.)

Can you reduce or redirect your flow before making any permanent changes to your filtering? Good to hear your browns are settling in nicely. Did you see the browns John posted today...sweet.

[Second Hand Pat]

I bought my first of two 40 gallon breeder tanks for Dale's fry. Hubby is building a double stand and the second tank will be used along with the first once Dale's fry is larger.

I also will be getting a couple of John's red alenquers as tankmates for the uatuman blues.

[Jennie]

Oh Pat, haven't been on so much lately, those look awesome Hun!

[Second Hand Pat]

Thanks Jennie, the reds are starting to look like they did in the QT and they are going way more tolerate of me moving around the tank.

Nandi, they are responding to the reduced flow rate with being all over the tank. I do not see they staking out territories but there is a fair amount of pushing.

[NanDiscus]

Nandi, they are responding to the reduced flow rate with being all over the tank. I do not see they staking out territories but there is a fair amount of pushing.

That's great to hear, Pat! Just try to keep it this way and those territories will soon be sorted out as well.
I love your updates, keep them coming!

Nandi

[Teleman]

Hi Pat, Love your thread. Fish and tanks look wonderful. Just getting back into wilds after a 20 year layoff. Looking forward to ordering from John for sure and maybe some from Hans. I live in Sanford, Fl and it is nice to know there is someone else in the area into wilds. Setting up a new tank in a week or so for the new batch. Hopefully I can get it as nice as yours. Thanks for the inspiration.
Ken

[Second Hand Pat]

Hi Pat, Love your thread. Fish and tanks look wonderful. Just getting back into wilds after a 20 year layoff. Looking forward to ordering from John for sure and maybe some from Hans. I live in Sanford, Fl and it is nice to know there is someone else in the area into wilds. Setting up a new tank in a week or so for the new batch. Hopefully I can get it as nice as yours. Thanks for the inspiration.
Ken

Oh man Ken, you are welcome. I'm only about 30 mins from you. You are more then welcome to come check out the wilds I have from John. I have six Nhamunda reds and the two uatuman blues and two more coming wed. I am down in the Lake Nona area just off 417. I would love to get to know some local discus keepers. I feel like I'm living in a discus desert.

[Dave B]

Can you reduce or redirect your flow before making any permanent changes to your filtering? Good to hear your browns are settling in nicely. Did you see the browns John posted today...sweet.

Well now that I am treating for protozoans and sterilized all my equipment there's really no reason for me not to switch to the weaker flowing Eheim. I found a new gasket for it too so I won't have to worry about leaks.

So would you say that your Discus colored up and got happier as a direct result of the flow reduction?

[Second Hand Pat]

Well now that I am treating for protozoans and sterilized all my equipment there's really no reason for me not to switch to the weaker flowing Eheim. I found a new gasket for it too so I won't have to worry about leaks.

So would you say that your Discus colored up and got happier as a direct result of the flow reduction?

Dave, really sorry you having to totally redo your tank. Of course it gives you a change to rethink your flow.

I would definitely say them are utilizing more of the tank space. But there also other factors like they are getting comfortable with have people walk by the tank and feeling more at ease generally. So hard for me to tell. I did notice that there is only one dark corner (for hiding) and one of the reds has been rather dark (he is also low man) so I used some window screen and darken the left most dark corner to provide some additional corner and three discus immediately took up residence. Then two of those three went into a pretty serious lip locking pushing session and either one of them wanted to back down. I have not observed that behavior before with these guys.

[Second Hand Pat]

I have a serious lack of live batteries at my house and my picture taking has suffered. Here's a few shots before I lost my camera. Here are the reds




and here are a couple of the blues.

First is a reference shot of the larger blue.


and the rest of just for fun.





I believe that as these blues mature they could end up being fully striated.