7 months update: My 80g with 7 Cuipeuas (Pics and video)

[Disgirl]

Beautiful tank of beautiful fish Mauro! I am honored to have two of my cones in that tank! Well done, and good luck!
Barb

[DiscusBR]

Beautiful tank of beautiful fish Mauro! I am honored to have two of my cones in that tank! Well done, and good luck!
Barb

Thank you, Barb. Your cones are wonderful. I wish I could get more.

Hey folks, the poll is getting hot. Big Royal and Big Star are currently tied in first place, while Reddy comes very close in third place. Please vote and help decide this important contest! It would be great to hear the arguments for and against the candidates.

[BoiseDiscusGuy]

Beautiful tank and fish! I love the backdrop! Where did you get it?

[DiscusBR]

Beautiful tank and fish! I love the backdrop! Where did you get it?

Thanks! The background is AquaTerra's Slimline Mesa Rockwall:

http://www.aquaterra-intl.com/products.html

[hekdiscus]

Parabéns amigo , o seu tank esta perfeito , fique atento na vermifugação dos discus no futuro ,

Grande abraço

Hudson

[DiscusBR]

Parabéns amigo , o seu tank esta perfeito , fique atento na vermifugação dos discus no futuro ,

Grande abraço

Hudson

Obrigado, Hudson. Acabei de fazer um tratamento para parasitas internos e externos com metro e prazi, mas vou continuar atento. Um grande abraço.

[DiscusBR]

With 32 votes cast, Big Royal and Big Star are almost tied in first place, while Reddy comes right after in 3rd. I wonder what people think of the relative qualities and shortcomings of each fish

[DiscusBR]

Amazing. With 39 votes cast in the poll, three discus are almost tied in first place: Big Royal, Reddy and Big Star. Interesting to see how people's perception of a wild discus quality can differ. What are the strong aspectes of these fishes? Here is what I think: in Big Royal, it is nice body shape; in Reddy, the red color and the hallo; in Big Star, the amazing striation patterns. Other thoughts?

It is also funny to see how discus suddenly change behavior. First, the pecking order. It is interesting to see that discus can move "up" and "down" in the school's hierarchy. After revovering and starting to eat, Skinny is quite authoritative and Reddy is now being beaten more often and hiding a lot (which is a pity). Then there is the issue of feeding habits. For months, only 3 of the 7 discus were eating Tetra color bits. Yesterday, all of them started eating them voraciously. Go figure...

[kent1963]

I'd like to see how everyone rated them. Yellowish is my second fav and only got 1 first place vote. It would be interesting to have 1rst 2nd and 3rd choices shown.Big star is my first and I'm not sure who would be my 3rd.

[chiligum]

It's funny but number 6 is my least favourite, it just goes to show about personal taste!...Still a cracking set-up mate

[damba]

Amongst the nicests discus i have seen. Gorgeous set up. I am jealous indeed.
Tom

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[DiscusBR]

I'd like to see how everyone rated them. Yellowish is my second fav and only got 1 first place vote. It would be interesting to have 1rst 2nd and 3rd choices shown.Big star is my first and I'm not sure who would be my 3rd.

I know what you mean. It would be great to know people´s 2nd and 3rd choices. Yellowish is the tank´s big boss. At the top of the pecking order, she almost never shows stress bars. And her striation patterns are really nice.

It's funny but number 6 is my least favourite, it just goes to show about personal taste!...Still a cracking set-up mate

Humm, that is curious Royals are supposed to be more rare, popular and (unfortunately ) more expensive. I love Big Star´s striations. Thank you though for the compliments.

Amongst the nicests discus i have seen. Gorgeous set up. I am jealous indeed.
Tom

Thank you!

Interesting to see that, after 49 votes cast in the poll, Big Royal is one vote ahead of Big Star. Reddy comes right after in third place.

The bad news is that few days ago some of the fish have started to display long, kind of transparent feces. A sign of internal parasites. This after a three-week long treatment with General Cure. I am going to travel tomorrow for 10 days and I hope they will be fine when I come back

[DiscusBR]

Happy New Year everyone,

So I came back from my trip and found the fish doing well, but the tank was covered by brown algae and some strange stuff. I have been fighting brown algae for months. I was told here in the forum that it is common to have brown algae in recently established/cycled tanks, but the problem continued for the first seven months of the tank. The algae diminished after I took out some planters which had some fertilizing pelets on them (a major source of phosphate), but they would come back if I did not wipe the tank during every WC.

During my 10-day absence, a friend came to do one WC. In some of Manzanita branches that I had hanging from the top, I found a lot of white, hairy algae:



I know it is harmless for the fish, but it is frustrating to clean it just to have it back few days later. Then, besides having my 3D background and the pool filter sand covered with brown algae, there was also all these white spots:





Anyone knows what that is? My background was looking like a reef.

After finding this mess, I decided to get rid of the hanging driftwood and the sand. I was using stainless steel nails to hang the drifwood, but I suspect that the untreated wood on the top of the tank and the nails used to attach the driftwood to it were causing some of the problems. Then there is the sand, which I suspect has silica (another possible source of brown algae).

After cleaning everything I decided to go bare bottom with no hanging driftwood. I am now back to the drawing table. I will have to develop another setup.

Oh well, I guess it is part of the learning process...

[DiscusBR]

Another update. Here is the look of the tank after I took out the pool filter sand and the hanging Manzanita driftwood:



I actually like the look. My plan now is to add a few Manzanita branches and a few anubias. My hope is that I will get rid of the brown algae after these changes. Will see...

Comments and suggestions are welcome.

[kent1963]

Looks really quite nice just like that. They seem to be showing more red? Perhaps just the lighting or camera angle? Anyway I like the bare look.