Originally Posted by
Paul Sabucchi
Hi, having started to grow out my juvies 9 months ago I have found the advice given on this forum invaluable. I may be over-simplyfying things but the cardinal rules I have gathered are:
1) Buy the best quality fish you can find (and don't mix fish from different provenence). As far as I have seen the Stendker fish (at least those imported here in Italy) are very average and sometimes outright uninspiring (maybe they send all the good ones to the States!). Should I return to the UK I would get mine from somebody like Francis Hu (Chen's discus).
2) Get a decent number from the get go (12-15?)
3) As much clean water as possible so big daily water changes (your tapwater seems reasonably good but measure the nitrate content), bare bottom tank helps but also put in place a system (hoses, taps, plumbing, water storage and heating, pumps) to make water changes as painless as possible. The easier it is the less you will resent doing it, I have been changing 60 gal a day and without a decent system it would soon get old!
4) Good food, now there is a choice of quality granules (NLS, NorthFin), Frozen (Chen's sells their own), I don't know where you could get fdbw in the UK or you could make your own as per Joey's video, although I find home-made foods messy so I just use grated (from frozen with the thingy used to shred carrots) wild Alaska salmon fillets (plenty of protein, not as fatty as farmed and no thiaminase). Enjoy the ride!