modealings
01-27-2016, 08:41 AM
Hi all - I wanted to start a tank journal to document all the happenings (good and bad) with this first serious attempt at keeping discus. Thanks for looking!
Introduction:
I've kept fish off and on for 20 years with my father. Always freshwater - firemouths, oscars, dwarf cichlids, african cichlids. I always thought discus were just the ultimate and tried them twice with very poor success. Haha I think it was for one of my middle school birthday's that my dad and I went to a breeder. I put 4 blue diamonds in a planted 55 gal tank - they sank to the bottom and never came back up. (I was doing maybe a monthly wc...). Anyway now I'm back at it - although I definitely jumped in without reading enough first. But I guess trial by fire is one way to learn too!
My major impression so far is that large wc's like this are just so foreign to keeper's of most other kinds of fish. Just understanding the importance of them was the biggest barrier I've had to get over.
The tank is a 75 gallon (now bb) running an AQ110 and 2 sponge filters. I got a group of 5 discus from a lfs who buys them from Vietnam. Ive definitely had some ups and downs, but since I'm posting this 3 months after getting them I'll just go through the timeline.
TIMELINE:
Early Nov 2015 - Buy 5 discus from lfs. To my very untrained eye they all looked good. When I saw them eat from the store owner's hand, I was hooked. The pic below was my idea of a good quarantine tank...yikes. (All the local pet store folks said don't wipe the glass and add some gravel to keep the good bacteria growing...still shouldve read more). Shortly after, found out the tank was nuked. Finally started to up my wc's to 50-75% 2x daily. Unfortunately didnt measure them.
93812
Dec 2015 - Moved fish to 75 gal tank with just potted plants. Wc's 50% daily. They definitely looked better. Honestly I dont know how they lived through this first month though. By what I'm now calling a stroke of luck, my plant light broke. Took over a week to get it repaired, so I just tossed all the plants and went full bb. Also attempted to deworm them with Prazi. Measured them - smallest was 3.5in and biggest was just over 5in from tip to tip.
93813
93814
93815
Jan 2015 - Things were going pretty well. Then I'm gifted a full 125 gal set-up with african cichlids. I vaguely knew the risks of introducing different bacteria and other pathogens so I at least tried to keep things separate (hoses, etc). I moved the discus into a 53 gal tank and put the 50+ african cichlids in the 75 gal while I resealed the 125. Shortly after the biggest discus (Big Red) starts to look sick (turns dark, stress bars, hides in corner). (Pics below). Poop looks fine for a week or so, then starts to turn white, stringy, sometimes looking like an empty/clear casing. I've now rehomed the african cichlids, sterilized, and moved the discus back to the 75. I'm 1 week into aging my water (seeing a 0.5-0.7 pH swing). I measured again while moving them back. Biggest is now 6in and smallest 4in.
93816
93817
93818
Introduction:
I've kept fish off and on for 20 years with my father. Always freshwater - firemouths, oscars, dwarf cichlids, african cichlids. I always thought discus were just the ultimate and tried them twice with very poor success. Haha I think it was for one of my middle school birthday's that my dad and I went to a breeder. I put 4 blue diamonds in a planted 55 gal tank - they sank to the bottom and never came back up. (I was doing maybe a monthly wc...). Anyway now I'm back at it - although I definitely jumped in without reading enough first. But I guess trial by fire is one way to learn too!
My major impression so far is that large wc's like this are just so foreign to keeper's of most other kinds of fish. Just understanding the importance of them was the biggest barrier I've had to get over.
The tank is a 75 gallon (now bb) running an AQ110 and 2 sponge filters. I got a group of 5 discus from a lfs who buys them from Vietnam. Ive definitely had some ups and downs, but since I'm posting this 3 months after getting them I'll just go through the timeline.
TIMELINE:
Early Nov 2015 - Buy 5 discus from lfs. To my very untrained eye they all looked good. When I saw them eat from the store owner's hand, I was hooked. The pic below was my idea of a good quarantine tank...yikes. (All the local pet store folks said don't wipe the glass and add some gravel to keep the good bacteria growing...still shouldve read more). Shortly after, found out the tank was nuked. Finally started to up my wc's to 50-75% 2x daily. Unfortunately didnt measure them.
93812
Dec 2015 - Moved fish to 75 gal tank with just potted plants. Wc's 50% daily. They definitely looked better. Honestly I dont know how they lived through this first month though. By what I'm now calling a stroke of luck, my plant light broke. Took over a week to get it repaired, so I just tossed all the plants and went full bb. Also attempted to deworm them with Prazi. Measured them - smallest was 3.5in and biggest was just over 5in from tip to tip.
93813
93814
93815
Jan 2015 - Things were going pretty well. Then I'm gifted a full 125 gal set-up with african cichlids. I vaguely knew the risks of introducing different bacteria and other pathogens so I at least tried to keep things separate (hoses, etc). I moved the discus into a 53 gal tank and put the 50+ african cichlids in the 75 gal while I resealed the 125. Shortly after the biggest discus (Big Red) starts to look sick (turns dark, stress bars, hides in corner). (Pics below). Poop looks fine for a week or so, then starts to turn white, stringy, sometimes looking like an empty/clear casing. I've now rehomed the african cichlids, sterilized, and moved the discus back to the 75. I'm 1 week into aging my water (seeing a 0.5-0.7 pH swing). I measured again while moving them back. Biggest is now 6in and smallest 4in.
93816
93817
93818