Discus 3.0

[dprais1]

3rd time with discus. Sharing here because I hate, HATE the drama on Facebook groups.

Using my 75 gallon that used to house musk turtles, tiger barbs and columbian tetras. The turtles moved to a 125 gallon.
Cleaned it out with bleach and let the mattenfilter sit dry for a week.
Started cycling with a bottle of seachem stability and tetra safestart. Ammonia 30ml every other day first week. Every day second week. 2x a day this week. A good serving of fish food 1x a week and some ground up cuttlefish bone 1x a week to keep the pH up.

Ordered 13 2.5" discus from hans but the website goofed up the shipping so he is going to send me 15. I'll upgrade to a 125 or 150 gal around Feb or March.

Filled 6 stemless wine glasses with new new eco complete. Each got 1/4 tab of seachem flourish tab and a crypt wendtii bronze or green. Plants came from my fishless snail tank. I put them in a 1:19 bleach solution to kill nasties but snails survived that since I now count 9 small snails in the tank that were not there yesterday.

Discus to arrive Wednesday. Plan is to
1. Avoid frozen foods
2. Daily poop vac
3. 50-75 w/c mon, wed, fri.


Going to feed northfin cichlid, Ken's green pellets, Ken's growth crumble. 4 feedings a day. Also added a sponge filter today in case I need to set up a hospital tank.

[dprais1]

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[dprais1]

Just for kicks, my blue marble angelfish tank.129852

[dprais1]

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[Acerrato]

I love Hans - I have 20 of his fish! I got them from him when they were 4" approx 10 months ago - and now all are 6+".. I went through some trial and error with them for the first several months. I had originally started out with sand and I found it very difficult to keep the water as clean as the fish needed for their size as I was feeding them 4x per day. I ended up switching the sand out for gravel thinking that I'd be able to vacuum the food/waste up easier but I was yet again mistaken.. After having them for 3 months, I completely removed the substrate - I wished I had done it sooner! That would be the most important suggestion that I have for you - START bare bottom. At 2.5", you're going to be feeding those babies at least 4x per day and the mess that's created from that is overwhelming. In my opinion, you'd have to be doing daily water changes if you're going to have substrate and want to keep the water quality decent. I was doing daily 50% water changes even when I had gravel/sand and the tank just wasn't as clean as the fish needed it to be. I wish you tons of luck with your babies! Please post pictures when they arrive! Here's my 125g tank with my fish from Hans!

~Amanda

Edit: I see the photo of your set up! I didn't realize you were going bare bottom already (GREAT CHOICE)! :p;). When you mentioned plants, I assumed you'd have substrate. Good luck to you with your new fish - can't wait to see the babes!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88A6U_xahS0&feature=youtu.be

[Acerrato]

I also did want to mention that I did have a cross contamination issue with snails in my tank with Hans' fish (fairly recently). I added some nerite snails to that tank to help with an algae problem that I was having... within 2 weeks, my fish were dark, hiding, slime coats peeling off, several stopped eating.. I'd be extra careful with the snails and remove them ASAP.

[Iminit]

15 2 1/2” discus in a 75 you will be changing 50% daily for the first 6 months. 4+ feeding a day. Look into freeze dried black worms to add to your feedings. Good move getting ready with a qt tank. Make it a 20g because with that many fish you will have some that fall behind. It’s good to move them and feed them separately to keep them healthy. May only take 2 weeks may take a month. For 15 you will need a 150. I’ve got 13 in a 125 and bigger would have been better. I now have 14 Hans with other discus in 2 125s. Good luck and enjoy your new discus.129864

[dprais1]

Some changes and fixes...

1 tried do my 50% w/c straight from tap, from tap using polyfil and a micron filter sock. Did not work with my Chicago water source. Way too many micro bubbles. Now aging water.
2 50% w/c 3x a week was no good either. Had to start doing 100% daily but often I'm doing 100% 2x a day.
3 I was not happy with the mattenfilter. I never had poop to vacuum since it all ended up in the filter. The powerhead I was using, maxijet 400, although weak was still to powerful. Now just running air driven sponge filter.
4 my discus really would not eat much in the way of pellets. Big NO on northfin and Ken's green pellets, they would eat the growth crumble. More or less. Tried a ground Turkey mix which they ate with gusto but what a mess. I switched to flake. More on that in a bit.
5 plants had to go. Too much of a headache.
6 most are looking very good, especially the flachen but a couple have stopped with eating much. Will treat with metro from jehmco if they are still not eating Monday

Okay, food. For about the past week they have been just getting tetramin flake and they seem to love it. Yesterday I got my order from brineshrimpdirect. Cool Color flakes and plankton gold flake. Cool Color is really nice, large pliable flakes that don't break apart easily. Sort of reminds me of the old beefheart flakes from Inland Empire. Plankton gold seem good as well but are your typical brittle flakes, fish like them.

On Monday I should be getting fdtw cubes(tubifex) and beefheart MIX flakes from aquatic foods via amazon.

So,
Big water changes daily
Age water
Keep filtration simple
Find a good food they like

[dprais1]

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[dprais1]

Been about six weeks. Still doing big water changes. 70% most days, sometimes 2x a day, once in a while I just do a 10gal vacuum 2x a day. Aged water.

Added a whisper 60 filter with prefilter sponge and still running the hydro pro sponge.

Feeding tetra small granules 2-4 times a day and freeze dried tubifex worms 1-2 times a day.

Most of the fish have put on good size. The cobalt hasn't grown that I can tell and a couple others are also runty.

[dprais1]

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[Willie]

...So,
Big water changes daily
Age water
Keep filtration simple
Find a good food they like

Yup, it's that simple.

[Iminit]

Discus look good. Yes they grow at different stages. This last group the German wonders started slow and were about 2 sizes smaller than the rest. They caught up and than the white leopards who were the biggest stoped growing. So there’s no reason for it but it happpens. Here’s a pic of 4 of mine at 9 months. The leopard is center and the German to the left.130388

[brady]

Dan
I would strongly advise switching to freeze dried black worms from the blood worms.
Fdbw you can get from Al.
Jay

[dprais1]

Dan
I would strongly advise switching to freeze dried black worms from the blood worms.
Fdbw you can get from Al.
Jay
I use tubifex worms. Very safe and nutritious and cheap. I have an allergy to blood worms.

[Second Hand Pat]

Hi Dan, nice to see you back with fish. I hear you on the FB groups.
Pat

[johnlfc]

Following along as I will be looking to grow some discus on myself soon. Can I ask when people refer to fish from Hans are we talking Stendker fish?

[dprais1]

Hi Dan, nice to see you back with fish. I hear you on the FB groups.
Pat

Thanks..
Forgot how much I enjoy them. Really trying not to overcomplicate things...

[dprais1]

Following along as I will be looking to grow some discus on myself soon. Can I ask when people refer to fish from Hans are we talking Stendker fish?
Yes, Hans only sells Stendker. He is the only U.S. importer of them.

[johnlfc]

Yes, Hans only sells Stendker. He is the only U.S. importer of them.

Thanks that helps clear things up a bit. I’m based in UK but have decided to go with Stendker discus which seem to require different methods to Asian imports for instance. I recently read a lot of the documents available on the Stendker website which were very helpful.

[dprais1]

Been about 10 weeks since I got these guys. 6 are runty and have been separated to be donated to a friend. He cares less about shape and size and just likes the colors.
The other 9 are doing well, measured them today most are 4.5" to 5", I think two are 4" or so.

I ditched the job filter due to noise and added a box filter with marbles and filter floss. Actually does a great job of polishing the water but is super noisy until i added a bit of poret foam to the output tube.

Finally, realized I was grossly overfeeding. After looking at some old posts by John N and Eddie I cut back to pellets 2x a day and tubifex 1x a day. I'm opting for superior water quality over heavy feedings.

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[danotaylor]

The 9 pictured look great! Bummer that 6 of 15 are not up to standard. Glad you have a suitable home for them :thumbsup:

[Iminit]

Thing I’ve found with my Hans discus is they grow at different times. My first groups now 2yrs old and of the 6 2 are 4.5 1 is 5.5” and 3 are better than 6”. Of the 3 smaller ones they were all at 3” when the bigger guys were at 6”. Little guys grew! Just took longer.

[Shan_Evolved]

Very cool! Whats the red one next to the flachen?

[dprais1]

Marlboro red.