Growth of a Discus

You remember the pics of Beth's fish from when she received them from Cary and then as they grew? I found them very entertaining and enlightening. So I'm gonna shamelessly copy her and post pics of my latest fish from Mike Wells so you can see their progress. I'll try to update the pics weekly along with any changes that are made to their environment as they grow. Hopefully this will be a sucess story of some really nice adult Discus... you be the judge.

I received them on Sept 9/02. There are 8 of them and they're about 2" in size. They're in a 30g tank that's filled to about 20-24g. I do 66% water changes on this tank 3x a day and will continue for the first month of their quarantine. I feed them beefheart, P.E. Mysis shrimp, Hikari bloodworms & brine shrimp & live Red Wigglers. They are fed about 5x a day. The tank is wiped down once a week and the 2 Hydro Sponge III's are rinsed once a week. The water got cloudy when there was only 1 sponge so I added another. I use a separate siphon & drain hose for this tank.

Here they are when I received them.

http://forum.simplydiscus.com//attachments/Dscn0553a.jpg

Dave

Here's a picture from today, Sept 17/02... I think I might have to increase the length of time between pictures. Not much change, they could have been taken on the same day, hyuck hyuck. Oh well, look for real growth in the next picture...

[brewmaster15]

Hi Dave,
Your Shameless copying is greatly appreciated. I'm looking forward to watching those beauties grow!

Good Luck,
al

[Barb Newell]

Hi Dave. Thanks for posting the pics and information too. I find it very helpful to read how others raise their discus. They are absolutely beautiful!!!!

Barb

Nice Dave, I sure will enjoy being able to watch them grow. I may set aside a few for myself ;)

Good luck

Mike

[Carol_Roberts]

Great Dave :thumbsup:
I love picture progressions.
Carol :heart1:

Want to race Dave?

[SLY]

race cary..interesting. ;D

Cary,

Sure, don't send me any live CBW, then challenge me to a race. Sounds fair. >:( But the comparison would be interesting. I'll be feeding predominantly bloodworms, mysis shrimp, beefheart & some pellets. But in order to make the comparison legit you're going to have to clean the urine off of the aquarium glass so we can see the fish eh? Ha ha ha.

Dave

ROTFLOLPIMP !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nice Dave. Wish I would have shamelessly done that with a few of mine as well. BTW using CBW's :o :o sorry...

Julz

[OEG]

Hi Boys,
count me in lets grow em and compare em.
I have a bad start since I had a bad infection spread throughout my fish room. I hope i have no more bad stuff happen and ill do my best to keep up. Thanks Cary for all your help.
http://URL

Here are the Golds today, 10/16/02. They're growing pretty good considering I have little live food to offer them. The largest is about 3" now. The blue tank sides/bottom has helped reduce the peppering to almost nil but it's also made their colors a bit more washed looking. The tank next to this one has 30 Golds as well and has a darker turquoise back & one side and the rest is open, plywood showing through the bottom. Those fish are more yellow then these. Apparently they all came from the same breeder so it is either differences in the batches of fry or the tank colors. All of these fish are growing & eating well. I have to watch the tank top now... Earlier today I tossed a hunk of frozen bloodworms into the tank with 30 Golds & 10 Melons and within the minute one fish came flying out of the tank as it tried to get the food. I hate it when that happens. It was put back in immediately and continued the quest for food.

Dave

One more pic from 10/16/02.

Dave

[Mike_T]

Very nice Dave. Nice shape and eyes. What do they think of the red wrigglers? They're obviously promoting good growth.

Mike T 8)

They love them but hardly ever get them. They've had maybe 3 meals of Red Wigglers. I don't have enough for all of my fish very often and it takes a good 1/2 hour to collect & clean them. I mainly pick the smaller ones to feed to new fish and they go fast. I'm hoping if I feed them less the worms will build up a larger population and make it easier to find a ton of them at a time.

Dave

[OEG]

Hi Guys,
this is a pic of my little pbss that i took about two weeks ago sorry about the quality of the photo. These two are actually the smaller the larger ones are hard to take pics of when they are lounging behind the filter.
Ps
what do you think of the color? They have also grown since then ill try to borrow a camera and update.
Oscar
http://URL

[Pick]

Please stop! I don't have any $$ to buy any of those! :'(

Please IM me if you would like to ship me some for free. Seriously though, those are some really sweet colors. Keep the photos coming guys.

TC

[zoids]

I see the growth dave. Great going and keep up the good work ;D

[mutfish]

At the rate people are talking me out of these guys, I'm gunna have to order a bunch more for myself...stock up Mike ;)

[Onnjai]

gotta luv all the last pic. Personally i like the last pic.

Peter

[mutfish]

Promising fish don't you think?

[shootingstar]

mutfish,

what kind of camera do you have ? picture are so clear.....of course those fish are awsome ? any tips on taking picture ? did you leave the light off for the tank ?

shootingstar

[mutfish]

shootingstar, the camera is an older Kodak 3400. I shoot several ways, upload and see what looks best. These pics were taken with flash, tank light on 8)

[arvind]

lovely fishes...what do u feed them?

how big is the tank in the last pic?

regards
arvind

[mutfish]

It's a 38 gallon tank I use for new arrivals/Q-T.
Primary food is beef heart, some blood worms, krill, and brine shrimp. 8)

[ronrca]

Mutfish,
Your a fake! I mean its so easy to see that those discus can not be real! First of all, there is no water in the tank and second, the discus must come from a book or something. They are so perfect! These can not be real man! ;D Wow! How do you get your tank squeaky clean? and the water sooo clear? Good job! Btw, I saved all your pics to my hard drive so I can drool when no one is looking! :P

Dave,
After 6 weeks of changing water 3x a day, do you go back to your regular routine of once a day?

Yeah, I will go to once a day next Tuesday. That will be 6 weeks. Unfortunately that is only for the tank of 7 Golds. The tank of 30 Golds & 10 Melons have another 4 weeks to go. Makes you think before buying more fish eh?

Dave

[BLUEKNIGHT]

Man those are some of the nicest yellow fish i have seen so far.both of you. :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o

[ronrca]

Dave,
How much do you change when you go to once a day w/c?

It depends on the tank size, how many fish and the age of the fish. Normally I change 50% daily.

Dave

[discus4me]

hey how'd you get the fish to form a circle with one in the middle? Are you teaching them tricks too? Man thats great! ;D

[mutfish]

Ahh, that's nothin' I once taught a tank of 100 fry to spell out D_I_S_C_U_S ;D

[Owen]

Well, besides the fish being amazing, the tank is spotless.. amazing! I suppose Discus are cleaner then my betta, but my spawning tanks are a mess... even after I do my daily maintainence!

[ronrca]

No kidding Owen! Spotless and very clean! Never mind the tricks, you can teach them to clean up after themselves! Cool!

Here they are on 11/06/02. They're in a 55g tank now with a tank bottom & one turquoise side. Slightly more peppering then in the all-blue tank but not much. I notice that some of these fish are fairly white-based while the others are more yellow-based. The growth is been pretty good so far. Fairly uniform within the group of 38 fish that I have from this breeder.

Dave

Another one, the last was one of the whiter fish...

Another

Last one for now

[BLUEKNIGHT]

Really Nice. and man have they grown a lot. what are u feeding them and how many waterchanges and what size tank. again really nice. they are getting a nice red on them too. :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o

Currently they are in a 55g tank that is centrally filtered along with 2 other 55g tanks. They get a daily 50% water change. They are fed 3x a day, beefheart, bloodworms & Mysis Shrimp.

Dave

How old are they now? Some of them have very nice shape!!! Wanna ship some my way? lol

I've had them since September 9. They were about 1.5-2" then. Don't know how old they are. I've got 38 of these guys and will be selling some by the end of November but I can't ship to the U.S.

Dave

[OEG]

Hi Dave,
Those guys look great here are some pics of mine.
http://URL

[OEG]

http://URL

[OEG]

Heres a pic of one of the goldens I got from Mike Wells along with those SS PB.
http://URL

Looking good guys, Keep it up :thumbsup:

Mike

[mutfish]

Mine on 11/01 8)

Maybe I overlooked this, but what is the strain actually called?

[mutfish]

Golden pigeon Snakeskins

Come on guys your killing me. I did not set any of these guys aside for myself so if Dave, Oscar, and Mike would kindly send me 4 of each back I will have the 12 I should have saved. ;)


Good Job All :thumbsup:

Mike

[mutfish]

Make me an offer ;)

[SLY]

good job keeping them dave,oscar and mutfish :)

Oh boy...I have some of those in the mail right now coming from Cary...I'm coming home early from school tomorrow to put them in their new home.
Brad

[keno]

I have 2 of the Gold Snakeskins from cary at about 5" now you WONT be dissapointed!

Ken

[OEG]

They will be something else when they are bigger, they are as clean a pb as i have ever seen.
Oscar

[zoids]

Dave, Oscar and mutfish,

The nice fishes in your tanks shows the amount of effort you guys have put in. Great work guys! Keep it up.

Time for an update. I've moved all of the Gold Pigeon S/S and some Red Melons into a 55g tank. These are the keepers out of the fish I bought. The rest were some awesome fish as well and all but 6 have been sold. Here's what I've kept for future breeding stock. This was taken today.

Dave

Here's another.

[darcy]

Dave they look awesome!!!
Darcy

[DREW]

Nice Dave,
Your only 6 hours from Minneapolis right!!I might have to go on a "OPS" mission. Whats your address again ;D

Yup, about 6.5 hours depending on how aggressive you want to drive. My address & phone # is on my site. http://members.shaw.ca/dclubine/Store.htm Let me know if you're coming and what you'd like so I hold it. I've got some other fish that I might be willing to part with including a few adults. You could also get some frozen food and avoid shipping charges. Send me an email if you're interested.

Dave

[BLUEKNIGHT]

Hey dave whats the size on them now.Awesome fish. ;D

There's now a mix of two batches and some Red Melons. The 2nd batch came in a month later then the first and were about a month younger. The Red Melons were even younger & smaller. So they range in size from about 3" to 4.5". The growth hasn't been incredible but it's steady and I'm content. There are 15 fish in that tank.

Dave