1st trip to breeder...6 new babies in my tank

[sidra]

Well, I made my first trip to a breeder today. He actually lives only a half an hour from me. Unfortunately, he is retiring and selling everything.

What an awesome hatchery he has going. He converted his one car garage to a hatchery, (plus he has more in his basement that I did not see). The garage has three walls and a double-sided rack down the middle full of tanks with pairs, fry, babies, juveniles...you name it. He's a real nice guy too. He told me how he makes his beefheart mix which I want to do eventually. For now I will just buy it. He sells his along with live brine shrimp, and other foods. I'm really bummed he is retiring...

He has so many breeding pairs...some of them are absolutely huge. He had a pair cleaning the spawning site while I was there, another pair had wigglers. While I was there they moved the wigglers to the back of the temperature strip to hide them from us. He had another pair with fry on them and some tiny fry just put in their own tank. He had babies of all sizes-from fry to juveniles. It was really cool.

Since I only had a small tank available right now I could only buy babies. I bought a pair of his own "Wadinis" which are a Wattley Turquoise crossed with Angel Diamonds. They are only a couple of months old but he tried his best to pick out a male and a female-we'll see if I'm lucky. I also bought two Yellow goldens about an inch in size. And I got one White Diamond and one German Red-those two are TINY.

I put them in a bare-bottom tank with a sponge-filter (sponge filter isn't cycled yet so I left the box filter running in there too for now).

They are all so darn cute. They're still in bags hanging from the edge of the tank and I'm doing lots of small slow water changes in the bags.

I'm so excited about watching them grow.

[Don_Lee]

It sounds like you have gotten some really nice discus from a great breeder, you are off to a great start. Sounds like everything is prepared well. Make sure and keep us updated with some nice pics....:D

Don

[dmacch]

Hi Sidra,
Glad you had a good time at Gil's. Did he still have the red scribble pair? That was an awesome looking pair. I was able to get three scribble juvies and foru other fish when I went. I have them almost two months now and they are growing fast and eating everything I put in the tank. Good luck with your new fish

Dom

[sidra]

Yes, he still had both the German Red a German Blue scribble pairs and a batch of fry from the blue's that were almost 2 inches in size. I think I bought the last of the red scribbles-it's only about the size of a nickel...cute little bugger.

Last night they ate well. The Wadimi's are the largest and ate well. The yellow goldens are about the size of a quarter and they did well too. The German red and White Diamond are tiny..I shredded the beefheart with a cheese grater and it was still a little too big. I did the same thing with some frozen brine shrimp and they did better with that. Those two are only about a little bigger than a dime.

I got up this morning and everybody is active and happy. So I'm going to go feed them now. After work I'm going to buy a finer cheese grater and try to find someplace to get some live brine shrimp.

My first batch of discus are now all 3 and 4 inches and were just getting easy. What have I done to myself?

Oh, I took pictures last night. I'll download them to my laptop today at work and post them tonight.

[DISCUS USA]

So Sidra what else did Gil have Blue Diamond small ones?How much did ya pay for each white diamond and at what size are they ? How much did he sell you the adults for each? Maybe i go pay Gil a visit one last time before he retires.

Man sidra too bad aint it you live soo close to the best breeder on Long Island ,manhattan,brooklyn,queens,bronx,staten island and hes retiring soon.What a kick in the head.

Cant wait to see the pics of your new fish later on. :)

[sidra]

I think he did have some blue diamonds ready to go.

The White Diamond is about the size of a nickel (not including fins) and the German Red Scribble is about the size of a dime, maybe slightly bigger. Those were $10 each.

The two Yellow Goldens are maybe a little bigger than a quarter and they were also $10 each.

The two Wadimis are probably an inch and a half or so and were $35 each. The German Blue's (I didn't buy any) were about 2 inches and $40 or $45 each (I forgot which).

The pairs he is selling for $700-800 and around there.

I only bought the babies I listed above because I only had a small tank empty. Soon the juveniles in my 29 will go to a brand new 75 and then the new babies can have the 29.

He's selling all of his tanks, etc too but none are empty yet. I think I'm going to buy a couple of his $20 gal tanks to have for the future for quarantine and for raising any future fry.

The smaller of the two Wadimi has already taken over as king of the castle. They all scatter when he goes pushing them around except for the tiny
White Diamond. It's so funny because this tiny White Diamond doesn't budge as if to say "I don't think you're so tough".

I haven't even had them 24 hours and think they're a blast. I'm at work now and can't wait to get home to them.