My Journey Begins

[snoopy65]

Well, I have done lots and lots and lots of reading. There really is a wealth of information on this site.

After talking to my husband and him threatening me with bodily harm (half jokingly) if I set up another tank, I have decided to use my 6' long 110 gal tank to grow out my discus. It has gravel and plants, but only 3/4" gravel and most of the plants are easily potted (anubias, swords, crypts, giant vals) attached to wood (java ferns) or floating (pennywort, frogbit). So, what I am going to do is use the gravel that is in the tank and pot the plants so that I can still have a planted tank AND the tank will still be bare bottom. What do you think?

My next "phase" was to decide what discus. I have decided to order from Discus Hans sometime this month (with his special of free shipping - I can get 8 juvies instead of 5-6). I have been looking and looking at his fish.....How do you decide? Excuse my rambling....I know I want the Brilliant Turquoise and the Red Turquoise. I can't decide if I should just do 4 of each of those or if I should add Cobalts or Flachens or, or, or. Should I just decide on 1 strain? or is mixing them ok? Is it just a matter of preference?

Third, and most importantly....What food is essential to have BEFORE I get them. Do they need to eat pellets, flake, frozen, live? I see beef heart all of the time.....Is that beef heart from the butcher or is it "fish food"? I will have to order my foods online to have anything more than Hikari Cichlid Staple or Tetra dry foods. No where around me does frozen or Discus specific. So I need to get some ordered soon.

Thanks for your help.

[Disgirl]

[QUOTE=snoopy65;551169]Well, I have done lots and lots and lots of reading. There really is a wealth of information on this site.

After talking to my husband and him threatening me with bodily harm (half jokingly) if I set up another tank, I have decided to use my 6' long 110 gal tank to grow out my discus. It has gravel and plants, but only 3/4" gravel and most of the plants are easily potted (anubias, swords, crypts, giant vals) attached to wood (java ferns) or floating (pennywort, frogbit). So, what I am going to do is use the gravel that is in the tank and pot the plants so that I can still have a planted tank AND the tank will still be bare bottom. What do you think?

My next "phase" was to decide what discus. I have decided to order from Discus Hans sometime this month (with his special of free shipping - I can get 8 juvies instead of 5-6). I have been looking and looking at his fish.....How do you decide? Excuse my rambling....I know I want the Brilliant Turquoise and the Red Turquoise. I can't decide if I should just do 4 of each of those or if I should add Cobalts or Flachens or, or, or. Should I just decide on 1 strain? or is mixing them ok? Is it just a matter of preference?

Third, and most importantly....What food is essential to have BEFORE I get them. Do they need to eat pellets, flake, frozen, live? I see beef heart all of the time.....Is that beef heart from the butcher or is it "fish food"? I will have to order my foods online to have anything more than Hikari Cichlid Staple or Tetra dry foods. No where around me does frozen or Discus specific. So I need to get some ordered soon.

Thanks for your help.[/

[Disgirl]

[QUOTE=snoopy65;551169]Well, I have done lots and lots and lots of reading. There really is a wealth of information on this site.

After talking to my husband and him threatening me with bodily harm (half jokingly) if I set up another tank, I have decided to use my 6' long 110 gal tank to grow out my discus. It has gravel and plants, but only 3/4" gravel and most of the plants are easily potted (anubias, swords, crypts, giant vals) attached to wood (java ferns) or floating (pennywort, frogbit). So, what I am going to do is use the gravel that is in the tank and pot the plants so that I can still have a planted tank AND the tank will still be bare bottom. What do you think?

My next "phase" was to decide what discus. I have decided to order from Discus Hans sometime this month (with his special of free shipping - I can get 8 juvies instead of 5-6). I have been looking and looking at his fish.....How do you decide? Excuse my rambling....I know I want the Brilliant Turquoise and the Red Turquoise. I can't decide if I should just do 4 of each of those or if I should add Cobalts or Flachens or, or, or. Should I just decide on 1 strain? or is mixing them ok? Is it just a matter of preference?

Third, and most importantly....What food is essential to have BEFORE I get them. Do they need to eat pellets, flake, frozen, live? I see beef heart all of the time.....Is that beef heart from the butcher or is it "fish food"? I will have to order my foods online to have anything more than Hikari Cichlid Staple or Tetra dry foods. No where around me does frozen or Discus specific. So I need to get some ordered soon.

Thanks for your help.[/
Hi Snoopy, good see another gal on here! Lots of us are enjoying discus too! Your tank and plants and wood sound good to me but I think it might be best if you use sand instead of the gravel. Just so much easier to keep clean, poo and uneaten food just sits there to remove and doesn't get into the gravel to "hide". Just go with what color of discus most appeals to you. My favorites always must have red and turquoise in them. But there are some new varieties that sure are beautiful!

As far as food goes you should have good flake food, like Ocean Nutrition Prime Reef, some pellets like Tetra Bits, I feed vegetable flakes too, and some frozen foods like adult brine shrimp, blood worms and the packs of ready made and frozen beefheart (these are for fish not people). You can always make your own later on if you want to. Your new juvies should like at least some of these foods and can learn to if they don't. Mine eat all of the above foods plus more, like Freeze dried blood worms and shrimp. Don't get tubifex worms, they are dirty.

I just reread your post and want to remind you that bare bottom means nothing on the bottom of the tank, no sand and no gravel. Just glass. Also, you will learn here that most prefer to grow their juvies out in way less than 110 gal of water. They get sort of "lost" in that much. Maybe you could partition off half of the tank and keep them in there til they get grown. Hope to have helped a bit here. Just ask if you have more :confused::confused::confused:! Enjoy your journey!
Barb :)

[Disgirl]

Sorry I fouled up sending the post. Hopefully you can read it :D
Barb

[snoopy65]

Thanks Barb. I understand that bare bottom means nothing on the bottom, just the glass. I just don't want to lose my mature plants so I figured if I get some terra cotta pots and "plant" them in them then I could move the pots around as I gravel vac to make sure I get all of the poo and food up. What ever substrate is not used in the pots will be put in a bucket for later. The plants help with water quality as well not to mention the "cover" and shade value for the young discus. I may very well end up putting in a partition and keeping the plants in pots at one end and the juvies at the other.

[Elite Aquaria]

Potted plants will be fine...apachedan had a nice 300 gallon tank with some potted plants.

As far as mixing strains from the same breeder...This will also be fine. I just depends on if you plan on breeding and what your goals would be if you were planning to cross strains...But all discus can breed with each other...

Foods to have on hand are frozen blood worms, Mysis, Beef heart mix here is mine ===> Elite's Blend (http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showthread.php?t=62523&highlight=elite%27s+blend)

Here is the link to Dan's Tank ==> http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showthread.php?t=70450&page=4

[snoopy65]

At this point, I do not plan on breeding. I realize that the discus may have other ideas, however. This is part of the reason I wanted to make sure about keeping different strains together. I own many species of cichlids and am full aware how hybrids can muddy original strains. But if I understand it correctly, hybridization in discus is not necessarily a bad thing and is how most of the strains we see today have come into being. I am almost positive that I am going to get the Brilliant Turquoise, Red Turquoise, and Cobalts. Is there anything glaringly wrong with that combination of discus? And if they do happen to breed, is there anything wrong with those crosses?

Thanks again for your help.

[Discus-Hans]

Snoopy,

how far are you from Baltimore.

Make it a day and drive over to Baltimore, take your hubby with you and I will turn him into a Discus Man :D

I will give you some frozen food they are used to and you know what, trow in an extra Discus instead of the free shipping.

Hans

[rickztahone]

Snoopy,

how far are you from Baltimore.

Make it a day and drive over to Baltimore, take your hubby with you and I will turn him into a Discus Man :D

I will give you some frozen food they are used to and you know what, trow in an extra Discus instead of the free shipping.

Hans
now you can't pass up that deal. i know nobody here on this forum would ;)

[snoopy65]

Hans, I would dearly love to, but I am all the way on the other side of the state about 30 miles due south of Erie, PA. I am going to try and talk him into a weekend though!!!!

[Discus-Hans]

That's a long haul, 6.5 hours each way, he must really love you and your hobby to go for that.

By the way, I do a talk in Erie, PA. September 18th and Joanne is coming with me for the drive,

Hans

[snoopy65]

I just marked my calender! I will be there. Let me know where or what event so I can get specifics. Please!

[Scribbles]

Welcome to SD and discus Snoopy. You are going to love these fish. I have some of Hans' discus and they are spectacular. Mix and match strains as you wish. The fish wont care. I hope that you will post pictures of your tank and discus once they have settled in.

Chris

[snoopy65]

I will most definately post pictures and thank you for the welcome.

[Elite Aquaria]

Hans that is a great deal...

I would drive down to DC check out the Smithsonian's with the hubby then next day go see Hans and go home with some beautiful fish...

[snoopy65]

Unfortunately, I found out last night that going is not an option.

[snoopy65]

This is a picture of the tank. A couple things have changed since I took the picture. The bell on the left is gone as well as the treasure chest. My 7 year old wasn't happy with me, but I wanted it to look more natural.

So what do you think? Brilliants, Red Turquoise, and Cobalts? or ???

http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=95981&stc=1&thumb=1&d=1245150331

[snoopy65]

I have made a command decision on the discus I am getting! After much thought, looking at pictures, drooling, etc.....I am going to order 4 Brilliant Turquoise, 2 Red Turquoise, and 2 Cobalt juvies. While I like many of the others that Hans has, I keep coming back to those.

My next question for you experts has to do with making home made food. I currently make food for my Bridgesii snails, for my fish in my 125 gal, and for my marble convicts so the making of the food isn't the problem. The question I have is this. In the recipes I see cod, beef heart, shrimp....all foods that are store bought. My husband and I both hunt and fish. We harvest deer, goose, and duck mostly and catch walleye and yellow perch. Wild game is very rich in proteins and vitamins, it doesn't have additives or hormones as most commercial meat does. The fish is fresh caught from Lake Erie - a couple of hours from the lake to the table. Can this be used for Discus instead of commercially bought meat/ BH?

Thanks for your help.

[Disgirl]

I remember reading about just this subject recently here on the forum and the answer is yes you can use those. I forget which thread it was, maybe one of Eddies.
Barb:)

[Eddie]

I have made a command decision on the discus I am getting! After much thought, looking at pictures, drooling, etc.....I am going to order 4 Brilliant Turquoise, 2 Red Turquoise, and 2 Cobalt juvies. While I like many of the others that Hans has, I keep coming back to those.

My next question for you experts has to do with making home made food. I currently make food for my Bridgesii snails, for my fish in my 125 gal, and for my marble convicts so the making of the food isn't the problem. The question I have is this. In the recipes I see cod, beef heart, shrimp....all foods that are store bought. My husband and I both hunt and fish. We harvest deer, goose, and duck mostly and catch walleye and yellow perch. Wild game is very rich in proteins and vitamins, it doesn't have additives or hormones as most commercial meat does. The fish is fresh caught from Lake Erie - a couple of hours from the lake to the table. Can this be used for Discus instead of commercially bought meat/ BH?

Thanks for your help.

I would not use freshwater fish in your food for discus, this can cause serious problems. It is recommended to use seafood fish. I'll find out what it is exactly that can adversely affect your fish by using lake fish.

The animal food you want to use, you can use it but I would use the same organs in the food. The heart or livers are recommended. They are much cleaner in terms of fatty tissue. The liver will need to be parboiled or partially cooked to prevent fouling the water as it has loads of blood.

Be right back with the info on lake fish. ;)

Here you go

http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showthread.php?t=60548&highlight=talapia

Take care,

Eddie

[snoopy65]

Thanks Eddie! I sure don't want to start on the wrong foot.

[Disgirl]

Good to know Eddie, I guess it was the animal organs I was thinking of. Now I do remember it was best to use seafood not fresh water fish!
Barb