Hi from Portugal, southern Europe

[carlosf]

Hi everyone!

Just a quick introduction of myself:
My name is Carlos and I live near Lisbon, Portugal.
A few years ago I owned some discus (multiple strains) but moved to other species after some time.
Now recently I’ve purchased some discus and I’m back to this hobbie.
I own three Piwowarski Red Turquoises that live in a 200 liters (53 gallons) tank with other small fishes.

My setup:
Tank: 200 liters
Filtering: Eheim 2217 (1000 l/h) + Eheim 2211 (300 l/h)
Lightning: 2x30w
UV: Eheim Reeflex 7w
ph: 7
Temperature: 28 Celsius (82.4 F)
Water changes: ~20-30% every two days, including gravel cleaning
Food: Beefheart recipe

See you around!

[jeep]

Re: Hi from Portugal, southern Europe

Hello and welcome to SimplyDiscus!!!

Feel free to ask any questions you may have and also show us your discus and tank!!

[Vanman]

Re: Hi from Portugal, southern Europe

Welcome to SD. We love pictures here. Post some of your tanks.

[danotaylor]

Re: Hi from Portugal, southern Europe

G'day from the Aussie in Ohio, USA, mate! Piwow's! Nice. I heard somewhere recently (I think) that he was closing down his discus production. Do you know if that is true Carlos? Loking forward to seeing pics of your tank!

[gimaal]

Re: Hi from Portugal, southern Europe

Welcome from New York City! Lisbon is one of my favorite places. There's a lot of great information here and many wise, friendly and experienced Discus-keepers who can provide counsel if needed.

[Second Hand Pat]

Re: Hi from Portugal, southern Europe

Welcome to SimplyDiscus Carlos and would love to see your piwows. I too heard that Alex had shutdown his fishroom. Photos would be awesome!
Pat

[brewmaster15]

Re: Hi from Portugal, southern Europe

Hi Carlos!
Welcome to SimplyDiscus! and Welcome back to the hobby!
Al

[carlosf]

Re: Hi from Portugal, southern Europe

Hi everyone, many thanks for the welcoming!

I need to take since decent pics, I just have a few taken with the phone with low light, so the quality is low.

Anyway, here you have a photo of two Piwows which have formed a couple: male ahead and female behind.



I’ll post other pictures as soon as I can in the gallery section of the forum.

Regarding the shutdown of Piwow’s showroom, I don’t know, but he’s still has the selling operation active.

[danotaylor]

Re: Hi from Portugal, southern Europe

Very nice looking piwows Carlos!! The female is stunning. Love the remnants of the halo coming through
Carlos I’m sure you will do this, but keep an eye on the 3rd discus that the pair doesn’t pick on it and stress it out.

[carlosf]

Re: Hi from Portugal, southern Europe

Very nice looking piwows Carlos!! The female is stunning. Love the remnants of the halo coming through
Carlos I’m sure you will do this, but keep an eye on the 3rd discus that the pair doesn’t pick on it and stress it out.

Hi danotaylor,

I also like the female very much, the halo looks so pretty! The male is bigger but the female is more beautiful, in my opinion.

Regarding the 3rd discus, in fact I’m paying attention to it and it’s a concern for the moment because the male in the photo is the dominant fish and puts some stress on the 3rd.
For the moment I’ll just keep observing but if it gets a real issue I’ll have to do something about it.

Regards

[carlosf]

Re: Hi from Portugal, southern Europe

Hi,

I’ve put some photos here:

https://forum.simplydiscus.com/showthread.php?141041-My-Red-Turquoise-tank&p=1388954#post1388954

Regards

[carlosf]

Re: Hi from Portugal, southern Europe

Very nice looking piwows Carlos!! The female is stunning. Love the remnants of the halo coming through
Carlos I’m sure you will do this, but keep an eye on the 3rd discus that the pair doesn’t pick on it and stress it out.

I’ve kept an eye on the discus behaviours and it’s very obvious now that having 3 discus with 2 having formed a couple is not a good idea at all. Moreover when the couple laid eggs on a regular basis… the 3rd discus is being constantly harassed by the male (maybe it’s a male as well) and due to the stress it has stopped eating, the skin tone is dark and the vertical stripes are very visible, stress signs all over.
So I have to do something about it very quickly, don’t want to reach a point of no return or push the fish to a limit from where it will be hard to recover.
I’ll move it to a smaller tank asap but in the long run I need to think of a different solution. Some have its own pros/cons so I really don’t know at this point which will be the better option:
1) sell it and just keep the pair
2) add more discus to the tank
3) get a new tank (e.g. a cube) and move the pair to there

I didn’t want to have more than one tank to care, except the case of temporary hospital tanks, so I guess the best option would be the first.
Anyone has any suggestion/advice?

Thx in advance

[danotaylor]

Re: Hi from Portugal, southern Europe

It really depends on your goals Carlos. If breeding and raising fry is not in your future goals, option 1 is really the best it seems. Option 2 will likely result in another pair forming and any additional discus then getting stressed by breeding behavior. Option 3 is also a good option, but again, if breeding is not a goal, then option one is best for a more peaceful cohabitation

[carlosf]

Re: Hi from Portugal, southern Europe

Just a quick update, I’ve moved the 3rd discus to a separate tank shortly after I’ve posted the previous message ~1.5 weeks ago.
After some days to settle it has started eating and now it is much better, eating a lot beefheart/granulate and having better colors, the stress signs are gone.
The tank is small but enough for a single discus (80 liters), bare bottom and I’m doing 40% daily water changes.

Regards

[Willie]

Re: Hi from Portugal, southern Europe

I didn’t want to have more than one tank to care, except the case of temporary hospital tanks,...

I think you've answered your own question. If you want to keep only one tank, then breeding is not a possibility.