geleen

"We always used the rule that 1mL was always equal to 1gram."

With water yes,but I can't agree otherwise. try 1ml of mercury and weigh it :shifty: Likely Sodium bisulfate is a crystal powder that needs to be put into solution before titration; so you may as well add it to water directly at IMO.

J

I just new it wasnt as easy as that... Thanks for the info

For the record... what kind of a KH reading were you getting with 20-80 mix....?

I have been mixing mine more like 40-60 .... I have just started taking KH readings after I noticed a swing I didnt like and noticed my KH is somewhere between 3-4

Good observation;guilty as charged. I did not measure KH! :shock:

I used this mix for about 4 month's, breeding cherry barbs. Worked well. I did not worry because of the (assumed) buffering capacity of Edmonton water. Lesson learned (again and again ) Never assume. Next time I will measure KH.

J

IF your 20ml = 20g thing works out you can always use a teaspoon or tablespoon too. 1 teaspoon = 5ml, 1 tablesppon = 15ml

But since I never took chemistry, I have no idea how to do conversions and if 1ml=1g. I'll let someone else help you with that one. Just thought i'd let you know there is an easier way of measuring 20ml then estimating with a 50ml test tube.

Thanks ////

Not a chemistry major here. But unfortunately that is not how it works.

You can only substitute 1ml for 1 gram for water at sea level at 20 degrees C.

It depends on the amount of grams you can put into solution....for instance 1 cubic cm (1ml) of water may hold in solution more or less than 1 gram of sugar depending on elevation and temperature and the ability of water to hold sugar.

So it is best to add x grams to water and try it out. Be as accurate as you can (use the same amount of water each time)

FYI I have mixed Edmonton water at 20 % with RO 80 % and achieved a PH of 6.8

J

"I have been running 75% water changes straight from the tap for 2 months (with prime) and seeing no negatives. But I am in Invermere and the water seems to be slightly more stable (.2 change in PH vs .4 in Calgary). My opinion is that do whatever you can to change the water. What is imperitive is that the water termperatures stay the same (within 1 degree F)."

Unfortunately not so in Edmonton grrrrrrrr!!!!!!! Ph is stable enough, but too much compressed CO2

The dissolved gases will strip the slime coat while refilling;it comes off in large chunks. Aging is required here.

J

Sorry to hear this. I agree with Kevin.

large daily water changes for at least a month are likely the only way to save these fish.

I would start out with 25 % twice a day for 2 day's then 50% for 2 day's, then as Keven suggested;DAILY 75% for at least a month Later on you can do a little less. Please ensure aged and same temperature water! PH changes for domestic fish are not required.

Twice a week 50 - and -75% is an absolute minimum as far as I am concerned for healthy adult fish. If you have a substrate, bi-weekly, deep vacuuming is a must. Wipe down the glass on the inside weekly.

The reason I have for the slower start is to let them get used to the lower levels of dissolved solids gradually.

Also I have found that PURIGEN in the filter makes a difference for me.

I would not treat with drugs until the water has stabilized first.

You can try digging up a few earthworms, rinse and chopped a bit and see if they eat live worms. I feed live,red wrigglers weekly.

Success .

John

Sorry for the newbie question, but I'm halfway through cycling my 55G FW tank and it seems to be going nowhere fast. I used the Septo-Bac/Ammonia method to get it going, and initial response was positive - I loaded the tank with ammonia to ~6ppm and let the bacteria develop, it slowly dropped until after a week when it dropped sharply and nitrites really spiked. Ammonia dropped to 0, nitrites jumped from trace to 5ppm+ in the space of a few days. I added small doses of ammonia (0.5ppm) to keep the first bacterial culture healthy while the second developed. Unfortunately, the second kind of bacteria doesn't seem to be coming along. Nitrates have not increased above the 5.0ppm level that's already present in my tap water. Nitrites remain outside of my readable range (5ppm+) and have been there for a week and a half now. Is there anything I can do to get this thing going again, or am I just expecting too much?

Looks like a bit more patients is required. This can take several more weeks.

J

I've been reading up on the Nitrogen cycle so i know the basics and some not so basic stuff but little to no info on when and when not to preform a water change. I just did a 50% Water change yesterday and allready my levils are at 1.5ppm They were at 5ppm yesterday and that is as high as my test kit goes. I guess i'm in the secong stage of the nitrogen cycle but it's takeing allot longer than i figured. Not only is the Nitrites spikeing but the ammonia is staying at above .2ppm and increases with the nitrite amounts. It was at .5 yesterday.

Here is a summary

Nitrite 30%WC Wed1.0 Thurs5.0 50%WC Fri1.5

Ammonia WC Wed0.2 Thurs0.5 WC Fri0.25

I'm not sure what i should be doing now that water changes seem to be the only thing keeping the numbers down. should i let it spike??

Kuchi my koi tends to dart around crazily at anything above 1.0 of nitrite, I've had this tank for a couple of weeks but the filter for clocer to three. Any more info would be helpful

Thanks ever so much everyone

Lisa

The nitrite cycle can take a while longer and will eventually get there.

Your fish is in a lot of trouble.

If you can not move the fish out of there you could do this.

1./ pick up some seachem stability to help the tank cycle

2./ pick up some bacteria from me to help the filter.

3./ add 5x the dosage of Prime with every water change it will neutralize the nitrite help your fish but will hurt the cycling.

4./ add salt, google salt nitrite koi for dosages involving Koi

J.

Fantastic pics! They look better in the pictures then they did in person :P

Its amazing you could get such great pics. Some of the tanks had pretty dirty glass and the water less the clear.

Wow, the pics are fantastic! I agree with the condition of some tanks. More light would have helped as well.

John

In the other post, I think I recommended that you return the livestock until the tank fully cycles and I stand by that reccomendation. I also think it is bacterial bloom that may be due to incomplete cycle. I say return the fish and complete the cycle and then buy the fish.

Js

Agreed! 0 Nitrate indicates a tank that is NOT cycled. Your fish are in grave danger. Other than getting them out of there you could try Seachem Stability after a 90 % water change.

J

I have read somewhere that they thought it is a result of overfeeding or tank maintenance? A search on simplydiscus resulted in a lot of treads discussing this.

J

May sound silly but I distrust anyone that has to shout or scream how good the product is they are selling. By shouting I mean the loud and aggressive colors of the web site, this is an immediate turnoff to me. (IT IS LIKE TYPING CAPITALS ONLY, IN A MESSAGE.)

J

Hi,

Does anyone know a high quality breeder that will ship to Canada? I am looking for Stendker, Wattley, or any other high quality Discus.

Thanks,

DL

You could check out http://www.uppercanadadiscus.com/ Stendker is only available in the states at the moment as far as I know.

Many good people @ simplydiscus.com in the sponsor section.(OK, see you posted there after I wrote this.)

J

OK, so now if I get an oscar it is YOUR fault :smokey:

J

numbers email addy's anything lol

price lists and shipping info perhaps. come on are Discus really that rare, or ppl jsut dont want them

I can recommend www.simplydiscus.com there is a lot of good information including breeders and importers.

J

Coming along very nicely. Great job. :thumbs:

John

Very nice! :thumbs:

I am in the Netherlands right now and went to look at a discus specialty store with a lot of "bred in Germany" discus.

Well........I guess the nice ones go elsewere. I have seldom seen such poor quality fish. Of the 150 or so fish in the store there were a few, perhaps 10 decent (not great) ones! I did not expect this, as even 16 months ago the quality was very high. I believe this hatchery is now exporting to the U.S in very large numbers, and they seem to be quite succesful in penetrating the market there. The result here is obvious. :boxed:

J

Glad they are eating :thumbs: Sounds like you are giving this a lot of thought.

Kevin gave insightful input, a voice of experience.

To add; if, once settled in,you have too much infighting among the discus you may have to get one more :smokey: As you know they do better in a larger group.

In response to your question re. a 55 gallon...

IMO, you can put 5, maybe 6 full grown discus in a 55, with 1-50% and 1-30 % water change a week. With 5 you could add a small shoal of, for instance, cardinals or rummynose or harlequin rasbora's.

This is what works for me.

I usually change water 2 times per week, as above, and once every 2 weeks make an 80 % change, always with aged, preheated and aerated water. I also vacuum the gravel deeply, once a week. Clean the filter once a month.

I recently started using Seachem Purigen. It made a positive difference in their behavior (calmer,) and the water is absolutely clear! I don't know how often I will need to regenerate the stuff, perhaps (hoping) only once a month.

Good luck with them, if I had more tank space, and possibly a divorce :boxed: I would want them.

J

Thanks guys for your useful suggestions. And if you just want to criticize me then why not just not respond to my post. I know that fronts are not the best tank mates for discus so that is why we only have them in there for now while they are still small, and will be buying another larger tank for them in about 3-4 months. As for angels, I did not know they were that bad to mix with discus, so thank you for giving me a heads up.

So far they haven't really eaten anything yet, and no they do not look as stressed now as they did at the store. Many discus as well will develop black spots when they are in stress, which is often why you see them that way. We also had a small discus that had the black spots, but they started to go away. We only got these guys this past friday, so of course it will take them a week or 2 to get used to the tank.

Right now in the tank we have 4 discus, 4 german blue rams, 2 bolivian rams, 3 frontosas, 2 blue acaras, 4 angels, 3 kribensis, 1 apistogramma, 1 black ghost knife, and 1 pictus catfish, 4 cherry barbs(we couldn't catch to sell, and hope they get eaten), 4 ottos, 2 siamese algae eaters, and 4 ghost shrimp.

We will be doing 2 25% water changes at least every week, and that being said we leave our water as is and don't mess with pH's and stuff, so since my pH is 7.6 and KH is about 120ppm, both the discus and frontosas will survive fine in these waters. Soon after removing my frontosas I will be starting slowly to use some RO water in their tank, I am still waiting for my system to come in the mail. I feed my fish mostly NLS pellets, sometimes we feed our nutrafin max to get rid of it, and sometimes things like spirulina disks or frozen treats. I may try rubbing the food in garlic if the discus don't eat within 5 or 6 days.

We believe the discus with darker stripes is a blue red maues discus, and the other one a blue manacapuru discus. I really do believe they are wild caught because of all the pictures we have seen of different types of discus. Most domestic discus are the ones with all the fancy colors, since they cross breed until they get pretty colors, just like alot of other fish. They are both in the bottom pic, and all the rest of the pics are just other ones of them. And I do believe the glass was a little streaky because I looked at their eyes and they are both fine. As for the spots on the ones fin, I have already seen that and I am keeping my eye on it. Thanks guys, I am still pretty new at keeping discus, so I am open to any helpful tips. I might be grabbing a couple more wild caught discus from spencer jacks in a month or so, which will probably be my limit. Kevin if you would like to see about going in on buying some from spencer, let me know. And denis had about a few left, but that was on friday, so I am not sure if he has any left, but I only paid 59.99 for each, which to me I don't care if they are wild caught or not for that price considering their size. Either way I got a good deal.

Edit: Oh and we try and keep the water temp between 82 and 84, so we can try and please the plants and the fish both. We don't want to have it too high because of that reason. But we supplement them all with CO2, seachem fertilizers and fluorite mixed in the gravel, as well as proper lighting. The plants are still becoming established, well some of them, so it will take time before we see any great results from them, but they are coming along. Some are starting to grow quite well. Only time will tell with them.

Frozen bloodworms are a hit!

J

I like them Look nice and round. :thumbs:

J.

I just picked up 11 6 month old Cobalt Blues, A Breeding Pair Of Snakeskins and a Super Melon, and a male Cobalt Blue. 4 aus rainbows, and a breeding pair of bristle nose with a baby.

Now why do they just sit in the top corner of my tank, i split them up to have the breeding pair together, with the large melon and cobalt with 3 babies and the rest of them are in my 230 tank until i can sell them off.

What shall i do. ?

they just chill there not doing much. up by the heater but the whole tank is approx. 80F and same with the other tank. Anyone have any suggestions.

This is normal in the beginning. Give them time, they should come around in a few day's..... check out SIMPLYDISCUS forum for lots of good advice.

Discus like a minimum of 83F better @86 for the young ones.

The rainbows might be happier @ 75F-80F

J

I've got crayfish, Sword tails, Scissor tails, Diamond Tetras, Green Barbs, Dwarf Rainbows, Hatchets and Rasbora's in a 175 gl. and none of them will eat the Zucc's.

I've given them peas, but I didn't blanch them. I will next time.

Worse than little kids, huh?

Thankx

Rick

With these fish I would try a little cooked spinach chopped very fine, the barbs and rainbows will likely eat that.

I blanch 3 peas and crush them fine with a fork my rainbows eat them before it gets halfway to the bottom.

J

Yeah I wanted to get a sponge filter, but ebay didn't have any from canada. For the price of the filter I don't want to pay an arm and a leg just for shipping. Thanks for your list, lol you have been very helpful to me. That's what I get for being on all these other forums that don't reside in canada.

mops.ca OOPs listed already

I know. They do prefer a lower water hardness and a lower pH. We do have discus already, and I know exactly what they prefer. I am just worried that keeping them in alberta water might kill them. I will probably invest in an RO unit if I did buy them, and the tank mates they will be going in with prefer the same sort of conditions. So they will all benefit from RO. If I were to get a couple, how long do you think I should wait to treat with RO water? If I buy them then I will have to wait a month to get enough money for the RO unit. The guy from the store said that they don't put any different water in their tanks, and I do trust him as we are regular customers and he has been of great help in the past.

Edit: I forgot to say this, the store we will be buying from keeps their fish in quarantine for 2 weeks before selling to the public, can I rely on this or do you still suggest I quarantine them myself for 3 months?

No offence meant. If they have conditioned them to local water in the 2 weeks quarantine, then it would mean an additional switch to R/O mixture would cause more stress. I don't think the Alberta water will kill them once conditioned, but they may not thrive or breed.

IMO R/O is expensive for such large quantities ( replacing filters and membranes) and unless you want to breed probably not required. I use one for drinking water, etc and for small tanks where I am breeding fish,)

I have seen them (the wilds) kept with peat packs in the water storage barrel, worked fine, but the water was yellow

As you know.....the advise on simplydiscus has 2 main points over and over: water changes and quarantine. These folks are very experienced. Where I am not.

J

Today I was at the LFS, and they had some really nice wild caught discus. I am not sure of the type they are, but they are like 7 inches in diameter. The store owner told me that they want $60 each, but they won't be ready until next week. Is this a good deal or what? Does anyone else have any experience with wild caught discus? I am just afraid to buy them and then they die on me because of the difference's in water. But it is a really good deal and I was contemplating on getting a couple. They will be going into my 90 gallon of course with my other discus and other SA/CA cichlids.

If they are nice sounds like a steal.

I would do some reading at www.simplydiscus.com From what I have read it seems they only do well very soft water and need PH 6 -6.5. Where domestics easily tolerate Alberta water conditions. Mine certainly do well in ph 7.6

I would keep them separate for at least 3 months then introduce one of yours for a month. You want to rule out diseases that could wipe out all of your discus.

J

MMMMMM Parents !!!!!!! LOL

John

Those are freshwater tanks Paul, but still nice looking fish.

Of course I know theyre freshwater, my dad actually tried to argue with me saying that they are indeed saltwater and my mom told him that arguing about fish with me is a dumb idea. LOL