Discus_Galore

Haha, they are adorable!!! Congrats! -roll-

So sorry for your loss, your midas was beautiful! When you found out the type of bacteria, was there any medication or solution listed for it? You obviously did everything you could, even sacrificing your own health! All the best with your new additions.

Incredible! What size are they? If you get some healthy pups out of these guys, you definately have to let me know!!

Oh I am so sad. We had named her Chip, because she got in a couple tousles before we bought her and had some chips around her edge. With some further research, I think I know what happened... Our test strips show about 8 different things, including nitrite, nitrate, and ph, but it does not test ammonia levels. It seems we must not have had enough good bacteria in the water to convert our ammonia to nitrite. If we had, we probably would have noticed unusually high levels of nitrite. Unfortunately, since we were unaware, and all the fish were swimming normally, eating heartily, and responding in every way that they should, there was no way of knowing that our ray was trying to filter out such harmful levels of ammonia. Her system was unable to keep up, and her kidneys shut down. That's what caused her to get that "anorexic" look in her abdomen, so you can see her pelvic bones. Unfortunately *again*, she stays along the surface, and never exposed her receding belly to us. Since our first clue to her situation was when she went into the aptly named "death curl", I don't think there was anything we could have done. Her kidneys had already stopped working, I don't think there is a treatment for such a thing. Today, I am off to Big Al's to buy ammonia test strips, and probably more Stability

Great pics! Nice 'backyard' by the way. That's one thing you sure don't get living in the city.

We started with basic tropicals like Angels, Bala Sharks, Rainbow Sharks. They sure taught us a lot, and they were very patient with us as we moved them into bigger and bigger tanks, with newer and weirder friends (african dwarf frogs, rope fish, apple snails, cichlids, ID shark, scissortails, you name it! We had a very... "Eccentric" tank). Hope you enjoy your fishy adventure!

We bought electric blue, yellow, and orange Africans at Wal-mart as well. I had to catch and bag them, because no one was working there. I just found a container full of stickers and picked the one that said "Cichlid - $1.49". So once again, probably taking advantage of the fact that the sticker didn't match the one on the tank that said "$6.49" but hey, I saved them labor, right? Congrats on your Cats!

I guess once you've been through the experience of getting a fish lodged into a decoration, it's more amusing when it happens to someone else. We had a juvenile discus stuck in a plastic log. That was scary, we'd just bought the silly fish. Thankfully, by lifting the log out of the water and turning it this way and that, the fish just plopped out. Of course, it wasn't "hanging on" in any way. I agree with the zucchini treats idea. I'm thinking that your pleco's suspension-above-a-bucket experience probably stressed him out pretty badly, and his natural reaction is to hold on for dear life until things start to calm down. If this is all just to clean the log, then you probably have time to coax him out with some treats, and offer him a different type of shelter. Chances are, after his death-defying feats in the log, that might not be his favorite home anymore.

Well isn't that interesting that I've already met people from here! Nice to hear from you, Deborah, how are the ropefish?? And, while I may be the "Voice of Reason", I will say I was incredibly excited at the surprise addition to our tank yesterday! Dal found us a b-e-a-utiful Blue Sapphire discus. I had originally thought that our blue tigerstripes were Sapphires, but they are Cobalts. This little lady has got more of a Blue Diamond coloring, but deeper and richer color. She's magnificent! I'll get Dal to post up pictures soon. We've also noticed that the male Cobalt seems verrry interested in her, if ya know what I mean!

Hello all, new to the site, thought I would make a brief introduction... I'm Xylena, and I was inspired to join by my over-enthusiastic boyfriend and friend, you may know them as Dalray and Popik. It has become a regular tradition to go fish shopping on weekends. I'm not quite as "hardcore", so I get to be "The Level-Headed One". :tongue: It's been an interesting adventure though, from the 10 gallon Wal Mart special, to our current 3-tank setup, the largest being the 230 gallon freshwater. The 10 gallon is mine now, I have claimed it for my equally laid-back Pea Puffers and their resident pleco. They sit on my bay windowsill in the kitchen and watch me cook. My favorite thing about them is their ability to move their eyes independently, like a chameleon. They're clowns. Anyways, that was my Hey-yo!

Beautiful fish, congrats. Will you try to breed any of them? Were they already colored when you bought them?

Wow, I bet he's got a nice iridescence to him.

Wow, I'm glad I read this thread. I think for now we're sticking with the number of discus we have, unless we find a good deal, but in the future these sites look pretty good to order from. For some reason, I just love the look of the white diamond discus.

Beautiful fish. We have 2 snakeskin as well, the female is about 4"dia and the male is about 5.5" dia, and they are certainly fiends for the bloodworms. We also have some tiger stripe blue sapphires, one of them is named Runt, because he's so much smaller than all the others from the same hatching, but Runt eats the most of any of them. They definately recognise different people when they come close to the tanks.