cullymoto

I hate to say it but... You should never buy a fish from a pet store. Particularly something with the delicacy of Discus. They WILL be stunted. They WILL be sick They WILL NEVER grow to their full potential. Also You just massively overpaid for poor quality fish. I'm sorry. The pigeon bloods you picked up will grow, they will do well, they will teach you everything you need to know about how to keep discus, So the next time you pick up some of these fish you will be better prepared. In the future you should ALWAYS ORDER your fish straight from the breeder, or at least from an importer attached to a quality and well known breeder. ( www.canadianaquafarm.com he sells FORREST discus in Canada, and they are beautifull.) Even with the airplane ticket, and gas money to drive to the airport to pick up your fish they are still much cheaper than what you pay in ANY PET STORE. Not to mention you know the exact age of the fish, that it is not stunted, what it has been fed, the water perameters it is used to etc etc etc. I am not trying to bash any pet store. The sad truth is that they do not care for their fish the way they need to be cared for. I will say that Big al's has recently gone down hill badly, and thats sad. P.S. www.simplydiscus.com <<< everything you should already know is there.

If a pant flourishes then does a turn around it tells me that it has depleated the water column of the minerals it needs to grow. you may simply just have to start dosing a fertilizer. If conditions were very wrong to begin with it would never flourish. were that the case you could be looking at a light issue, temperature issue, mineral content issue, co2 issue etc. This is likely what happened to the duckweed - the water was not right for that species. To be successfull for that species you have to replicate its natural habitat. could even be that your not doing enough water changes to replace natural minerals in the edmonton tap water. (you didnt mention your water change habits so im guessing)

I've ordered discus from Rick a couple times now. Always a pleasure to do business with The farm, great service, great packaging, great fish. What else matters?

except for all the hundred sharp edges that fish will cut themselves up on.... not a bad idea.

What is the cichlid in the last photo Blink? looks an awefull lot like a German Blue ram. But not quite. Dwarf SA cichlid?

As a discus keeper I can tell you that Water changes are THE THING towards keeping any fish happy. I do 95% once a week in a 125gal tank. Full r/o water remineralized carefully. Boosted KH, modified ph to 6.0 in a heated, airated storage tank that i pump into my tank. Since i over filter (rated for 160 canister, rated for 50 sponge) and have a fairly light stocking level my nitrates never get to 5ppm. anything higher and I would water change immediately. my fish ALWAYS have breeding tubes extended, but are a bit young to actually be parents yet. Tells me they are plenty happy.

In the tank you should place some sponges, floss or some other kind of item (Mechanical filtration) that will stop larger solids from entering your sump. bio balls and kaldness are basically the same thing in my understanding, and will not keep solids from entering (and accumulating) your sump. The sump is where you put the air pump system, the heater, and the return pump, This keeps the tank nice and clean looking. Happy fish keeping friend.

the bloodfins just keep layin eggs. Usually its the day before or day of water change. Of coarse I would be cleaning the tank and likely removing the eggs during the water change. Today is the day after water change and there have been several jumps. this batch might just stand a chance, The tank has all kinds of predators in it so its not much of a chance lol. There is plenty of hiding spots for bloodfin fry - a rough gravel bottom - lots of real and fake plants etc. If i cared more about these little guys I would transfer a few to their own tank but... they arent GBR's or Discus so.... they are basically food for those two lol.

im not 100% but... sealed gauges need to still be sealed to read properly. the reading on the gauge is a balnce between the pressure inside the gauge (sealed) and the pressure in the system the gauge is connected to. if it is leaking than the balance will not be what the gauge was calibrated to.

i re-read the whole post. I dont think your tank is cycled. your experiencing the middle stage of the ammonia cycle. organic matter + water = ammonia amonia in water + time = nitrite nitrite in water + time = nitrate. I think your in the middle stage there, it is a bit wierd to see nitrate that high if i am correct perhaps its coming in with your tap water. A dose of "seachem prime, or seachem safe" will take your water parameters down to 0 - 0 - 0 without a water change. another thought is that if you are not using a de-chlorinator (such as safe - prime) you will never be able to have a BB colony grow since the chlorimine in the water is killing it off. I dont know if you use it, but a suggestion is to start dosing a cycle additive. products such as "nutrafin cycle" or "big al's bio support" etc etc etc. any product containing live nitrifying bacteria is what you should be after. This stuff is a necessity for starting out a new tank, and your tank is new. Hope that helps

if your water is soft (generally not a concern in alberta) than adding a small amount of salt (non-iodized) is a good thing. a small bit of salt in the water makes oxygen exchange easier between fish blood stream and water column. It is also said to have a calming effect on fish. Again, in very small amounts. I keep discus, in straight r/o water and i put a sprinkle of aquarium salt in with them every now and again. Were you to follow the "instructions" of your lfs guy, you no doubt would be adding too much, enough that it could bother inverts etc as Jvision mentioned. With hard water, there are plenty of naturally sourced minerals to make this ion exchange already in the water. Its worth noting that epsom salt (not regular aquarium salt) when used at 5mg/10gal in freshwater is a fish laxative. I have a very aggressive eating Pigeon blood discus that often gets plugged up. after a few hours in a hospital tank epsom salt bath he poops and is ready for more food (again). were i to leave him plugged up he would likely suffer some sort of harm.

I would stay with your current W/C program, but deff. reduce feedingsif it is algea, your fish will eat it up once they get hungry. an idea to help reduce on the algea's food is to go get yourself a marimo moss ball. they are cool, and out-compete algea for nutrients. also they have no roots so you dont plant them. they are around $8 and nearly indestructable. When your doing your maintenence take some paper towel and wipe down every surface you can. throw the paper towel away once it gets too nasty and this will help to quickly rid your tank of algea. Another idea is to go find yourself an amano shrimp (algea eating shrimp) these guys are worth their weight in gold and are around the 5 dollar mark. .... my discus think all shrimps are food, otherwise i would have several of these guys.

Jvision is on to something with the "stop wiping out your bacteria colony" I would also say that having the light on that long is not helping you at all. Anything over 8 hours on in a day will contribute to algea growth. 8 hours is plenty for your plants to be healthy. Hope that helps

this is likely an algea, but we would need much more information to help you. 1.How long has this tank been running? 2.What are the water perameters? (ph, temp, municipal water - well water, any new additions (plant or animal) 3.What light / co2 do you run and how many hours of each a day the more specific you are, the better we can help you.

Welcome to AA! after looking at your website quickly I am confident you will do well in canada. When ready i will no doubt be buying plants from you.

So I have a handfull of Bloodfin Tetra's in my discus tank. They are in there with 6 GBR's, 2 Pleco's, and 7 discus of various sizes. I know that they jump to spawn and this morning i heard a few jumps... Looked a little closer and sure enough there were eggs slowly floating to the bottom as males (I assume) were "visiting" the eggs as they fell. There is no chance at all that the eggs would hatch... the GBR's and pleco's will surely find them, or they will fungus. ( My GBR eggs laid in the same tank always fungus ) Just thought it was cool that they feel up to spawning. The surprising thing is that today is water change day... So today my tank water is the poorest quality that it ever gets. one would think they would do this the day after a water change type of thing. Anyway thats my story, Enjoy!

its not in the west, our the north... but Big al's is the only pet store i would even look at.

amano shrimp, bushy nose pleco eat it well. A better solution is to pinpoint the cause and elimiante that. Could be just as simple as less hours of light in the day.

found a 90 gal aquarium on kijiji. bit on the pricey side for water storage sure but, it opens up future potential for a 2nd tank. in the mean time it will be trouble free. I thank the gang for offering suggestions, AA is great!

Thats exactly what just failed me. Never again.

what a way to start a tuesday! Noticed my r/o unit was running when it shouldnt be. Inspected for a cause and saw that my 55gal water storage container had split right up the side! thank - god i have it situated in a way that the water went into the basement sump system instead of all over the bloody place! So I now find myself looking for a new water storage tank... Wondering what you guys use, as rubbermaid just failed me. looked into polywest and about fell over when the price was mentioned.... might just get an aquarium off ebay or something. theres also the idea of building a plywood tank for this purpose. Anyone able to help a guy out?

well that is Great news Blink. Thank you for the update. I think this seals the deal, when i am ready I will be making a permanent aquascape of my 125 gal... In my living room... without moving the tank. fantastic!

you beat me to it lol. I am still in the R/D of this project. I would really appreciate it if you would post your experience with the ecopoxy. Thanks blink.

So the good people at viking plastics got back to me, turned me onto a product called "ecopoxy resin" coupled with a clear hardener. non toxic, no voc's, naturally sourced (made from soybeans) sounds like I might have a winner. As far as the fake branches go, im thinking that concrete would leach, messing with the KH of the water column. spray foam might be the way to go. Wire up the shape i'm after, encase a Brick in the bottom for weight, spray foam my hearts content, use epoxy with coloured hardener to seal foam.... sounds simple enough....

emailed Viking. thank you for pointing me in that direction.