New Discus Journal

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

@jwcarlsonyep, philodendrons can be used as well, typical water propagation methods work. 

Great journal and this Hardwater discuss things is kinda blowing my mind. Like you was an aquarist as a kid and discus were mythical creatures that only Jack Watley could rear along with Asian ninjas. 

[Torrey]

On 2/22/2022 at 10:10 AM, jwcarlson said:

I'm thinking I'll have to wait a bit before they're able to be shipped to me (on account of the cold).  But thinking I can get some pothos locally.  Or maybe tear some of mine out of the pots.  I do already have some cuttings rooting.  

Wondering if a philodendron could also be used...

Yes, philodendron works almost as well as the pothos for me.

I'll try to take pictures tomorrow (or would that be later today🤔)

Insomnia is best friends with chronic pain, so it may be much later ... 

Here's my rose and pothos growing in my fry grow out tank.

[jwcarlson]

Trying to take a picture of them is about impossible at the moment.  But here's some sunrise breakfast.  Sunrise... who am I kidding?  I wish I got to sleep until sunrise. 😄  Sunrise for the discus*

Prophylactic Praziquantel in the water at the moment.  

Adding the driftwood has been an interesting thing.  Before they all seemed to just cluster up.  And even for the first day or so after adding it they were just clustering behind the wood instead of the filters like they were before.  But last night the tank was non-stop action.  Constant swimming, setting up territories, losing them.  Pushing others off feed... even saw some "tail whipping" which I thought was absolutely hilarious.  Fish were "squaring up" and kind of slowly rotating sizing up the other fish.  And then occasionally one of them would adjust itself in and start whacking the other one in the head with its tail.  One fish was doing it a lot more than the others, but quite entertaining.  

Aggression seems really "even", I suppose they're sorting out their hierarchy.  No teaming up noticed yet.  

Going to start trialing setting up the auto feeder to give them a couple pinches of Vibra Bites during the day since I can really only get three good feedings in per day and I'd like to give them five (without purposely dumping extra food in in the morning).  Glad they're coming out of their shells a little bit.  

Edited February 23, 2022 by jwcarlson

[jwcarlson]

I do not intend to update this often... then interesting stuff happens.  For awhile I was pretty bummed thinking that maybe discus were just going to be standoff-ish and too skittish for my liking... and realizing it's still very very early.  But they seem to have settled in and are much MUCH more tolerant, feeding while the kids jut in-out of view and the dogs milling around trying to get pets while I'm watching the fish.  They tolerate my nightly water changes which usually mean I'm knocking over driftwood and banging stuff around.  

Last night I slurped up the rest of the sand/pebbles, there's probably still some left, but it should slowly work its way out in water changes.  I do not like the reflection, so I'm going to empty it this weekend and paint the bottom (outside) with some sand textured spray paint stuff.  And probably change the background to blue to see if that effects the peppering.  I don't really care about the peppering... but I'm a tinker-er and I might as well tinker, I guess.  Also hoping to put the driftwood on small tile bases so it's not so easy to knock them over.

Anyway, this morning I was working putting in their worm cubes and two of them came zipping straight over to my hand and started eating the cube out of my hand and pretty soon they'd all joined in and my hand was getting mauled by a bunch of little fish fins.  I do want them to eventually get used to eating out of my hand because I *think* that will better allow me to feed them flake, so I was hoping to start working that direction this weekend actually, and then they cut right to the chase this morning.  The flake patties I made are just too friable.  They work great for the smaller community tank/fish, though.  A few bites from the discus and it's just a cloud of mess that doesn't really settle so it's tough to clean. 

I also have competition as the discus' biggest fan. (pic from last night before tank cleaning, they're messy little things!)  Pounce really likes watching the fish.  Thankfully he is too old to get up on the tank, or at least he's too old (14 now, I think?) to just hop up there.  And he hasn't tried using the bookshelf as a ladder yet, though I'm sure at some point he might. I have water changing plumbing coming up just to the right of the tank and during every water change he stands at where the clear tube goes into the wall and watching/bats at the water and bubbles as they go zipping through the tube.  And then comes back when I'm pumping the aged water back up and into the tank.  

 

 

[Torrey]

On 2/25/2022 at 8:44 AM, jwcarlson said:

I do not intend to update this often... then interesting stuff happens.  For awhile I was pretty bummed thinking that maybe discus were just going to be standoff-ish and too skittish for my liking... and realizing it's still very very early.  But they seem to have settled in and are much MUCH more tolerant, feeding while the kids jut in-out of view and the dogs milling around trying to get pets while I'm watching the fish.  They tolerate my nightly water changes which usually mean I'm knocking over driftwood and banging stuff around.  

Last night I slurped up the rest of the sand/pebbles, there's probably still some left, but it should slowly work its way out in water changes.  I do not like the reflection, so I'm going to empty it this weekend and paint the bottom (outside) with some sand textured spray paint stuff.  And probably change the background to blue to see if that effects the peppering.  I don't really care about the peppering... but I'm a tinker-er and I might as well tinker, I guess.  Also hoping to put the driftwood on small tile bases so it's not so easy to knock them over.

Anyway, this morning I was working putting in their worm cubes and two of them came zipping straight over to my hand and started eating the cube out of my hand and pretty soon they'd all joined in and my hand was getting mauled by a bunch of little fish fins.  I do want them to eventually get used to eating out of my hand because I *think* that will better allow me to feed them flake, so I was hoping to start working that direction this weekend actually, and then they cut right to the chase this morning.  The flake patties I made are just too friable.  They work great for the smaller community tank/fish, though.  A few bites from the discus and it's just a cloud of mess that doesn't really settle so it's tough to clean. 

I also have competition as the discus' biggest fan. (pic from last night before tank cleaning, they're messy little things!)  Pounce really likes watching the fish.  Thankfully he is too old to get up on the tank, or at least he's too old (14 now, I think?) to just hop up there.  And he hasn't tried using the bookshelf as a ladder yet, though I'm sure at some point he might. I have water changing plumbing coming up just to the right of the tank and during every water change he stands at where the clear tube goes into the wall and watching/bats at the water and bubbles as they go zipping through the tube.  And then comes back when I'm pumping the aged water back up and into the tank.  

 

 

My cats were my discus' greatest fan, especially the pair I kept in the tank in my headboard.

I'll add another reason for handfeeding discus: nets can really damage them. All of my discus would swim into my hands and let me "pet" them (cup my hands around them to gently move them/conditioned them for any removal from tank) after about 4 months of hand feeding. 

If Xtreme Krill flakes existed in the 80's/90's, I didn't know about it yet. That would probably be the only flake food I would feed discus.

Mine got a high protein floating pellet (don't remember brand, it's been a few decades), blood worms, blackworms, brine shrimp (frozen and fresh), and vinegar eels.

They also would steal the snail's blanched spinach. This was before I had learned to appreciate snails, the snail belonged to my ex and was my ex's responsibility 😅

[HH Morant]

Beautiful fish. I love the pics.

Are you planning on doing daily water changes forever? 

I see that you are considering a matten filter. Do you have any other long-range plans for filtration? 

I understand that over-filtration is a good idea for discus.

[jwcarlson]

@Torrey

Yep, they're getting pretty used to my hand.  Now they're begging non-stop when I walk to/past the tank.  If I put my hand in they're swimming into it and pecking at it.  Didn't take them too long to learn hand = food.  I hand transferred them when they got here and am going to try to catch them by hand when I empty the tank here... in a few days.  Planning on painting the bottom from the outside and changing the background to blue from black.  I think I could do the back (window film) with fish in the tank, but it will be easier to do it when I'm painting the bottom.  

 

@HH Morant

Yes and no.  Yes for grow out which is at least a year.  I understand that I will not do 365 water changes the first year, there will be a vacation or weekend trip for sure.  I'll have to tackle that when we get there.  My understanding is that leaving them without food for a week w/o water changes isn't some sort of death sentence or massive issue.  I could see trying to get someone to come do a water change mid-week, but honestly it's probably not necessary.  After grow out, I'm not sure of the plan.  This might sound absolutely stupid, but I could see me getting them to adulthood and giving all but maybe six away and then converting into a community tank.  Possibly planted.  Haven't fully decided.  At this point I just want to grow them out and see how good I do at it.  

It could also go the way of enjoying the growout enough to sell/give away the adults and restart with the new batch.  Not really sure what to expect.  They're certainly growing on me.

 

Processed about half of this 60# box of beef hearts, double fine ground, and frozen into sheets.  Then take the bags and cut them into cubes for use as needed.  

Here's a video my daughter took. 😄

 

 

[jwcarlson]

Forgot finished product:

[Jeff]

Holy cow. A food processor?! That's awesome.....and dedication!

I'm following this, as I'm going to be doing Discus in the near future. I'm really enjoying these posts. They're already giving me some good intel.

Edited March 1, 2022 by Jeff

[jwcarlson]

It's a meat grinder.  I used to grind our dogs' raw diet, but ending up being money and time ahead buying pre-made.  Discus beefheart is like $15-20/lb (maybe more with shipping?) and I'm into this for less than $4/lb.  And the kids had a blast helping me clean the hearts.

 

I'm a total discus newbie, but my suggestions would be (if growing out young ones)... paint or otherwise lightly color the bottom, keep the bottom bare, and make it so your water changes are pretty well effortless.  I've got a semi-permanent python hookup right next to the tank so I just grab it, start a siphon, and go.  Then pump the aged/preheated water back up into the tank.  Takes about 30 minutes if just doing a vac/fill.  If I'm scrubbing sides and interior surfaces it takes a bit longer.  I tend to find some crusty older person and latch onto what they say.  It's worked well for me with honey bees, so I figure it'll work out this way as well.

I started with sand and after about three water changes I'd completely pulled the plug on that.  Way too big of a pain.  It's a lot easier to add some of this stuff than it is to take it away after the fact!

Good luck when you get them, it took ~2 weeks, but they've started to win me over.  😄  Make a thread!

[Jeff]

What's the purpose of painting the bottom? 

[jwcarlson]

On 3/2/2022 at 7:57 PM, Jeff said:

What's the purpose of painting the bottom? 

Appearance.  I don't really like how the bare bottom looks because it's kind of reflect-y and I can see the stand through it a bit.  And it's dark.  So I want to brighten it up a bit.  I did have sand in the tank, but that was a bit of a pain, so I sucked it all out.

[jwcarlson]

I almost hesitate to say anything about this, because I've got a really bad feeling about my discus.

Going on their fourth week with me.  All has been great, 9 of the 10 are growing well, but one has been very slow to eat and that's probably been happening since I got them, but I just didn't notice.  Short story is he comes right up to the feed and is kind of lost in the fray.  Eventually he started shying away more.  And now I've noticed he'll come up and get pushed away, almost like he lacks confidence.  But then about once a day or so he'll really aggressively go take a couple good bites.  And the other day several people suggested I raise the temp a bit and that might spur him.  So he ate better after that but the following few days he's been muscled out more and seems like he'll never get his share at this rate.

So I made the decision yesterday and pull him out into his own 10 gallon.  So after water change last night I did so.  And he seems "the same" as he has been.  Taking the advice of a few 'old hats' who do not cycle discus aquariums, but just do daily water changes and use prime and stability daily for the first weeks.  All of this has gone pretty well, and the tank was partially cycled anyway when I got the fish.  I was testing at least once a day for ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate.  Ammonia had a minor reading occasionally, just using the strips, so and every so slightly light green.  But after a week or so that stayed at zero.  Fish seemed unaffected during the whole thing. (daily 40% water changes).  Nitrites a similar story... every so slight pinkness.  And that went to zero about a week ago and remained there for a few days.  Last night while I was slurping water out I just decided to ammonia and nitrite.  Ammonia showed like 0.25 PPM on the strip, which I'm not saying is a real measurement, but what I would consider "presence".  Now I'd just wiped all the interior glass, wires, tubing down.  So thought maybe that could cause it to look high.  Finished the water change, filled up the 10 gallon for the "sick" discus, and remembered that I had another bottle of Fritz Zyme 7.  I'd used a bottle the day I got the fish.  I thought that maybe it would be a good idea to put a little BB dose into the 10 gallon and because I saw some ammonia "why not" dump the rest into the big tank.  So I did that and dropped the elevated tank temp down a bit from 90 to 87 as it was already at about 85 from the water change.

So fast forward to this morning, I'm up at 4:30 (every morning).  Little dude in his new tank looks fine and it's holding 90 degrees like it was when I went to bed at 11:30.  I didn't look at the big tank right away as the light doesn't come on until 5:30.  I play with the dogs and dink around the house for about an hour like every morning.  A bit after 5:30 I go drop their morning beefheart in.  They don't go after it and they don't swim up to "beg".  Hmm.  Don't think much of it as I've fed them too soon after the light first comes on and they've been weird before.  So I take my shower and come back.  The fish are all "apart".  They're near the top and while watching... one of them kind of pitches over horizontal and then rights itself.  And that happens a few more times.  No one has even acknowledged the beefheart.  I think suddenly that maybe there was more ammonia than I'd thought and that the BB I dumped in caused a nitrite spike.  So I check everything.  Ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate <5.

There was a quite a bit of debris on the bare bottom which must have come from the Fritz Zyme (lights were off when I dumped it in and I know there's some solids 'stuff' in it when I've used it in the past).  But there did seem like a bit more.  So I vacuumed the bottom and the beefheart up.  Triple checked the temp which was as the temp controller said (86-87).  Dosed prime again and refilled the 10ish gallons I'd taken out.  Unfortunately all I had was overnight aged water that was only about 76 degrees, probably, but it didn't drop the tank temp much at all.  Also added salt.  If my barrel was up to temp I'd have done a 55 gallon change.

I feel terrible and I am hoping that I just threw them for a bit of a loop.  Pretty upset that I dumped the stuff in, but having used it like four times previously including once on these exact fish and this bottle having come in the same shipment... I don't know that it should be a real concern.

I was going to run home at lunch today, but know that there's not anything I can really do I'm just letting it weigh on me instead.  I keep replaying everything I've done.  I recently upgraded to a bigger water barrel, but this is like the 4 or 5th (60-70%) water change from that barrel and would guess that whatever issue there might have been would have been there from the initial change.  I have an additional heater coming as the "open box" one I bought on Amazon was a dud and my water change water isn't quite up to the right temp, so changes are dropping the temp a bit... but again this is like the 5th change like this and it hasn't been an issue before.

Last night doing the water change I noticed a gross perfume-y smell when I bent down to clean up some water.  Our 3 year old smelled kind of like it earlier in the afternoon and figured she sprayed something from my wife's collection of stuff.  I looked all over and couldn't find the source and the fish seemed fine.  This AM I smelled it more and did eventually locate a bottle of "room refresher" that was up on my book shelves where little one couldn't have gotten to it.  I don't think anyone has sprayed it, so I'm guessing that was just a wiff I was catching sometimes.  The tank didn't smell off at all.  Thinking that's just a red herring.

 

I'm absolutely dreading what the scene might look like when I get home. 😞  Somewhat thankful that I have training and meetings most of the day to keep my mind off of it.  But sitting here during a lunch break allowed me to continue grinding away in my mind.  Hoping they all come rushing over to say "Hi" when I get home, but really really worried they're going to be belly up.

Edited March 10, 2022 by jwcarlson

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

I'm hoping that's not the case for you. 🤞🤞

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

I am pretty sure I lost one of the Sad Bowls from my cleaning lady spraying something my wife later caught which was non-organic and nasty for the environment. I am very sympathetic in the setting of the kind of cash outlay and the emotional part of investing in a group of fish like this. 

[jwcarlson]

Everything survived.  What was the sickest fish is now the best (he is isolated). 

The other 9 are in a clump.  So I think that eliminates the water as cause as it was from same source.  

Their tank is extremely cloudy.  I think I must have wiped out the bacteria colonies in the sponges somehow.  

The only other marginal explanation is that the cat terrorized them last night because I forgot to lock him downstairs for the night (he bothers the kids tries to sleep on my face all night).  I really doubt that this was the cause based on the cloudiness.  Water parameters look close to what they did the first two weeks.  Minor traces of ammonia, nitrite (so faint I can barely tell), nitrate low as I did not feed today.  

This sucks, but they're alive... No one was pitching side to side this afternoon so far and they are at least schooled.  So maybe a minor improvement. 

Ugh. 

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

Bacterial bloom? This can cause spikes in ammonia and nitrite. Changing water just exacerbates the problem. Just went through it with a 5.5 gallon. Had to take the fish out and let the tank sit for a week before it cleared. 

[anewbie]

On 2/27/2022 at 9:09 PM, jwcarlson said:

 

 

Processed about half of this 60# box of beef hearts, double fine ground, and frozen into sheets.  Then take the bags and cut them into cubes for use as needed.  

You do realize this means there are a lot of heartless beef running around.... Just something to consider.

[jwcarlson]

I do not know what to think.  Fins have some minor "melt" on tails and back of dorsal fins.  Just did a big water change.  Maybe their state in the morning will lead me to question the water somehow.  Double checked pH to make sure not swinging and it is the same aged and in tank.

 

😞

[Torrey]

@jwcarlson discus can be finicky, and because they need warmer temps bacteria can go from *everything is balanced* to "oh ****" pretty quickly. Stable is the big thing, and they really don't do well with temp swings. Mine would protest if I tried to deviate more than 4 degrees over the course of a week. Because they need the warm temps, they are also susceptible to low oxygen levels. Any shift in their environment generally meant I needed to increase aeration.

My second generation would always be hardier, and by third gen I could start delivering to the LFS.

Try to get everything stable. Try not to obsess over them (it's hard, I know), and while a lot of discus breeders do find multiple water changes to be ideal, my discus in the desert did *not* have that experience. My breeders had to have a sump with so much peat my breeding room smelled like Scotland greens, and water had to be stored in another tank for water changes with an identical sump and no fish. [This would be why I no longer breed or keep discus]

If you can stay calm, evaluate slowly, and don't overcorrect, you will be doing far better than I did for the first 2 years after our move. Tip for next time: if you think you overcleaned the sponge, you can take the sponge out and run it in a bucket of tank water and dump some Stability, or FritZyme straight on the sponge in the bucket. after you are done with your water change and finagling, put the sponge back in the tank and  you can even pour the water in the tank (if you want). You have got them over the biggest hump: the first 4 weeks. Watch them a bit more when you feed for a few weeks, and see if you have a bully harassing more fish, especially now that you changed the dynamics by removing the bottom fish in the pecking order.

[jwcarlson]

@Torrey

I appreciate your reply.  I am not fretting too much after they weren't dead this afternoon and they weren't doing any tiltawhirl maneuvers. 

I am aware of the mighty discuses' famed finicky-ness, which is probably part of the allure, if I am honest.  I like a challenge.  

And I am hard on myself when I make mistakes.  I am unsure what possessed me to put the stuff in, but maybe I am over focusing on that and not attributing enough to the water temp.  But they're been dealing with going from 86ish down to 83 pretty much daily.  BUT water changes have been stepping up daily from 40% now to 70%.  Thankfully the heater showed up so aged water should better match tank temp from here out.  

The point about low fish on the totem pole is not lost on me and I waited about 10 days to finally move him.  He does not seem ill at all, but seems to just not be interested in eating.  If he doesn't start in a week, I am not sure what I will do. 

Thinking back, I also finished a bottle of stability and decided not to open a new one.  So this could be any number of things, which stinks... But I troubleshoot and fix stuff for a living, so I think I am up for the challenge.  And not unprepared to lose "livestock" as I raise honey bees and chickens. 

The next 8ish hours should hopefully help me further access what is going on.  And I won't even attempt feed until they start begging again, if they get back to that point. 

 

And it's only been 3.5 weeks, so maybe I screwed it up right before we exited the first tunnel. 🤣

One, perhaps not often pondered, side effect of a bare bottom might be that there is less surface area for bacteria, and I am wiping almost every surface every other day(rotating a bit).  I have three large co-op sponge filters, and one of the sponge filters with finer sponges (two about the size of soda cans).  So I should have entry of aeration and surface area for bacteria in the sponges, I think. 

Cory and Zenzo answered my question on the member stream today, which was unrelated to all of this, actually.  But has been the subject of a lot of my thoughts about flow rate vs bacterial colony "size".  Gave me some things to think about. 

[Torrey]

On 3/10/2022 at 9:43 PM, jwcarlson said:

@Torrey

I appreciate your reply.  I am not fretting too much after they weren't dead this afternoon and they weren't doing any tiltawhirl maneuvers. 

I am aware of the mighty discuses' famed finicky-ness, which is probably part of the allure, if I am honest.  I like a challenge.  

And I am hard on myself when I make mistakes.  I am unsure what possessed me to put the stuff in, but maybe I am over focusing on that and not attributing enough to the water temp.  But they're been dealing with going from 86ish down to 83 pretty much daily.  BUT water changes have been stepping up daily from 40% now to 70%.  Thankfully the heater showed up so aged water should better match tank temp from here out.  

The point about low fish on the totem pole is not lost on me and I waited about 10 days to finally move him.  He does not seem ill at all, but seems to just not be interested in eating.  If he doesn't start in a week, I am not sure what I will do. 

Thinking back, I also finished a bottle of stability and decided not to open a new one.  So this could be any number of things, which stinks... But I troubleshoot and fix stuff for a living, so I think I am up for the challenge.  And not unprepared to lose "livestock" as I raise honey bees and chickens. 

The next 8ish hours should hopefully help me further access what is going on.  And I won't even attempt feed until they start begging again, if they get back to that point. 

 

And it's only been 3.5 weeks, so maybe I screwed it up right before we exited the first tunnel. 🤣

One, perhaps not often pondered, side effect of a bare bottom might be that there is less surface area for bacteria, and I am wiping almost every surface every other day(rotating a bit).  I have three large co-op sponge filters, and one of the sponge filters with finer sponges (two about the size of soda cans).  So I should have entry of aeration and surface area for bacteria in the sponges, I think. 

Cory and Zenzo answered my question on the member stream today, which was unrelated to all of this, actually.  But has been the subject of a lot of my thoughts about flow rate vs bacterial colony "size".  Gave me some things to think about. 

Yeah, I don't wipe my bare bottom tanks like... hardly ever. You have a good point there!

I have to watch the stream again, as I got a phone call halfway through and missed a couple of the answers. I herd them start answering yours about canister vs sponge and which will colonize first. Good information! Great question.

[jwcarlson]

One dead this evening, probably only a matter of time now.  The remaining all joined the QT tank.  No idea what to do with the 75.  I am stumped.  Fin damage on tails, backs of dorsals, and pectoral now too.  Really difficult to believe a bottle of Fritz Zyme did this especially considering the single guy got a few glugs of the same bottle. 

Really depressing.  They seemed unchanged this AM which I took for a good sign. 😞

Edited March 12, 2022 by jwcarlson

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

I'm crossing my fingers for you. So sorry. 😞 

[HH Morant]

Sorry to hear about your discus. I hope they pull through.

Thanks for continuing to let us know what is happening. I know it is hard to keep reporting when things are not going well.

I am planning a discus tank and reading everything I can to learn.