sharn

are they in a tank with substrate? discus that are kept in bare bottom tanks grow much faster as they are easier to maintain, you dont HAVE to grow them in bare bottoms but you will certanly see the difference. also water changes play a crucial part in growing discus, they need frequent ones while growing and 2-3 times weekly once they are adults. their care from before you got them can also play a crucial part in growth, if they werent defluked/wormed that can inhibit their growth and if the carer before hand didnt do sufficient water changes they may have stunted them slightly. many people think discus are slow growers but they can be quite fast if kept in the right enviroment. = with only 3 that little one is probably going to be the lowest ranking fish, you might not see him getting picked on but chances are he knows hes not the boss. i had three at one stage in a tank together and although i bought two of them at the same size as each other one grew like a weed whilst the other one only grew slightly as he was the lowest, he got picked on every now and again. there will always be a discus in a discus tank which will be the bottom ranking fish, if you remove him someone else will take his place so dont worry too much being the smallest doesnt mean theyre the lowest ranked fish though, my second smallest discus is a bruiser and will take on adults :lol: IMO if hes acting and eating fine and isnt getting picked on leave him, perhaps doing a few extra w/c's per week will see growth improvements. if you want him to grow to his potential size get a larger tank if you need one (remember minimum 40L per discus) and at least 3 more discus (6+ seems to reduce aggression) and make it bare bottom for a while and see if the lack of substrate and increased water changes make a difference for you. you can always move them back into a lovely planted tank once theyre larger and it wont matter so much if their growth slows a little or if you dont like the look of the BB.

keep in mind comets can get to 20-30cm if housed properly so they will get big and messy :lol: most goldies like to eat plants but fast growing ones may sometimes stand a chance. perhaps find someone that has a planted tank that needs trimming often so you can keep replacing them? not sure how the tougher anubis and java ferns would go with goldies- they might be worth looking into

i have an XP3 too and love it! theyre not that common in nz but are highly reccomended overseas. i bought mine second hand so it does have a rattle, not sure why as it was close to new when i bought it but i do like them. the little part that locks the hoses off for cleaning is great too

sure is (i am so so so so proud of him :lol: ) i got mine of Rebecca when he was really little, only just had his legs. she is the only person i know of in the country that has a pair that produce albinos, the one in aucks zoo came from her and the two others i know of came from her. seems they arent as hardy as babies for some reason but once they get larger theyre as hardy as any other colour. my four males start bum nuzzling and laying prezzies after every w/c and sometimes after a feed but the female is just too slow my albino is the only one laying which is good but the female just doesnt wanna know, im not sure if they will get the hang of it all after they do it a few times or not but im hoping something will happen one day soon kapo- if i ever got babies i would be keen to ship a few when they got larger.

home made beefheart recipie for oscar novo discus bits plain flake colour granules shrimp pellets cichlid sticks pleco chips homemade discus tucker (thanks Luke*) LFS discus tucker LFS cichlid tucker shrimp courgette peas lettuce worms locusts and praying mantis (oscars treats in summer) bloodworms mysis shrimp and i want to feed whiteworms once i get my hands on a culture and thats all i can think of at present, i try to give everyone a nice varity and im proud to say i have taken over half the freezer :lol:

35 is a good size (14"), i cant for the life of me find that 16" i saw

if theres only a dozen thats pretty good then good luck with the rest of the eggs!

i know of quite a few but thats only cause im really into oscars and spend hours searching the web for pics of the big ones :lol: i think Tracey has a 14"er (not too sure ) but they are fairly common around the world. 12"ers are the average but 14 isnt uncommon, saw a 16"er once and oh my would i have loved to get my hands on that baby :lol:

congrats! great to see a proper sized aro tank too, ill bet he'll just LOVE it to bits

IMO in a 250L you would want nothing but a O and small pleco (commons get too large, so youll wana keep trading the big ones in for smaller ones). it is reccomended 55gal per adult O + small pleco which works out around 220L. you can substitute that pleco for a FM/con/other smaller hardy cichlid if you like. if you got a 75gal/300L (can ya tell i spend too much time on american sites lol?) you would be able to get away with a O, small pleco and another medium cichlid like a sev, jack dempsy etc. oscars are extremely messy fish and plecos are too, plecos seem to produce more waste than they eat :lol: you also want some good filtration on the tank, it is reccomended 5x per hour minimum with canisters or 10x per hour minium with internals/hobs etc. a canister/hob combo works really well. once hes 12-14" you will see why they need so much room, they are clumsy, messy brutes and require as much room as possible and you wont think the tank looks so empty then :lol: once they hit around 6" they start to hit puberty too which is when they can go a bit silly. most go thru a redecorating stage and some get extremely violent- best friends can become enemies in minutes so you need to watch out for tankmates during the 6-9" stage just incase. good luck with your O, they are great pets and will become like a family cat/dog in no time

yep, whitish/opaque means infertile, reddish amber clearish (lol) means fertile

all fancy plecos are extremely expensive, the cheapest 'fancy' would be the royal at around $100 (roughly 35 pound) and theyre normally 10cm max. there are various cheaper ancistrus around which start from the 45 mark upwards. we cant get alot of fish here, on the fnzas home page theres a link to the allowed imports and its not many. fish keeping in nz is probably alot dearer than in the uk sadly. is your snakehead one of those massive growing ones (3 foot +) i see alot of them on the net where unsupecting buyers buy the cute little things and they grow into real nasty big fish (which i happen to like lol)

Tracey on these forums often leaves the tank bleeding when dealing with her O tank, they are powerful fish. make sure to post some pics of the bite marks for us :lol: ive never let my O bite me for that reason but i am curious to see what they can actually do when they get angry enough :lol:

if you can grab a peek at them when theyre charging at the glass have a look at their lips, its like they have two sets of lips and their teeth are in the middle of them- they are very well hidden but you can often see tiny little white bits which are the top. those teeth are for grabbing and theyre quite sharp but oscars have pharangel (sp) teeth aswell which are down in their throat, they look like a rib cage with spikes on it (for lack of better explanation) and these are used for grinding up their food. when you hear them eating and crunching thats those teeth doing their job- you can see them too when the O opens its mouth real wide. heres a post i made on another site about Franks little ordeal :lol: my camera sucks so the pic of his tooth aint that great but its about 2.5-3mm long http://www.theoscarspot.com/index.php?o ... pic=9725.0

if you wait till theyre free swimming (if they get that far) to remove i would corner off the parents to try to remove the fry. i have one of my oscars teeth (it fell out from him digging) and i wouldnt like to have a set of them in my hand, they would most definatly do some damage and oscars can get brutal when it comes to defending fry.

yep Hillstreams can most definatly handle 15C, their preferred temps are 15-20C i think? bristlenose can survive in cooler water but their metabolisms will slow and they will become sluggish

IF the eggs are fertile (females will often pair up) they will most likely eat their eggs, if they got their fry to wriggles on the first go they are doing very well :lol: removing wrigglers from parents will probably leave you battered and bleeding so id remove the eggs. or you could just remove any remaining fry once theyre a bit larger which would help keep numbers down as some would be eaten/die etc and you wont have so many to rehome

the best defluker (and does tapeworm too!) for discus (IMO) is prazi- try and get some proper stuff (not drontal) if you can, its super gentle and mine continued to spawn during treatment :lol: i beleive it is quite expensive but is well worth the investment i am not sure what discus would be like with mebendazole and trichlorfon though- perhaps a google will help on that?

sort of like *evil stare and spits out peas* 'what the heck are you feeding me them for you idiot, i dont want peas i want expensive prawns' ?? :lol:

i can get levamisole which is easily obtained (for me anyway, its supposedly really hard to get around the rest of the country for unknown reasons). i had issues with Camallanus Cotti myself and ridded it easily with Levamisole but i understand Piperzine (sp) and Fenbendazole is also used. i found it faily easy to rid the tank of these despite all the hype about how hard they are to remove :-? the method for treating is simple- 90% water change vaccuming bottom of tank really well 1ml per 20L of Levamisole (at 24% strength) into the tank and left there for 24-48 hours depending on how your fish react another 90% w/c vaccuming bottom really well wait 2 weeks repeat (a third treatment may be necessary) levamisole causes intestinal upsets in any amount, ODing has seen no ill effects but will often cause the fish to excrete yellow poops which is like the runs it is also safe to use as far as bacteria colonies go as it will not harm them, plants or inverts. im writing an article for caryl for the AW on this now. if you would like me to see if i can still get some levamisole pm me, im willing to send ya some

one SS heater failed in my O tank last night, the other was struggling to keep temp up but it was only at 25 when i found it so i just put the old heater in until i can get another SS heater. no idea as to why it failed but it just wouldnt turn on, i turned the dial up to 34C and it wouldnt flick on, put the probe in cooler water and it still wouldnt go on so i gave up (this is at 2am). this is one of those times im thankful to be running two heaters in one tank

salt is often used to help ease nitrite toxicity, 1tbsp per 40L. i have read it a few times on simplydiscus so it should be ok (one of the many wonders of salt), none of your fish are overly senstive but do make sure you keep an eye on them if you do use this as a temporary measure until your bacteria catch back up as individuals can have bad reactions

there are two definate males around 6cm, they have the bristles around the edge of their nose and up the middle. i suspect the other one was a female as she had no bristles and was the same size as the above two but i suppose it could be a later bloomer :lol: and there were 2-3 (cant remember) that were too small to be sexed yet and had no bristles at all, they were around 4cm. they were 45.20 each

sorry about your loss, the first fish is always hard sounds like popeye which is bacterial. it can be fatal but normally the eyes pop out, get infected and thats what makes the fish die (gruesome huh?) pop eye isnt contagious i dont think and can be caused by a lot of things, some which we cant control.

if anyone in tga wants some pm me, im going over tomorrow to check out these 304/305 hosing bits (hopefully they have them, if they dont oh well- good excuse to go over :lol: ).