Adrienne

Phil has sold up completely. From my understanding there are very few, if any, true altums around any more - most of those that he did sell have been cross bred with the other species? of angels around ie altum x philippine blues. I hope you find some and prove me wrong

Normally it is best to take the tank completely apart, clean off every last scrap and glue it together again. Is there no one near you who would assist? Hawkes Bay has a club with a number of experienced fishkeepers in it.

Very nice indeed.

I tend to agree. What are the tank parameters and size and how many discus in the tank? How often do you water change? Have any new fish been added lately?

From my experience they pair up when they are ready and can attempt to spawn a dozen times before they are successful. The only way you will know for sure if you have a male/female pair is when the eggs hatch as it is common for two females to pair up. Buying mixed sizes of discus often means that the smaller ones will never reach their potential and smaller require more water changes than bigger. Best to buy at 6-8cm if you are new to discus as they are easier to grow up. They generally need to be at least a year before they are ready to breed. Young discus should grow at the rate of at least 1cm per month of their age. If you see 5cm discus advertised at 8 months then you know to give them a miss. If you want to breed buy the same species of discus and know what you are wanting/looking for. Buy a minimum of five discus and give them a tank of at least 250 litres. They like lots of water over their heads so prefer high tanks. Discus are cichlids so are aggressive to each other. They do not light brightly lit tanks, preferring cover. Apart from that there is lots of info on the internet as to keeping and breeding. Most of it is good advice

Try Ron at New Pupuke Aquarium Centre in Northcote. He is an Oranda breeder with a very good reputation.

It means you join your local club. The info is on the website - http://www.fnzas.org.nz/?page_id=40 or under clubs on the home page.

That would be great. Your knowledge has been missed. I'm happy to send you some of my varied and unknown species (only a few species) if you want to give them a shot to see what they are. (I suspect a few who have received mine in the past would love to know also).

Love your photos once again. It's great to see someone passionate about selective breeding, and who is willing to show us what they are doing with their fish.

Mahurangi Institute of Technology is my guess www.mti.net.nz/ Full FNZAS membership this year will get you a free scholarship to their entry level Finfish course. It's a very valuable opportunity for those wishing to take on some aquaculture study.

Wonder what the locals think of you always driving around with a water drum on your trailer! Build looks great.

That, Ira, depends on whether or not your lids are tight fitting. :bggrn:

Silver Dollars are not my thing so I cat comment on what you have writen, but I want to say how nice it is to see a young fish keeper doing something like this. :thup:

Yes please - I do!! :f77:

Yes - its normally because they are going so fast when they get near the end of the tank they become airborne.

They are speedy and best kept away from other sharks and SAE. :roll:

Come on guys - you can't have a discussion without giving us photos to look at

I only have the solient green. I didn't realise there was more now available here.

Got your best cooking skills sorted too David?

The first Christmas after I was married my husband bought me a fish tank. This is back in the dark ages like Caryl, and like Caryl I was told the wrong things and took the tank stones, filter and fish + food home, but they all survived. Kept fish for about 8 years and then due to moving around the country with three children under five took a break for about 6 years. On moving to Auckland I set up to breed siamese fighters and at the height of breeding had around 24 tanks dedicated to these fish. Three years ago after hip and then back surgery we moved to a smaller house so I sold up all my breeding tanks. I joined Marlborough Club and then went on to the FNZAS Exec 5 years ago, and am still on it and still remain a MAC member, despite living in Auckland. I now have a 450 litre planted discus tank, a 215 litre planted angel fish tank and a 250 litre marine tank. Currently considering purchasing 4-6 54 litre tanks and breeding some fighters again but thats another story.

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Seems to be big marks for ich and I would have expected to see some on tail and fins but there appears to be none. I assume the fish is bigger than the actual photo which makes those marks a reasonable size. Does it look like the scales have been pulled at or pulled out? What are your tank parameters? Is the fish swimming normally? Is the fish eating normally? Have you noticed any strange behaviours. If everything else is good then do a water change and wait to see what happens. A lot of the time a water change will resolve an issue.

A pH of 6 is fine for discus - much better than a pH of 7 or above. Tanks drop in pH as they mature unless you put something in them to raise it. Driftwood will also drop your pH but over time, not quickly. In a tank with a low pH ammonium is present rather than ammonia. Ammonium is a non toxic form of ammonia however your test, unless you have a kit that tests for both, it will show as ammonia. The toxicity of nitrite however, is not affected by your pH. If you get a reading then it is bad. One thing to note - in a cycled tank it is rare to have a nitrate reading of 0 unless you have a large number of plants in there. Generally you can tell your tank is cycled when you have 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite and your nitrate starts to rise. Once it starts to rise you need to aim to keep it under 20, preferably around 5. This is done by regular waterchanges. So if your discus are a year old they should be around 12cm or more in size and once weekly water changes of around 50% will be sufficient as long as you do a good job of syphoning out any waste when you do it. One thing about discus is that they like pristine water conditions and do better in bare bottom tanks. You might need to water change more often than once a week to keep it like that.

Not sure but maybe bite marks.