mr pleco

just noticed a whole heap of babies in the dominant male cave im stoked well guess ill knock these ones off the want more list will post pics when wife decides to get DECENT digital camera lol or when dad decides to let them out the cave yeah yeah thanks jake for the cave... there ,you happy now :lol:

if you feed yr bristlenose correctly it WILL NOT attack yr amazon swords

there is heaps of species anthony depends on what you want and what you can accomadate (sp?) a list i have is L numbers 25,213,182,144,104,255,18,200,226,270,66,204,52 lda 33 then theres the panaques and there is more out there just check out the LFS most have at least one of the above or more

well ill try , some breeders will tell you that put any two discus together and they will breed given the right conditions and to a point thats true but i have encountered numerous pairs that will only spawn with each other and literally die without them or take a huge amount of time to adjust if like you you only have one pair i see no reasoning in seperating them as they will condition no faster nor adore each other more for the experience in some fish seperation is necessary to "fatten "up the females but this has not been my experience in discus in fact most of my learning came from a" Don Hendly " who used to live in Green Bay and even had a visit from Jack Watley who was interested in how he got to breed the heckel discus i used to chop up ox heart for him as an apprentice butcher some 20 years ago and got my first discus from him at 16 yrs of age he was hugely repected in the discus field and had an amazing collection i understand he has since retired and moved south but he was a poineer in nz bred discus long before the Phil collis of this world there is something missing in yr equation for breeding it maybe the tank is too low to the gorund it may be ph it maybe the arent a pair the trick is to find whats missing key points are water temp variation (to initiate spawning only ) like 27-28 is enough still water ph is not major so long as its stable low gh and kh zero ammonia live food HTH

personally i never seperate my pairs but again thats just me

personally i dont agree with the mollies nor the swords ,come from dirty water never tried yo yo loach but each to their own as said the ideal tankmates are cardinals and rummynose most corys and most plecos other tetras are better than any barbs but it can be risky ,,not saying no, but it depends on the discus and the tank setup IMO four fully devloped discus and a tank full of cardinals and rummynose is very impressive and all you need buts thats just me

ok discus boy couple of ideas ..yes i breed /bred discus before ..so try if you havent already putting the rain water in at 26 degrees about a third of the tank and just trickle it in discus do spit food back out usually when its a bit big for them but it is quite natural what spawning sites are available ? are the cones or pots ? try using tap water 1/3 if the rain water dosent work what food are you feeding them flake food dosent cut the mustard try either bloodworms ,or live daphnia ,or mossie larva ,whiteworms ,or a combination of all of them in conjuntion with the water changes what water flow does it have try a mature sponge filter turned down to a trickle they only spawn in near still water , no i correct myself they prefer and the fertility rate is higher in near still water any current and yr wasting yr time ... HTH oh and be patient some just take time p.s one way of having a proven pair is that they "flash" at each other this is best described as ....as the male passes the female side on he swims at 45 degrees and shimmys or flashes her she usually responds in the same manner at the same time but in the opposite direction .

yep this forum is great for ideas and information and although we sometimes agree to disagree you get alot of opinions of what works and what dosent but it does come down to experience and i for one have lost my fair share of lovely fish to gain that experience so its good to see youve got it in perspective,, sad to say it might not be yr last but at least your one step closer than before to perfection (which i might add im still striving for ) :lol:

its not their aggression nor their speed chrisa its the fact that guppies come from a very different body of water to that of discus and so the theory is that they can be hosts for bacteria etc that discus are not used to and there for have little immunity to most dedicated discus keepers do as discus guru and only keep fish from similiar water bodies both for the health of the discus and to make it as natural as possible you will find thou guppies arent aggressive they are very active round feeding where as discus can be slower and more graceful this may mean yr dscus are left out or just get the scraps but the main reason being that prevention of disease and infection also read up on ph and water parameters preferred by the different species although they will cope with each others parameters they do best in different spectrums but overall for any fish stable water conditions is the best whatever they may be

does no one find it weird that guppies and platys are in the same tank as this discus ?

hey, are you still using rain water ? may pay to check yr GH and PH value sounds similar to the royal whips you sold me could be its being harrassed off the food what else is in that tank of yrs ? stilll got the L47?is it male or female ?

well i dont have any issues with that fire

i would suspect overcrowding tooo many fish for such a small tank if you think about it each fish has less than a 2litre bottle of coke worth of water to swim in less the load and hopefully if its not too late the fish may recover have seen overcrowded angels like this and the red gills stays permanent if not fixed

totally agree fire must be at least 15 to 20 L260s in the country and all are male whats the odds someones playing a game and it suxs i aint blaming the lfs the can only buy whats available but if we want to sustain these fish in nz then we have to have pairs otherwise they will end up on the L046 list (lovely but never available) ditto on the pics dude have tried some with mine but either i aint that patient or they aint that willing yep saw the L254 would have loved the trio but alas some baby beat me too them

checked it tonite alan 0 nitrate and zero ammonia

yeah resonable for the size they are and considering they dont come in often have heard they are all males so hope yr not counting on getting a pair

see david it is as simple as that dont know of anyone who has more than 0.0 ppm nitrate in the tap but im sure you will tell me if they do

yep blood worms should work but dont rely on them as a regular feed they are about 90% water id ditch the neons and go cardinals yep they are dearer but a better fish and more suited to the water parameters feed yr fish and then sit quietly away and watch he will eat prob when he thinks yr gone fish feeding shows vunerability and he dosent know you that well yet ... just watch him if hes happy then usually he is watch for colouration change / gill colour and clamped fins these are usually signs of a fish in need of action i dont personally use chemicals unless absolutley necessary and this case dosent say so yet but its yr choice but what ever you do do it slowly and with much research you may be adding something that cures nothing but causes something else garlic does help prevent disease and infection and im sure theres a plant every five feet in the wild

jayci just cause "its still goin good " dosent mean it dosent need a clean just to clarify

if you want nitrates to lower increase amount or frequency of water changes simple as that

bugger ! thought i had more than that so is the goldie in fact an L18 pic is hard to see exactly what it is ? and what exactly L numbers are the other two you didnt say ...

hey babyfish i have tried yr river shrimp and seems fine i find the JBL tablets contain too much protien and can bloat if feed too much not much advise except back off the tablets maybe starve for a few days and pray hope this helps but do check the protien rate and compare to river shrimp big difference from memory try some low protien diet mixed with veges to try and help but it is a guess i do feed tabletts but sparcley about once a fortnight if that .... let me know how you get on i do hope its not too late

good to see you have them in the right order too cricketman and welcome to the forums

hunger strike yeah but three weeks is a bit long three days more like and you will prob find he will be eating justnot when yr looking ...id personally raise the temp to 28 29 unless yr trying to breed them