matthewY

little grub thingies ? umm I can always find grub things but dont know if I want to feed them to my discus.... Maybe to my mountain minnows though which funny enough only just had some more babies... maybe the grub things might help them breed more :-)

found it here: http://forum.simplydiscus.com/archive/i ... 25780.html and on the list here http://forum.bidka.org/showthread.php?t=3018 maybe if it increases in size then I wont be adding it... just a thought though Thecounch, do you know if the JBL foods have any colour enhancers and if so, would they have effect on blue / green? most food seem to have something along the lines of Astaxanthin which from reading, only enhances red

Wondering if anyone have feed rolled oats to discus? I read in afew places that it enhances the blue in a discus however no one really goes into detail into saying if they have to do anything special to it. So at the risk of sounding dumb... anyoen know what needs to happen to the oats from the time it leaves the pack to the time it gets into teh tank, ie: quantity? does it need to be cooked, rinsed, crushed etc? also, any issues with it changing the water? cheers Matt

Gota say, thats mighty impressive. Its somewhat similar to what happened to my one except my "normal" colour isnt quite teh same as yours :-( the contrast between normal and dark was about the same but on the whole left side, never crossed to the right hand side.... so if you looked down teh middle, you can see teh edge of the darkness. very nice looking discus by the way :-)

Colours been slowly returning back to normal, dont know if its the water changes or if it was juts in a bad mood for the last week or so but I'm glad its returning back and not upside down... thanks guys

havent seen any rubbing as of yet. The ph has always been on the high end (7.5ish) but I havent tested it recently. i change about 10% water daily. I may need to pick up soem test kits over the next few days and test whats up with teh water.

wow, thats quick :-) Natually I'm a bit concerned and wonder if its going to be ok but what i find really hard to understand is why just 1 side.... sunburnt? too close to the heater? do stress marks only show up on 1 side? Worst case which concerns me is if its had internal damage that is causing it... :-(

For the last few days I have noticed that 1 of my 4 turq discus have turned completely dark. I did soem readings and the google man indicated that it could be stressed / sick. Its still eating and comes to me as normal. Today while keeping an eye on it, I noticed its only brown on one side (not sure if it was like this originally when I first noticed it was dark), the other side is light turq as the rest of teh other discus are. Any clues? Looks like it had been crawing through the mud on one side. Apart from the colopur, its looking fine.... only thing I can think of that has changed is I have started feeding frozen blood worms and frozen brine shrimps from time to time

it hasnt been raining so havent had any chance to get real water for the guys :-( I've loaded the base with a lot of peat (1L or so) in order to try and softern the water a bit and make them more primed.... went and picked up another 3 cardinals to share the tank with (Tried picking only femaales so hoping I got 2 more femails and 1 male). They are all still in the same container but I because of teh rain water issue I havent managed to soften the water enough :-( Fingers crossed for rain (and not just to help with power issues :-) ). I'm thinking at the moment that I'm priming them for breading so that when the time comes... they would be all good to go (when rain comes). Raises a question... do we fgeed the guys when we have them in teh dark or is that just bad news? Hows everyone else doing?

hey caserole, do you know what brand garden peat can be used? I went around the warehouse today and I couldnt tell if any of them have added chemicals. Read on google that garden peat could contain bad stuff for fish.... be greatful for any advice. thanks

prefect, the information I need. I'll slowly change the water to pure rain water. reason (though maybe not justified) was I thought they would get shock if the ph droped or water chemestry changed too quick. I'll need to wait for the next raining day before collecting a few buckets worth. Also good to know that it should be totally dark, I'll follow this as soon as I collect the rain water and acustom them to it. I was deciding if they would be able to see each other in the dark but they should be able to sort it out :-)

I'd be keen to see all your setups for breeding these guys. Post pictures once you set up the tanks etc :-) Might give clues as to what works and what doesnt

Yeah if these guys dont breed after 2 weeks, I'll have to go pick up some more cardinals and give them another try (in a group). The idea of pulling guys out doesnt sound the best.... IKf its 2 males and 1 female then I do feel bad for the girl ;-)

I can never tell when it comes to body shapes and find it amazing that people can. Had some guy drop off soem fish afew months ago and he sexed my remaining mountain minnows, very impressive. ANyway, if you want to try sexing these from photo, I uploaded a few new pictures of them :-) http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~syscon_/fishies/ questions like how bent is a bent line comes to mind and also when it comes to size, what happens if one overate, ie: bullie the other fishies and steals all the food etc... I always end up second guessing myself

theres 3, wasnt sure how to sex them so I figured 3 would be better :-) 1 of them do look plump compared to the otehr 2

So I finally got off my seat and decided to do something about trying to bread my cardinals. Spent 30 mins gently fishing them out of the main tank and moving them into a smaller tank (20L or so?) which was fulled with the main tank water. Cut up a undergravel filter "mesh" into the shape of the tank and placed down the bottom, threw in some plants, boiled coconut shells / shavings and an airstone to help settle the guys down. Now i've started drip feeding them fresh rain water (ph of the rain water seems to be just under the 6 mark which seemed quite low considering my tap water is about 7.5 mark). So looking for any advice on how to breed these guys. a few pictures so far (been following as closely as I can to the "500 cardinals" artical on this site). oh yeah, and a few questions... Do cardiunals breed in teh dark? i imagine I need to have a opening for light so they can see each other or do I close it off completely? Is it possible to leave the adults in there for a week? I have cut out a undergravel filter to protect the eggs from the adults but I dont want to have to keep "checking" on them every day to see if tehre are any eggs, instead I would be happier to just leave the adults in there until I see fry' underneat the filter. Also, moving the adults in / out didnt sound too friendly on the fish. any thoughts on my setup????

love it, I'll have to remember to ask that girl at work next time I see her ;-)

When you say shrimps, do you mean the cooked frozen types you can get from the freezer in the supermarket or the uncooked ones? does it make a difference?

Sorry to hear the big loss. I lost a small discus 2 months ago and I though that was bad watching it flip around as though its gone mad :-( cant think how bad it would be to walk into a room and not see any filters and heaters and lights going, be like a horror movie. Option 1 (from wayne) sounds like a great idea, especually combined with a RCD (assuming you guys use them????) for detecting when its triped. As for making them... be interesting to see how it works? do you know if theres online schematics? Anyone seen these avaliabe from a shop? maybe youc an do a post in the DIY section, could be useful for publishing in that fish mag too (remember seeing a posting a while back for articles)

awesome, think thats what I'm after, will try tonight, thanks :-)

you mean poison if taken wet or you mean poison to use full stop (it will leak poison into the water)?

The plastic roof of my Jebo tank is cracking, has a crach from the bottom running to the top of one of teh sides. Think this is caused by presure on the lid over the glass tank (so the bottom of the hood is stretching out) and all the flicks of the light switch, maybe people elaning over it??? anwyay, wondering if anyone knows whats a good fix? I was considering the PVC pipe cement which is described as "softening" the plastic / pvc and rebonding as it drys. Says poison all oevr the tube etc... but wonder if its safe once dried? Anyone done anything with the PVC cement? also, any better ways of doing a fix? I also considered gettign a 2nd peice of pvc in order to cement over the crack to give a bit more strength. cheers Matt

I use external digital meter for measuring temp. The one it has is settings to enable an alarm for tropical and discus setups. Was $30 from dicksmiths years ago but I dont think they stock it anymore, though sure you can get it from elsewhere or something similar. really great for when you are sleeping, not so great when you are out of home but another thing that makes me sleep a bit better at night. All the best for the survivors

Or you can live in the middle like me and David R. I only use a tiny bit, I figure using some is better then none (just in case) just to reduce any possible bad effects. Iwould use like 1 mill or so for a 20L change so maybe about 1/5 of whats recommended. I also slowly drip the water in (have a attachment connected to the air part of the intenal filter) as i have discus and therefore dont wantb that radical temp drop but that too would help the aging process as it usually takes 1/2 day to drip 15 L or so in (i can never get the last few L to drip, suction isnt good enough). the amount I use may or may not be doing anythign but it does help me sleep at night. I rmemebr a while back someone saying they could contact a email address and have reports from water testing from local water treatment stations. I did this once and I remember being happy (with exception of ph) so could be worth while... anyway, glad u have your water ager, always something good to have around :-)

Condensation? I like my condenstion, it makes me fell like i own fish tanks ;-) Anyway, I think the tight seal is right, I only started noticing that around the "opened" area where the pipes are going in/out, theres some moisture issues around the hood. I plan to seal around the pipes and see how that goes. Also lookign at putting insulation around the tank wall (ontop of teh pretty backing i have) and also on a large part of the lid where alot of teh heat would escape from (good use of power even if it might not have effect of reducing moisture).