Hey

[milkchops]

Hey just joined the forums yesterday, still haven't got my new tank yet but setting up a 300L freshwater aquarium soon.

I'm a vet in the taranaki and have been in Stratford for the last 3 years. Used to live in the waikato with a relatively small 150L setup keeping discus in a community tank. Looking to setup a dicus tank again, this time focusing on the discus.

Hope to learn as much as possible from the more experienced people on the forums.

[SamH]

Welcome to FNZAS 8)

[doddle69]

welcome

[MarkLB]

:bounce: Welcome to the forums milkchops :bounce:

[paekakboyz]

Hey milkchops! welcome. Awesome to have a Vet aboard

[livingart]

welcome to the forums

[phoenix44]

Welcome!

if you need help just shout out! :bounce:

[Caryl]

Welcome. There are a number of fish keepers in Taranaki. They are still a club but they don't have meetings. Contact me if you want some local names and contacts

[phoenix44]

some come to palmy for the meetings.

[milkchops]

I was down at the local pet shop yesterday and met a guy who does aquarium maintenance and knows a lot about fish health based out of New Plymouth. He seems like a veritable fountain of knowledge. It would be quite good to catch up with some other local fishkeepers, I still have no idea where I can buy the kind of fish I'm after locally.

[phoenix44]

was that in NP?

best to buy discus off breeders if you want to see what you get before you actually buy it.

apart from that, the "golden sunrise" discus coming into shops at the moment are stunning.

[Jennifer]

Hey milkchops, good to see you join the forums!

[Floater]

Hey there. I just bought myself a new tank as well (in my signature) and I'm planning on getting into discus for the first time. I'm going to buy my babies from Vincent Discus who sells top quality stuff from what I hear.

I'm sure you'll find a load of helpful information and people on this forum. I'm relatively new to fishkeeping (just over a year) and my knowledge base has increased a hundred fold since joining up here.

Here's a link to some of Vincent Discus' fish, I'm guessing some of them are his breeding stock?

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=42696

[milkchops]

thanks for all the warm welcomes. Yea i have seen pics of the golden sunrise and they are basically the reason I want to keep discus again. I had a friend who had a pair of very very nice blue turquoise that I was always jealous of as well. My fiance really likes red melons too, so I am basically looking at setting up a 300L to eventually house 6 discus, most probably a combination of golden sunrise, red melons and either blue diamonds or blue turquoise. I personally like the various albinos, especially the albino leopards and snakeskins that are being bred by Vincent discus.

Unfortunately the fiance doesn't like them, so since this tank is bacically going to be the centrepiece of the living room I have to take her tastes into consideration. She really likes solid coloured discus, and I must admit if I could get 3-4 golden sunrise I would be quite happy. I had never seen yellow discus until I just recently started thinking about getting an aquarium again.

I dont know if this is an appropriate place to start posting for advice already, but I have been scouring these forums and I see a few of you more experienced fish keepers have already replied, so I'll fire away.

The tank I'm getting is an older bay fronted Aqua-one, 300L, quite a deep tank (good for discus I've read), 1200mm long and quite deep from front to back too. It is currently filtered by a fluval 305 (which I think is underpowered for the tank), not sure on the heater, and it has two 30W powerglo bulbs. If there is space to supplement the filtration with a HOB filter I will probably invest in a cheapo aqua-one with a decent flow rate for extra mechanical filtration. Don't know how long ago the filtration media was cleaned/replaced, but at least I know it has a pretty good population of beneficial bacteria ready to go. The tank is also coming with about 7 buckets of black gravel, looks to have diameter of about 5mm, so not terribly coarse. Previous owner had the gravel bed about 6-10cm thick.

My plan is to have it minimally planted with a very shallow gravel bed (probably 4-5cm) so it can be suctioned easily. Ive got some really nice driftwood, one piece in particular which is 90cm long with some kinks and holes in it, which will form the main feature apart from the fish. I was also thinking of planting on the driftwood, not in the gravel. For this reason I have already been trolling the forums for Anubias, but I have had java ferns before and they have to be the easiest plants in the world to grow. I've seen various pictures of windelov and trident java ferns, but I don't know if the latter are available in NZ. I used to have some java ferns before I sold my tanks that looked a lot like windelov with the branching leaf tips. I've also been looking at getting some Bolbitis, but I'm not sure if i can provide the care that these plants seem to require. If you haven't already noticed I like the fern type look, and I really wish we had a better range of moss in NZ (probably wouldn't grow at 29-30 degrees tho )

Ive got an old 200L open topped drum, an old heater and a pump that I was going to use to age water without chemicals. Have never tried this, and have cobbled together these parts simply because I want to be able to change water at least every 2 days, 50% at a time if possible. Been doing some reading and have already researched how the council here treats our water. The only added chemicals other than those picked up in the pipework are chlorine and fluorine. My only concern is that there could be ammonia in the lines between the treatment plant and town, and the chlorines could be forming chloramines in the lines - making my 200L drum setup redundant. If you guys think the drum aging system will fail, I might convert it to a rain water collector.

I haven't had a chance to check pH, hardness etc of our town water supply but I'm gonna test it out of the tap soon and after being left in our drum overnight to see what its like 'vanilla' so to speak. I'm hoping that I won't have to do anything fancy, but if I have to I'll use a commercial water ager (although I'm loathe to do this with the number of changes I'm planning on doing).

My driftwood was only recently collected, from fresh water, so shouldn't have any salt or calcium buildup. It has got a bit of vegetable matter (moss, dead leaves) and dirt all over it. I've given it all a good scrub and wash down. Was going to water blast it, but if anyone has any more ideas about how I could kill any nasties in it I would love to hear it. I was thinking of leaving it in the sun for a few days.

Even though I suspect that the tank will almost be cycled from the start (considering it will have fish in it until the day I actually pick it up), I intend to take it reasonably slowly, adding my driftwood and plants first - hopefully there will still be some dead vege matter on the wood to supply some nitrates for the plants. I intend to follow that up with the purchase of some moderately hardy fish (need help here), but was thinking some plecos (preferably carnivorous ones that don't grow too big (Hypancistrus??) - you will see why soon) and some cardinal tetras (maybe 10-15?). Will follow that up after a while with some otos for algae control - have read mixed reports of plecos and otos attacking discus, no experience personally and my old bristenoses left my previous discus well alone, have never kept otos with discus before. The reason I wanted carnivorous discus is I have read that they are superior to corys for cleaning up uneaten food, and on top of that otos are more efficient algae eaters than BN plecos. I do like the little BN critters though, and why have all that yummy driftwood if it is never gonna get munched on .

Then finally...... once I have probably been running with this setup for a couple of months, I'll look at getting my discus. I've always wanted to breed them (my friends turquoises spawned), so I am quite tempted to buy cheaper 4-5cm discus in larger numbers, grow them out in a smaller BB tank, wait for pairings then put them into the tank in the living room. I fear this will be a very expensive way to go about it and is something that I really want some advice on. Getting discus to spawn would be a real thrill, but I don't intend to start breeding them 'properly' so to speak, so perhaps it would be better to get the strains I like, whether that be in the younger 4-5cm stage or fork out for bigger 10cm or so fish that are showing their colours already. I really don't mind growing them out, and I think I would quite like the challenge.

I have no idea what size tank would be required to grow out 5-6 discus, i was thinking 2ft, but might need bigger. I would probably rig up an automatic feeder for while I'm at work dispensing dry foods (discus food), and I would feed them a commercial frozen/freeze dried or home made diet when I'm at home. So if I intend to grow out my discus, I was thinking it would be best to start cycling a tank soon. Was going to go with a sponge filter or possibly a submersible (I get the impression the sponges are what most breeders use).

So with this novel of a post nearly finished, I hope you guys have a really good idea of where I'm trying to go with this fish tank, and any advice would be great. At this stage I've been looking at Vincent discus a lot (wish I had some already), and will most likely be getting red melons and blue diamonds from him - if he had golden sunrise I would get them from him as well. He seems to be the only reputable breeder active on the forums that I can see (Discusguru no longer does discus?).

One hair brained idea that I've had is that IF I really wanted to get some breeding pairs, I could buy 4-5 of each strain I like at a time, grow them out until they pair off in BB 2ft tanks, and sell the older, bigger discus to other users on the forum. They should be really good quality if I do it right, and they would have come from top stock (Vincent or imported). Shoot me down if this is silly, or if you guys think the market for adult discus is truly bad. I don't want to be stuck with 5 discus the same colour (unless I start with the golden sunrise :lol: )

I get the impression that most of you guys like helping people set up their tanks and get stuck into the hobby almost as much as you love your own aquariums, I'm glad I stumbled onto this community before I got my new tank. Cheers

[milkchops]

Yeah I have kept discus before, but I was much younger and free spirited. I had nowhere near the right kind of dedication for keeping them. Needless to say they didn't do terribly well and only lived for about a year. I also hadn't done anywhere near the kind of research necessary. I was really focused on getting the pH just right and having soft water, but at the end of the day I should have spent more energy keeping the tank clean and feeding them properly.

I intend to get back into keeping discus slowly this time, and hopefully by the time I get some this time they will be fish I can be really proud of.

Btw Floater, WOW 450litres, is that your first ever fishtank!!?! My previous biggest tank was a 3ft, probably only 130-150 litres.

[milkchops]

I'm becoming a forum whore, but one problem with wanting Hypancistrus and otos, as opposed to Ancistrus and corys, my wallet is supposed to have a hole burned in it from discus, not plecos :roll:

[SamH]

Could you be a bit more specific? :lol:

Kidding.

But it would help if you had some clear set questions we could answer, or are you just looking for guidance along the way?

Here to help 8)

[N1CK]

thats one nice novel you have written there :lol: welcome to the forums as well

Fish wise some cardinals would be good, and can withstand the higher temps of the discus. Not sure what plecos can but I think some Bristlenose's would be alright and AFAIK they don't eat plants/have never seen mine eat plants

[milkchops]

Yeah I know sorry about the long winded response. Yeah basically I just wanted some guidance, some ideas, people's experiences if they have tried any of the things I have mentioned.

One question that I really need answered is how best to choose the right discus when I live in the Taranaki and all the breeders/importers are based a good 2-3 hours away. I'm thinking road trip...

I might be over-researching, but I have read a few forums from the states which reckon the omnivorous plecos like the zebra are good with discus cos they act as cleanup crews. They are rather expensive, and my water changes should be taking care of that job really. I do like bristlenoses, they have a lot of character.

[SamH]

I might be over-researching

No such thing I do alot of research too, better to know what you don't need than to not know what you do need.

I'm clueless about discus breeders, although they will feature with me at a later date if all goes to plan 8)

If I was you, I'd plant heavily, even with low foreground plants so gravel cleaning isn't needed, the plants will use the fish waste as fertilizer. But your way can work too.

I love the BN's, I have more than 50 of them. Really cool fish IME.

As for the tank, I believe it's bow front not bay front

HTH

[Jennifer]

Sounds like you are on the right track. I think Ron (Discusguru) still does discus...at any rate his discus are superbly grown, well bred and are beautiful, he also is a fantastic source of advice.

When I used to keep discus I kept them with Otos (for alage control) and Kuhli loaches (for hoovering) and had no problems with them bothering the discus (but I always kept the breeding pair alone) - very affordable (and minimal waste compared to plecos and ancistrus who poo a lot).

I personally would pop another large canister filter on there in addition to the 305 you have...can't have enough filtration...once you go there you'll never go back.

[milkchops]

well I have read that Eheims can barely be beaten for quality, and I can get them at a pretty good price through work. What size do you think I should go for?? I was thinking of a 2213 or 2215. I don't mind going filter overkill, and I can get a really good price on pretty much any Eheim equipment. I like the HOB idea, but more biological filtration is the way to go for discus surely. Kuhlis are so funny, I had a few when I was younger, didn't realise they were carnivorous/omnivorous though.

[Floater]

Btw Floater, WOW 450litres, is that your first ever fishtank!!?! My previous biggest tank was a 3ft, probably only 130-150 litres.

I had a 100L tank about 10 years ago (when I was 12) and it lasted about 6 months before most of my fish died and I had to move to Dunedin (from Auckland) gave up then. Late 2008 I bought a 60L tank and have had that going up until now with some blue rams. Just threw basically everything I had into buying my 450L tank I figured I always thought it would be cool to have a big tank and when you're young... why not?

I like your choices of discus! I'm going to get 2x Blue Diamonds, 2x Red Melons and either 2x albino leopards or 2x albino leopard snake skins. If Vincent had some yellow ones I'd be getting 2 of them!

I'm definately no fish or even discus expert but I've done a hell of a lot of reading up on them in the last two months and everything you're planning to do sounds right (from what I've read). If that gives you any piece of mind at all? Definitely a good idea to take things slow.

One question that I really need answered is how best to choose the right discus when I live in the Taranaki and all the breeders/importers are based a good 2-3 hours away. I'm thinking road trip...

I'm purely going to be putting my trust in Vincents reputation here... as I'm in Dunedin there is no real possibility of me checking out the fish prior to purchase :-? .

[SamH]

What size do you think I should go for??

As has been said, the bigger the better. I personally don't use alot (if any) filtration, but I have a very low stocking level or frequent water changes.

[Floater]

well I have read that Eheims can barely be beaten for quality, and I can get them at a pretty good price through work. What size do you think I should go for?? I was thinking of a 2213 or 2215. I don't mind going filter overkill, and I can get a really good price on pretty much any Eheim equipment. I like the HOB idea, but more biological filtration is the way to go for discus surely. Kuhlis are so funny, I had a few when I was younger, didn't realise they were carnivorous/omnivorous though.

Definitely Eheim if you can afford the price tag, I got myself a 2078 and it has been working a charm! It's a filter and a gadget with the whole microprocessor thing so provided me with a fair amount of tinkering fun. My old man has a small Eheim canister from when he used to keep fish about 20 years ago and it still works fine too...