# Baby Discus Challange(New year update with pics)



## Adz1 (Apr 21, 2010)

This is my first attempt at a tank Journal as well as with Discus.
i got my 6 discus last night at 8pm and into the tank without a hitch.
There new home is a 20g long tank.
for filtration i have a eheim 2216 and a fluval U1 with ceramic bio rings instead of a sponge
this morning i found out my heater was on a switched power outlet and temp dropped to 75 over night oops.
none the worse for wear the discus pushed on and i added a second heater to bring the temp up faster.
so far i have seen 4 out of 6 eat with my own eyes but none look like they have not eaten as they are all pudgey little beggers.
a side note they seem to have broken off into 2 groups.
one group that hides and the other is upfront and always seen to this point.
as i have other fish that eat live black worms this is what they have eaten so far.
i intend to feed LBW,NLS grow,ground tetra coulor bits and a high protien guppy food.
and i am open to any suggestions from the experianced on other foods to try.
so here are a couple pics as of this morning.

Full tank shot.









Up front group.
















and the hiders(this pic was hard to get)









so far so good.
thanks April for seeing my discus dreams come true.


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## 2wheelsx2 (Apr 21, 2010)

You didn't go bare bottomed, Adrian? Nice start to your first journal.


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## Adz1 (Apr 21, 2010)

2wheelsx2 said:


> You didn't go bare bottomed, Adrian? Nice start to your first journal.


No i didn't.
I was told some sand was ok.
thank you.


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## bonsai dave (Apr 21, 2010)

Looking good. How big is the tank? Just make sure they can find the food. I also have left the heater off for a few hours and it didn't seem to bother them. Good Luck.


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## Adz1 (Apr 21, 2010)

bonsai dave said:


> Looking good. How big is the tank? Just make sure they can find the food. I also have left the heater off for a few hours and it didn't seem to bother them. Good Luck.


the tank is a 20g long.


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## Diztrbd1 (Apr 21, 2010)

Very nice start Adrian. Look very forward to seeing the progress


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## April (Apr 21, 2010)

give them a day or so and they should be flying up for food. chop the blackworms into smaller sections if you can. i use an egg cup and scissors..lol.
they may be breaking off in different groups as they could be different strains. yes discus know their own strain. if htey have a choice..they will pair up with their own strain. and ive heard of people having two strains..and the fish separating themselves into colour groups. 
great pics.


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## Claudia (Apr 21, 2010)

Good start Adrian, love the pics  is gonna b so cool to see your progress and c them grow


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## Mferko (Jun 8, 2010)

aprils aquarium said:


> give them a day or so and they should be flying up for food. chop the blackworms into smaller sections if you can. i use an egg cup and scissors..lol.
> they may be breaking off in different groups as they could be different strains. yes discus know their own strain. if htey have a choice..they will pair up with their own strain. and ive heard of people having two strains..and the fish separating themselves into colour groups.
> great pics.


thats really neat, didnt know that


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## djamm (Sep 25, 2010)

Looks good...keep us updated!


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## target (Apr 21, 2010)

Very cool. Looking forward to seeing them grow


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## skabooya (Jun 15, 2010)

sweet. cant wait to see more


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## thefishwife (Apr 21, 2010)

WTG Adrian, you will do just fine, they look good! Keep feeding them good, high protein food and they will grow like no tomorrow! Oh and don't forget your W/C!!!

Also, April is right, give them a bit of time to settle down. When I have gotten discus in the past, sometimes it takes them a few days to eat and this last group I got from April, there was one that didn't eat anything but bloodworms for about a week. Wouldn't eat flake food at all, but after a week or so he was just fine and still doing great!


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## Adz1 (Apr 21, 2010)

Just did my first 40% water change tonight.
No Aged water no R/O water straight from the tap with seachem prime.
have no way to age my water as my place does not alow for a water barrel.
any advice as to a better method would be greatly appreciated.


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## luckyfind (Apr 21, 2010)

Greast start and some realy nice pics. The 2 of by themselves could be the Japura and tend to grow slower. Can you set up 2/5gal. pails with heater and air stone for circulation for aged water?
Laurence


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## Adz1 (Apr 21, 2010)

luckyfind said:


> Greast start and some realy nice pics. The 2 of by themselves could be the Japura and tend to grow slower. Can you set up 2/5gal. pails with heater and air stone for circulation for aged water?
> Laurence


unfortionatley i can not do this as i have 2 children age 5 and 7 who would think it was a good place for dolls to swim.


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## TCR (Jul 13, 2010)

Adz1 said:


> unfortionatley i can not do this as i have 2 children age 5 and 7 who would think it was a good place for dolls to swim.


dolls do love to swim!! lol


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## Adz1 (Apr 21, 2010)

So a quick update.
a couple of the babies have very distinct white spots showing on them when the lights are out.
could this be ick?can they even get ick at 86 degrees?
so i uped the heat a little and added some salt.
not sure what else to do at this point.


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## April (Apr 21, 2010)

not ick. that should do it..not sure its anything to worry about. 
just keep the water clean..and im sure it will go away.


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## TCR (Jul 13, 2010)

it shouldnt be ick at that temp


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## Adz1 (Apr 21, 2010)

So i added salt and a little more heat and the said white spots are already starting to go away.
they are all still eating well and 50% water change every night so far.
and every time i'm doing the water change i'm thinking to myself what was i thinking....lol


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## thefishwife (Apr 21, 2010)

Adz1 said:


> 50% water change every night so far.
> and every time i'm doing the water change i'm thinking to myself what was i thinking....lol


LOL ya what were you thinking!!  All is good and soon it will just be routine!

Looks good Adrian.


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## Claudia (Apr 21, 2010)

Good to hear that is going away Adrian


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## hp10BII (Apr 23, 2010)

Adz1 said:


> So i added salt and a little more heat and the said white spots are already starting to go away.
> they are all still eating well and 50% water change every night so far.
> and every time i'm doing the water change i'm thinking to myself what was i thinking....lol


Pretty stressful in the early stages. Will they or won't they eat etc. Eating is good, seeing poop is a happy moment. What were you thinking - admit it, you love it after the water changes are done. You'll get used to it. 

You're doing good, nice batch of babies!


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## Adz1 (Apr 21, 2010)

here we are 5 days later and still going strong.
50% water change daily(what was i thinking).
eating well and the white spots seem to come and go at will.
still not sure what it is and it does not show up in pictures.
but on with the pics.


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## catgoldfish (Apr 21, 2010)

Hey Adrian:

They look happy. Those water changes are a pain but worth it. Mine are like that will they eat or won't they. I just leave the food for awhile and let them graze.

Rod


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## bonsai dave (Apr 21, 2010)

Hey Adrian they are looking great . Water changes can be a pain in the bum . I'm doing 3 a day some times 4 a day if i remember. Make sure you wipe down the glass when doing doing water changes. Discus secrete a lot of slime coat and if there's a lot it can cause water problems.



Adz1 said:


> here we are 5 days later and still going strong.
> 50% water change daily(what was i thinking).
> eating well and the white spots seem to come and go at will.
> still not sure what it is and it does not show up in pictures.
> but on with the pics.


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## Scholz (Apr 21, 2010)

Maybe the white spot are the tiny bubbles of gases that are in our tap water forming on the fish?


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## Adz1 (Apr 21, 2010)

a quick update.
so far they are eating 3-4 times a day with 50% water changes once a day.
they are shareing a 20G long with 5 longfin red calico BN babies and 6 L-183 adults.
every thing looks great and seems to be going well.
so on with the photo update.
































thanks for looking.


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## target (Apr 21, 2010)

Looking good. they are growing nicely eh?


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## Adz1 (Apr 21, 2010)

I almost forgot all about this journal..lol
so after a couple weeks with the 3m quartz sand in the tank i finally broke down and cleaned it all out so now it is bare bottom.
and i have to agree it is so much cleaner like this.
i still have the plecos in the tank with the discus they seem to not mind each other at all.
also they are now eating beefheart mixture from magicbug 3 times a day and LBW right after i do my nightly 50% water change.
i am still doing the changes straight from the tap with prime and some alkaline buffer and equilibrium and salt with every change.
they seem to have grown a fair bit since i got them and will add some new photos after tonight's water change.


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## Adz1 (Apr 21, 2010)

and a few new pics...
















































thanks for checking it out...


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## April (Apr 21, 2010)

Heh Adrian they are looking quite good. keep going..they are rounding out good and i can see they are bigger. the beefheart should grow em big and thick. keep going. thanks for posting.


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## Chappy (Apr 21, 2010)

Nice job, Adrian! Some nice solid, straight bars on those little guys. Well done


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## athena (Apr 22, 2010)

Super! Glad to hear they are eating beefheart now


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## Adz1 (Apr 21, 2010)

athena said:


> Super! Glad to hear they are eating beefheart now


After you left the other day i decided they would eat it or starve.lol
turns out they like it ....


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## gklaw (May 31, 2010)

That's call tough love Adrian


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## djamm (Sep 25, 2010)

They look to be doing really well. Great photos thanks....


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## Adz1 (Apr 21, 2010)

So another update is in order.
they are growing like weeds and eating anything i put in the tank now.
magicbuggs beefheart mix,colour bits,NLS grow and hikari fancy guppy food but mostly i feed the beefheart mix.
have to wait to get a few other types of foods.
Still 50% water change once a day straight from the tap with prime.
the smallest ones are now about the size of the bigger ones when i first got them and the big ones are a little bigger then a toony now.


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## MadgicBug (Apr 22, 2010)

Good to see they took the BH mix and you got a steady routine going as that will get them to grow fast. I see from the pics they are starting to round out. The one in the 4th pic looks like its going to turn out really nice.


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## Adz1 (Apr 21, 2010)

well another update with some bad news.
one of the 6 looks bad.
is all dark and has a light patch on the one side of the body not eating getting stuck on the filter intake does not look good.
the other 5 on the other hand are doing good look great eating like pigs and getting bigger.
the only thing i can figure happen was my ph dropped to 6.0 from 6.8 since i last checked my parameters.
still doing one 50% water change a day using prime.
still feeding Magicbugs beefheart mix,hikari guppy food,NLS grow and tetra crisps.
still living with BN plecos.
will post up a couple pics in a couple minutes.....

so her are a few shots of the problem fellow,








this one shows the funny colour patch on the side,








and a couple of the others,


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## thefishwife (Apr 21, 2010)

sorry to hear one doesn't look so good, but at least the others are growing well. great job.


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## Adz1 (Apr 21, 2010)

thefishwife said:


> sorry to hear one doesn't look so good, but at least the others are growing well. great job.


thanks Kim.
since fine tuning the ph last night and a great neighbor with some aragonite sand the one that looked sick last night looks way better this morning.
Has started eating again and his colour is back....


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## Diztrbd1 (Apr 21, 2010)

Glad to hear all are still alive and the sick one is doing better Adrian. Nice set-up you have for them & nice pix as well, doing a great job!


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## Smiladon (Apr 23, 2010)

glad to see that he is back on track.
That little patch is most probably from getting stuck on the filter intake


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## MadgicBug (Apr 22, 2010)

The other thing you may need to watch out for is gill fluke as baby discus are very susceptible to it until their immunity system kicks in. The big and often water changes will help. Also, make sure you have enought O2 in your system....ran into that issue as I lost sight of the fact that babies do grow (Peterchow corrected me on that one) and added another sponge filter in.


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## budahrox (Apr 21, 2010)

Glad to hear that magic sack helped.
Hang in there Lil Discus Dude!!
Cheers!!


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## Adz1 (Apr 21, 2010)

budahrox said:


> Glad to hear that magic sack helped.
> Hang in there Lil Discus Dude!!
> Cheers!!


Yes thanks to my awesome neighbors Don & Dylan(Budahrox & D-man)
the magic sack sure made a big difference by this morning.


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## Adz1 (Apr 21, 2010)

So as of today they(baby discus)rush the glass when the see me coming..
most have grown a fair bit now but all look the same still.
there are a couple that seem to be taking their time growing.
still only one 50% water change a day straight from the tap with prime.
eating anything and everything i put in the tank.
when will i start seeing the colours?
also the sick one is all better looks healthy and back with the pack.


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## seanyuki (Apr 22, 2010)

Juv will show true colors when they are over 4 months unless enhance with some sort of color enhancers


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## Adz1 (Apr 21, 2010)

seanyuki said:


> Juv will show true colors when they are over 4 months unless enhance with some sort of color enhancers


well we will not be having any of that here...lol


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## Adz1 (Apr 21, 2010)

Well i have a short update with some photos...
so i went out for the afternoon on 29th of dec to do some shopping and when i got home the smallest of the group was in the corner dead and the second largest was not looking very good to say the least.
so i quickly went about doing a water change and testing of the water which was good.
by the time i finnished the water change the second largest had passed.

tha rest of the tank is doing good and still not sure what may have happend to the 2 i lost.

so here are some pics to go with this update...
this is a shot of the largest one notice the blue in the lower fins 
























and some random shots
























thanks for looking ....


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## thefishwife (Apr 21, 2010)

They are still looking good Adrian, sorry you lost 2.


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## Adz1 (Apr 21, 2010)

thefishwife said:


> They are still looking good Adrian, sorry you lost 2.


ya i'm sorry i lost 2 also....lol
i 'm thinking about uping the water change to 2 times every 24hrs.
one in the early am and also in the late pm.


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## seanyuki (Apr 22, 2010)

Just my 2 cents......aged water for 3 days and 100 % water changes per day is enough depends on your feeding routine.



Adz1 said:


> ya i'm sorry i lost 2 also....lol
> i 'm thinking about uping the water change to 2 times every 24hrs.
> one in the early am and also in the late pm.


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