My discus journey 10g to 20g to 110g tanks

[fxbillie]

I got a batch of discus fry from Rick and, with his expert advice, set about my virgin discus journey. It has been very hard work all the way, with endless tank cleanings, wipe downs, water changes, day in & day out. At first it was a struggle, and there was a constant battle inside if I could do this for months to bring the little fish up to juvies. Here was the journey:

Early Feb: over 100 little fries (red melons, brilliant turquoise & red scribbles) about 2 weeks old in a 10g breeder/feeder tank. The small tank kept foods (mostly bbs and cut up bloodworms) closer to the fries, making it easier for them to eat to full stomach. I had 2 home made bbs hatcheries pumping out bbs daily for feeding these hungry buggers. Some fry just wouldn't eat well and didn't make it despite best of care. I didn't use any filter. Just too much junks at the bottom daily with 95% water change. So a filter is useless. I ran 1 airstone to aerate the tank.




Early to mid-March: about 80 fries survived the 6 weeks tough period. I moved them to a 20g tank. Feeding primarily home made seafood mix made of salmon, shrimp, shell fish, vitamins, garlic, and also continued with cut bloodworms. BBS was slowly phased out. Some bigger fries are pushing 1". I ran 2 airstones for the 20g, still using no filter.





During this time, I unload 30+ frys to forum members, mostly red melons, just to keep the 20g not too crowded with growing fries.

Late April: I had about 50 fries left. They are too crowded in the 20g. Here is a photo shot.





I Need a big tank for some selective juvies to grow into adults. So I bought a 110g tank which had no filter and no stand. I built a stand out of 2X4, put in a AC 110 filter plus a large foam filter. The 110g tank came with some large plants. So I ran a bare bottom tank with some of these plants sunk down by small rocks. I moved some fries over from the 20g to reduce the fish density of the 20g tank.

Then I put a piece of natural driftwood from my own collection of woods to give it some woody look. Not a real pro job, but the best I can do for a bare bottom to make it more visually appealing. Here are some photos of the 110g and my grown discus juvies. I enjoy looking at them as they are products of the hard work for the last 3 months. But there are way too many juvies to raise to adults, so a large % of these will be offered for sales shortly to any interested members:















Even with 20 juvies moved to the 110g tank, there are also 30+ juvies left in the 20g tank. Will be offering them for sale soon as they are growing fast & getting crowded.



Well, I will be getting some juvies of other varieties from breeders to mix in with my own and raise them to adults and sell most of my juvies as 110g cannot really hold too many adult fish. This has been a very hard working experience but quite rewarding to see the little pea size discus eat & grow daily and then finally seeing them as juvies showing some colours.

[Canadian_Aqua_Farm]

William, you have done a fantastic job with the fry and can look forward to them growing into beautiful adults! It is a very good feeling to see my babies go to such a good home. Thank-you for sharing your photos

[2wheelsx2]

Looks good. With all those water changes and it being a growout, I wouldn't have bothered with plants and would have just thrown a whole bunch of branchy wood into the tank to give it a biotope look and did low lighting in it and it would probably make your life easier for cleaning.

The other thing you can do is to sump that tank and use the return to pump the water out of the sump (T off the return to a garden hose outlet) and the draining part would be much easier.

I must admit that when I first read your posts I was really thinking that this would end like most juvie discus efforts, but you have emerged as a true dedicated hobbyist and should be congratulated on such a brilliant effort.

[dean9922]

great job on growing out all those fry!!!! Tank looks great as do the discus......
NICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[target]

Very nice work. That is a tough job and you have every right to be pleased. I'd love to try my hand at that one time.

[Chappy]

I've only tried growing out discus once and it was NOT easy. That was only with SIX
I think you should be pretty proud of the results of all your hard work. Very nice job indeed
Shelley

[fxbillie]

William, you have done a fantastic job with the fry and can look forward to them growing into beautiful adults! It is a very good feeling to see my babies go to such a good home. Thank-you for sharing your photos

Credit to you, Rick. Without your expert advice and help along the way, there is no way I could have done this as a first attempt to raise discus fries. Your fries are also from very healthy parents and are disease free which makes it a lot easier for me. I must say having a supportive wife helps a lot. She went with me & saw your many beautiful adult discus. So she loves to grow the fries to be like those beautiful adults. She normally stays home, so she can help feed the fries multiple times during the day and also do a mid-day 50% wc when the water quality goes really messy after feeding the seafood mix. I just took care the morning feed and the last 95% wc and wipe down at night.

I have a long way to go and need more help from the experts on this forum. I am thinking to go planted at some stage, but a bit chicken to leave the junks in the tank for too long. I still have to do daily wc on the 20g, and also suck up the junks at the bottom of the 110g whenever I can. I have a drill pump which I will attempt to hook into my wc python to help speed up the draining of the 110g. I will see if it does the job for major wc.

This is a great forum for us newbies to get help and learn from other senior members' experiences. Thank you all for the encouragement, compliments and advice.

William

[jobber604]

Great job. You're quite the dedicated discus keeper.
Took quite the jump from GBR, swordtails to discus.
Look forward to seeing more pictures

[fxbillie]

Thank you Ming for the kind words. And thank you for the large foam filter too. Now it is put in good use.

Haha, I failed to hatch my gbr eggs (may have to revisit that in the future) but I do have quite a few large gbrs now in my 55g community tank to enjoy their brilliant colours. I have tons of red swordtails babies (any takers?). Discus is quite an adventure and need a lot more work & consistent care for so many months. I don't know if it is a quantum jump/leap, but it is sure tiring and troublesome when many times I was so sleepy at nights ready to sleep, only to remember that I have not done the dreaded daily wc. Now at juvenile stage and in a bigger tank with less fish, they don't slime as much as young fry, so it is a lot easier to enjoy them.

My wife now is the one really enjoying caring/feeding the juvies. She told me the fish welcome the sight of her and would follow her movement. She kind of silly faked an orchestra director in front of the tank, and the fish follow her hand movements around, before they get to eat. Haha. What a joke and so funny. We will miss the juvies when we sell them. Perhaps we will get another batch of surplus fry from Rick again in the future just for this entertainment. LOL.

[April]

Looking good. You did it the right way. Feed,wc,feed,wc. Like having newborns. Eye to body ratio looks really good for young fish. Rick knows what he's doing.
I have aa few batches going right now also. I may end up running out of room also between fry tanks and new shipments.
It's a great challenge and the only way to succeed is dedication and good routine.