Miracles Happen In the Aquarium World Too

Amazingly, the dying tropheus has pulled through. It is now in stable condition in the quarrantine tank. I must have done something right. :)

Will be getting another 6 pieces of dubosis from brother seagull.

It's been a week since i got the discus. Have changed water 3 times. The pair is still not eating much. Blood worm seems to be the preferred food but i am trying to get them to get used to NLS. Will see how it goes.

My First Discus Planted

Yes, I gave in. Bought two Red Carnation discus from a fellow forummer. Apparently these fellas are probably not the highly prized ones cos he sold me at only $15 a piece and even gave me one free. There are ppl selling discus almost everyday in the forum. Most ppl sell in pairs and they are pretty expensive cos the pairs have bred before. As I dun intend to breed, I don't really need to buy confirm pairs. After biddingg my time for 2 weeks, finally saw a post with pics that i like. The two carnations look like wild brown heckels to me. They are also at the right size, about 4-4.5"

Here are some pics.



Tank at 4 weeks old. Just some cherry shrimps.





3 discus, some cherry shrimps. Plants: Riccia, Mini-moss, Hairgrass

Tropheus

Dun think the sick tropheus can make it. Came home to see it turning round and round while swimming up and down non stop..it seems to be in some kind of pain. body was tilted to one side. sigh...it doesn't seem like bloat at all...no protruding scales, the fat stomach was only for the first 2 days...after i treated it with yellow powder, it went back to normal...just when i thought it was gonna live....sigh....i dun think it would get pass tonight.

Anyway this weekend may prove to be the most tempting one yet for the past few months. The forum is flooded with ppl selling discus. As it's a start..and also in a planted, i think i will just go for something cheap first. Saw a few pieces quite nice...think i will very likely succumb to them..

wait for my next post...

Resource on Growth Inhibitnig Hormones

As I am still toying with the idea of having discus for my planted tank, naturally this topic surfaced as you can't disassociate frequent water changing with discus keeping. Did a bit of snooping around and found a few interesting articles.

Aquarium Stocking Guide

Growth Inhibiting Substance(s) of Fishes

GIS AND GLS

Seems like there is nothing really conclusive and it's not really proven scientifically.

Two Down

I have finally decided to quarrantine my pimpled front yesterday. Noticed that the wound size has increased. Seems like the dosing of melafix on the main tank didn't work. I almost wanted to drop it into the same tank as my "bloatting" tropheus but at the very last moment decided against it. Managed to dig out an old plastic tank that I used for cultivating BB.

Started by dosing the fella in a salt bath, approx 0.3% salt(marine salt and epsom salt). It was breathing hard for the first 30 minutes. Afterwhich i did a 50% water change and added a some melafix. By the evening it was doing well and even ate a little.

The wound didn't look any better today. Did another 50% water change and added two drops of Sera Baktopur. Immediately when the medication was dropped, the fish started to swim up and down, I suspect the medicine must have touched the wound.



The bloated tropheus seems to have "slimmed down" quite a bit as compared to 4 days ago when it was all fat and puffy. I hope this is a sign that it is recovering and not because it hasn't been eating. Still detecting white string of poo in the tank and also noticed a few fallen scales as well. The water also has this particular smell, could be because of the yellow powder.



On hindsight, I think it was right not to put them together.

Another New Member

Just couldn't resist it. Bought a F0 kitumba from a fellow forummer last weekend. This fella came as the same batch that I bought from CF about 2 months back. It's not as nice as the two pieces that I have but the price was quite alright so i took it. There were also a couple of F1 Zaires, mid-size kapampa and juvenile mobas available. The owner was keen to let go of them. They looked fine, with one piece in particular quite nice with long finnage. However after tasting the forbidden (F0) fruit, the fishes were simply not up to the standard that I have set for the fronts that I want to keep. Moreover a few of them have white spots, which to me is the number one taboo of fronts keeping. Even though the fishes are perfectly healthy, white spots just spoils the whole experiene for me.

One of my moba has a small round pimple on the head. I am adding melafix to the main tank at the moment and monitoring the situation. My hospital tank is currently occupied by a sick tropheous moori nkonde, which is showing signs of the dreaded bloat. I have so far lost 2 of my collection to the disease. I hope I will be able to cure this fella this time round.

Bubbling!

Found my 1 week old planted tank bubbling when I went back home yesterday. Was quite surprised as I wasn't expecting the tank to be established for another 2-3 weeks more.

Okay bubbling need not necessary mean the tank is established, but it's still a nice feeling as it's my first planted tank.

My riccia is showing signs of growth but the mini moss doesn't seem to be growing at all. I was also pleasantly surprised to see my 2 baby shrimps still swiming in the tank. I was half expecting them to be dead as the ammonia level was amazingly high on Sunday. Shrimps are the last thing I thought would survive in such hostile conditions. Anyway they came foc with first batch of riccia/mini moss that i got from a forumer.

Let's see how long they can last.