shalu's 55gallon low tech

[shalu]

[PeteyPob]

That is a huge parrot fish! Greata looking tank.
-Pete

[shalu]

Originally Posted by PeteyPob

That is a huge parrot fish!

hahaha, Pete, that's a gold severum. Can you believe I raised it in a 10 gallon till adulthood? Did not do much water change, either. oh, so much easier than discus

[Wasserpest]

Looks nice, although that fish... what's the deal with Severums eating plants?

No-tech is of course an unfortunate misnomer... I was expecting a sunlit tank

[shalu]

Originally Posted by Wasserpest

Looks nice, although that fish... what's the deal with Severums eating plants?

hm.. it did not touch my plants. I can hand feed it colorbits, although it might accidentally bite my finger.

Originally Posted by Wasserpest

No-tech is of course an unfortunate misnomer... I was expecting a sunlit tank

LOL. It has a single $2 T12 40w bulb over it. Overdriven by an $18 4x ballast. ok, I now also call it low tech, happy now?

[Sweet Violet]

Do you have an AH relector on this single bulb? Does this tank still have no/co2 as well? I love your light thread that you just started... keep up the great work. Hope it gets a sticky too~

[conduct]

Shalu-
Do you have a better picture of your gold severum.. he/she is so so so beautiful and if it no trouble I would love to see a closer picture.
Thanks

[shalu]

Originally Posted by Sweet Violet

Do you have an AH relector on this single bulb? Does this tank still have no/co2 as well?

It did not have AHSupply reflector initially, now it does(2x22" ones). Also I switched the bulb to a single 40W T6 bulb, drawing 60W ODNO 4x, see my lighting measurement thread. It is amazing how bright that 60w looks over 55 gallon. Still no CO2. Glad you like my lighting thread, thank you.

Originally Posted by conduct

Shalu-
Do you have a better picture of your gold severum.. he/she is so so so beautiful and if it no trouble I would love to see a closer picture.
Thanks

Thank you, conduct. I gave it away to a friend a few weeks ago I know I vowed never to raise small discus again because of the hard work involved, I just couldn't resist the urge to grow out more juvenile discus. The tank now houses 9 1-3" small discus.

Here they are, you see they are very small


feeding time:

[ctmpwrdcamry]

I am thinking about getting a 75 gallon tank. It would be low tech, for now. I love the idea of Discus in the tank but i didn't think you were supposed to do water changes on a low tech tank. How often do you do water changes?

[shalu]

2x90% weekly. With discus, the lower tech you go, the more water change you need to keep water quality acceptable. Plants don't help nearly as much as in high tech tank. Low tech, no water change tanks are mainly intended for low bioload.

[ctmpwrdcamry]

That answer my question. Seems like keeping adult discus is easier in a C02 tank. Ill wait to try my hand at them until then.

[shalu]

Baby discus lining up for a photo shoot

I got them about a month ago, at 1" to 1.25". now little over 2". These are leopards and leopard snake skins. Buying discus at such a small size is like getting "a box of chocalate, you never know what you are going to get". They might show red spots when they grow up, or they might not. Other options are to buy those brightly colored, hormoned 3" discus, but they won't live for long, or pay $250 for a nice adult.

Virgin red

Got it over 2 weeks ago at 2.5", now about 3". It should look like this as adult:
http://sunrisetropicals.com/imagelib...ed%20#%20S2675

Albino (rabbit eye):

Another pic:

This is an expensive 3" fish. I bought it more for its novelty than beauty. It does not have any black pigment on the entire body, hence "albino". Even its pupils are deep red, and the remnants of the black bars are also red. I picked out this fish in a hurry and realized its shape could have been rounder. I found that this type of fish seems to be highly inbred, and it has pretty poor eye sight. Remember the T-Rex in the movie Jurassic Park? It can only see the prey when it is moving. Same thing here, it can only find bloodworms when the worm is dropping in water, it can't find food either from the feeding cone or on the floor! My other discus make a mess at feeding time, so it does not have any problem filling its stomach, but I doubt that it can survive in the wild.

My new aquisition yestoday, a 4" "scarlet" discus:

Another pic:

"Scarlet" is the name given by the breeder. To me, it is just a super clean "red melon". It is now my favorite discus, you can see why.

[robert]

clear out your PM's shalu!!

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/sh...ad.php?t=21839

[David Hui]

Hmmm, the only thing that stick on your glass should be discus' eggs not snails!! You are giving bare bottom tanks guys/gals heart attack!! I wonder what would people say if you post that pic on Simply???

[shalu]

hehehe, David. I did post the red discus on simply. And one did ask what is on the glass, I said snails