Best Way to setup a tank with Wild caughts?

[npeter]

Hello Heiko,

First of all I would like to say welcome to our forum and givin us a great oppourtunity
to ask you questions about our common favourite fish.

It would be fantastic for us to have a description from you how to
setup a tank with wild caught discus..

Would be great if you could share your secret tips and trix for us.

Best Regards,
Peter

[Heiko Bleher]

Hello Peter,

I am sorry for thsi late answer, but I am so busy and traveling again in a couple of days. You question is not an easy one to answer (I have already written and show on over 20 pages in my volume II, if I ever finish it, about that subject). But I want to give you and your friends some principal advice for such an aquarium:

1. You must know what size you want or can afford to (always keeping in mind that discus - and specially wild with their wild gene - are group fishes and like to be together, like cardinals or Hemigrammus bleheri...(hahahha).
2. You should ,with wilds, make a decision and have in the aquarium:
- only Heckel discus (S. discus), or
- only green discus (S. aequifasciatus), or
- only brown and blue (or one morph of that species = S. haraldi)
But please do not mix them.
3. You should (must) have fine sand for all of them, and driftwood is always good (and it shoud go into the water from the top9.
4. Plants: your choice, but you know that in nature the most you find with them is floating plants (and they like shade you know), like Eichhornia, Utricularia, Pontederia, Azolla, Pistia... no planted. I doid some decorations with very large eìEchinodorus (ie grandifolius or macrophlyllus), which grow out of the water (I asume you have the aquarium open, as in nature). Or very large Cyperus growing out.

Well I could go on, and on. But these is some principal information. Please have a look at my website.
http://www.aquapress-bleher.com
and:
For smaller aquarium of like green discus go the 7. Aquarium at, the Mineruà biotope at:
http://www.aquapress-bleher.com/index.p ... &Itemid=53
and from there you can go to detailed "description of this biotope" and read all - extensive - information.

For larger aquariums and brown/blue discus biotopes for example go to 2. Aquarium, the Nhamundà biotope at:
http://www.aquapress-bleher.com/index.p ... &Itemid=53
and from there you can go to detailed "description of this biotope" and read all.

In addition, you may not know, but for http://www.discuspassion.net in Italy, I write and give information on wilds already for more than one year and there is lots of info on it in English.
Once you are on their page, go on their home site to Heiko Bleher (on the left) and than to Heiko Bleher interventi and you will be at:
http://www.discuspassion.net/index.php? ... &Itemid=68
there you have 10 lessons already a,d you can start from lesson one and maybe you want to post it on this nice site. Just need to ask me. naturally you can also direct people there.

I hope this all will be of help,

all the very best

Heiko

[npeter]

Hello Heiko,
no problem being late, I can understand that your schedule is tight.

I'm just happy to read that in some cases I have done right and in some not...hm (mix of greens and blue)

Interesting with the sand, I use shotblasting sand in my tank and korn size of the sand is 0,1-0,7 mm
and the color is very light brown and what I noticed is that my wild caught Blue Manacapuru, Green Tefé and also
my corydoras Sterbai love this sand.
I have some pictures in my gallery of my tank if you want to see.

Plants: I have to go to some of our pet shop stores here in Gothenburg and try to find some floating plants,
I have seen from time to time that my fish enjoy to be in the darkest area of my tank.

I will check out your lessons at discuspassion and also the other pages you recomended, thanks for the tip Heiko!

Best Regards,
Peter

[annmari]

Hello Heiko!
I want to buy some ordinarie Heckel in several days, about 4-5 ex how much water to exchange per day?like ordinarie diskus, what about pH? and 28 gr hot,best regards from Ann-Mari

[Heiko Bleher]

Dear Anmari,

this is (or better has been) answered elsewhere very extensively. Please ask me no to repeat.

water changes if you wish 10-20% per week.

Please read on the websites I mentioned above, there is everything you wanted to know about the subject and 100times more.
(And also in my book...)

All the best

Heiko

[annmari]

Hello Heiko!
In several days I willl buy me some Heckeldiscus,Mvh Ann-Mari PS I love heckel

[Heiko Bleher]

Hi Anmari,

great for you. But please look out to buy only good (young) and helathy fish.

Please have a look at my lessons for buying wild discus at http://www.discuspassion.net
go to Heiko Bleher and than to Heiko Bleher's lessons. Thy are in English (and Italian).

All the very best,

always

Heiko
http://www.aquapress-bleher.com
http://www.aqua-aquapress.com