Well I guess I'll just say it
I am getting back into Disqus for those that don't know or not familiar with my channel long term
I kept discus for like 10 years
Did everything with them from breeding them to you know ever you just keeping them in general, and I've always had a passion for
discus I
need to take a break from them from his for a short while I mean after a you know over a decade of keeping the
same fish you know sometimes you need to
recharge your passion for them sometimes you you simply lose interest or you know you just kind of want to move on and
Keep a lot of different other fish, but now we have a tank that has been meant to be a discus tank all along
But before we move into this. I just have to say that
I've had these discus here for about three weeks, and it's been killing me not to show you guys these or talk about them
But you know I needed to get this tank in this racking system up and running and begin scaping the tank
Before we moved any further so today's the day this is the third rack of
The hundred and twenty gallons each rack holds two one hundred and twenty gallon tanks
And I've kind of skipped over this rack to get to this rack because I wouldn't buy it
Some plants and the discus are kind of ready to come out here so over the last few days
I focused on setting up this racking system making sure everything was set up
I still got to fill it with water and actually get it running, but for right now. It is doing quite well
So far all we have in here is the aqua decor background and then these branches that are silicone to the bottom
I know it looks kind of random right now
But this is going to look absolutely amazing once we get the substrate in there
And I also put the plants and start planning it it's going to look amazing
but I wanted to make sure the disc is kind of I
Kind of brought the branches to the front just to give it a more in-depth look
and
I thought about putting the branches all the way to the back
You know kind of stacking them throughout the back, which also looked good
But that's also going to mean the disk is going to try to hide behind them
I got a lot of discus to unbox though and
With these branches being out more than Disqus will be out more as well
And of course you guys know the racking systems themselves are by custom aquariums
Calm but man just check out the detail on all of this and that amazing
those aqua de corps backgrounds are absolutely stunning I
can't wait to see what this is gonna look like with plants and substrate and
You know with water and of course those discus going that look absolutely stunning
So let's just go ahead and jump right into the unboxing again
These were unboxed like three weeks ago
And I had to order the discus at that time like four weeks ago because when it comes to these you know import lists
And I got the fish through jet one fish two fish and Dartmouth Nova Scotia here when it comes to these lists
It's kind of like you get it now
Or it might not be on the list next time or it might be seasonal
Or you might not be able to get these exact fish. That's kind of how it works
so you got to be patient and wait for your chance to
Chance the pounce and it was just that day that I seen them I was like oh I gotta get them so here it was
Everybody looks to be alive and right now. I'm just acclimating the fish to the temperature of the aquarium
That is the only thing that I acclimate them to when it comes to freshwater fish you see
What I need to do is get them out of the bags as soon as possible
Why well they're in this bag and on these long
transports
They deplete the oxygen within the bag
And what happens is the pH of the water will slowly decline that's not necessarily a bad thing however
the ammonia that they're producing in the bag
Isn't toxic at lower levels, which again isn't a bad thing?
Until we crack the tops of these bags and oxygen enters the bag once again
What happens next is the pH is shoots back up and that ammonia?
Becomes far more toxic at those alkaline levels causing the fish to you know
Extreme amount of fish and potentially killing them so what I need to do is acclimate them to temperature
So it's not a shock going into the water
and
then immediately
pop the bag open get the fish out and get it back into the
Hank so the temperature the bags are now matching the tanks temperature
I'm gonna go ahead and start adding them to the tank again to do this is really
Simple what I like to do is I cut off the top of the bag almost completely
While pinching right here so air doesn't get in the bag or at least a very small amount of it
From there put a little net right here like that and
Dump the fish in
Into the tank it goes and then of course repeat
Well fish did I get?
Discus
Sixteen discus in fact
When I seen them on the list something was telling me to get them now. I know I've said in the past. I'm kind of
Discus I've kind of played their part in my hobby. I kept them for like ten years
It was time to move on you know
I kept them I bred them kept them and you know all kinds of different tanks even with stingrays Asian
Arowana you name it, but you know
after so long
Again, it's just kind of time to move on, but I feel like I've had a pretty good break from them
And now it's time to dive right back in and what better way to do it with 16 of them at one of those
120s I
Got 16, Marlboro, Reds you guys are gonna have a closer look here in a minute
I got them from my local fish store one fish two fish Jeff's been really great with giving me access to his list
however
They're coming directly from the suppliers and in this case these guys came from Bangkok so
He just ships them to the airport
and I go pick them up as
Opposed to like your typical thing where you just go to your local fish store or your discus importer
Like uncle sam's discus for example. They're one of my favorites, and you go and pick your own this way though
I got to kind of take all the risk. I've got to acclimate them. You know there's a
There's pros and cons to doing it this way and I also got to pay for shipping
but at the end of the day I get access to a tremendous amount of fish, and you know the
possibilities are kind of endless, but again as soon as I seen these guys on the list I
Had to have them
Now they're only a few inches big and
They do need time to color up so they're probably not going to look good right now
but I can only imagine how awesome they're going to look like once we get them into the 120 and escaped and
Looks really nice plus the fact that you know a lot of you guys have been begging me to get back into discus
I've made a tremendous amount of videos on discus in the past everything from caring for them breeding them you name it and
Like I said, I guess you know I had a quick break from them. It was like a 1 or a 2 year break
I'm ready to get right back into it this time though. I'm just going to enjoy them. I don't want to breathe them
I don't want to sell them. I don't want to do anything like that
I just want to enjoy them and enjoy the fish and showcase them and teach you guys how to keep them
And that sort of thing just like with the of the rest of the tanks
I'm no longer interested in breeding or anything like that again
That that part of my hobby is over. Maybe sometime in the future. I could potentially get back into doing something like that
But you know
After about 15 years in the hobby. You know
And experiencing so much in such a short amount of time
You know you kind of want to come full circle and just go right back to just enjoying your fish
So these guys are just in a holding tank with my Asian, Arowana, and the little new stingray and
You know while this isn't the ideal conditions to be honest with you these guys are here a few days early
I wasn't ready for them their tank will be ready here shortly, but again
I'm just not ready, so they got to go in here temporarily
I do take a risk in doing so with cross contamination
Perhaps there's parasites or pathogens or anything I'm quite capable of treating them, and I will anyways I always treat new fish
For parasites especially especially fish that readily eat, you could just medicate their food, and that's what I'll do with these guys
They have no external symptoms of
Parasites or anything like that right now ray don't tend to carry
external parasites
and
The Asian Arowana as well tends not to get external parasites
so
I'll go ahead and medicate their food these guys are alert and they're most likely going to eat
And I suspect within the next few days
They're going to color up I went with 16 of them for a number of reasons again. I want an immediate
impact and an immediate
You know results with these guys and they're only like about three inches maybe
So I've got plenty of time for sixteen of them in a 120 eventually. I'll end up with 12
I'll pick the best you know best 12, and I'll drop the other four off to my local fish store and
Let the locals have a chance of getting some pretty cool. Fish as well
but
I'm just excited to show you guys that one I
Guess I'm gonna be showing you again that one this is aren't that difficult to keep and
You can keep them in a beautifully scape tank
You know I'll run you through a lot of things that I know about them
We've done this all in the past
But with so many more people watching and a lot of my old videos
Which are a lot of my great my best content?
you know nobody really watches them anymore so we can circle back and touch base on a lot more things and
Help a lot more people out these days
There's really 16
So far we got 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 we got 12
We're 12 for 12 right now. I'm I would probably I
Was a kind of expecting to maybe have a couple of do A's which is dead on arrival
That is common with you know importing from overseas
You know you won't see this typically because your fish store takes all the risk when they import
You know they'll import a hundred fish and maybe ten or fifteen will done
you don't know that though because
You just see what's in the tank, and then maybe there's a couple of dead fish in there
Which happens after an import some fish die and a lot of people judge the fish store like oh they had dead fish in their
Tanks, or they always have dead fish
Well kind of got to know the rest of the store before you judge it and maybe they do have poor husbandry skills
But maybe it is a fresh important. Maybe they didn't have time to check the tanks yet, or they're understaffed
Maybe they're not making a lot of money, etc, but you know
There is some risk with importing and that is
If there's something that arrives dead you're usually just out of luck
So with ordering 16 and saying I'll grow out 12 and get rid of four
really, I was expecting maybe about four to show up dead or maybe I lose a couple over the next few days, but
There's um there's some room to wiggle here
ultimately in a 120 with some adult discus
I probably max out around 10, maybe 12, anyways you know depending on filtration and whatnot but these guys are gonna be on a
200 and
Like 90 gallon system each one of those racks. That's what the volume is what?
Should be okay again. We're 15 for 15 right now
They're all fine
Let's have a closer look, so these guys are literally only in the tank a few minutes
I mean we need to give them time to actually settle and color up
They are Marlboro Reds
But looking more yellow, or even orange right now, but again
I mean, let's give them longer than 30 seconds in the tank
You know a few days in here, and they'll be totally fine. You know interestingly enough. You know a lot of fish find comfort around
Stingrays and vice versa so we'll see what happens here over the next few days with such a tiny little fish
And the Stingray there, but I think everything's gonna be okay the Arowana this guy is really friendly he doesn't care
What's in the tank I've had him in with a couple of little things here
And there just to test him out and he really doesn't care
He's very friendly he eats whatever I offer him. He's like the perfect Asian, Arowana
But yeah these guys have great body
For example this one's form is really nice the eye to body ratio
It's got a nice sloping forehead great fins
Of course needs to color up and the rest are kind of like that as well. You know this one over here
Gots a bit of a pointed forehead not a fan of that
but he might lose that eventually it also might just be the way he's holding his uh his fins there, but
Looking good looking really good. Just imagine. What these guys are gonna look like you know as adults. You know really deep dark red and
In a 120 that's beautifully aquascape. I can only imagine and I think you guys can too
So why all one strain though?
Why get all just one color, and I guess the answer is kind of simple one when you're ordering wholesale
or you know directly from an
Exporter you have to order a certain quantity to fill a box plus it depends on my mood sometimes
I want a variety sometimes. I want a little bit this a little bit of that and that's that give a moment
I want of a lot of these Marlboro Reds
I haven't had them before and I thought they would look amazing in the tank scape that I have planned
So these are the fish as of today. They are a little bit skittish right now
They don't have very little they have very little interaction human interaction out here, but you can get a pretty good idea
I don't have a light this tank absolutely not needed
I just liked the tags with the room, but as you can see these guys are looking pretty
Good coloring up slightly putting on some size. They are eating just fine and
Definitely look like a totally different fish from the unboxing, but there you go
You know they've panic a little bit, but once they're in a tank
They'll feel more secure with decorations of whatnot but for now definitely looking good, and can't wait to see them in the tank
So we'll put all 16 in here, and I think it's going to look really well and since I went with red
I'm using a white substrate just to maintain that deep white red coloration, and I think they look best on it
However, I also want to add a bunch of smaller fish
Probably some tetras. I'm either gonna go with some
Cardinals or neons
Or maybe even some rasp auras of some sort
But I definitely want to add in a school of fish to these guys the discus will have to come in first
I'll get a hold of some of these tetras and quarantine them as well and then add them in at a later date
But moving forward my next thing to do today is
Make sure the silicone ax is cured here
I did this late last night, so I might have to wait a few more hours before I move forward
But I really got to get to scaping this tank
Because I already have the plants and I've had them for a few days
And you got to use them before you know they rot or go bad
They're just in my fridge right now maintaining them
And you know if you want plants to last a little bit longer you just put them in your fridge
But I got to get them out of that fridge and start planting just to make sure that they don't go to waste
But I'm really excited to do that and I hope you guys are as well if you're not subscribed to this channel yet
and you guys want to see the
evolution of this tank as badly as I do make sure you do subscribe so you don't miss any of these videos oh
And one more thing before you guys go now that you guys know discus are on the bottom
Maybe you can guess what's going up top if you remember. I said that this is going to be like a vs.
Tank this fish
Versus this fish and in the Hobby they go head-to-head with hobbyists on which one's better or which one. You know should keep and
You should have a really good idea now