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Tue Jul 05, 2011, 10:44 AM
#1
How much of my life will I lose??
Hi All,
I am in the process of setting up a number of tanks (12 to be exact, 4 x 4ft, 4 x 3ft, 4 x 2ft) after not keeping Discus for 20 odd yrs. My wife who has never been subjected to this wants to know how much of my life (time in other words) will she lose my to this 'hobby'? They are essentially 3 banks, each bank run of its own sump. I will be buying sub adult quantites of a number of different colour types and letting them pair up naturally with their own colour types (my preferred method) before going into individual tanks when I want to try and breed them, so hopefully I will end up with half a dozen breeding pairs. I have explained to her she wont lose me for too long each week but I need some others to explain to her I wont dissapear in the garage too long each week!! So if some of your could explain this to my wife via replies it would be much appreciated!!!!
Jason
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Tue Jul 05, 2011, 10:58 AM
#2
Blue Diamond Discus
If you set the systems up correctly to minimise the fuss and to make water changes simple, then an hour a night (average) would more than cover it. Obviously some nights you'll do nothing, others you'll spend a couple out there - hence "average".
Of course that doesn't account for the hours you spend out there just watching them
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Tue Jul 05, 2011, 10:59 AM
#3
hell, you shouldnt be gone for more than 15min a day if that, it would take 5min to feed them, then perhaps 30min one day a week to do a little water change
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Tue Jul 05, 2011, 11:03 AM
#4
Hi Jason,
It really depends on your setup mate. I have renovated my fish room slowly over the last year or so and have got it right for my lifestyle , work & family commitments. The trick is to set it up so the day to day work of changing water is automated. I now have 20 tanks stocked with my breeders & growout fish and it takes me 30mins or so each night to syphon the bottoms of tanks and walk away. The tanks fill themselves back up, and also another 3 times a day the auto wc comes on and flows through the tank and out overflows to the yard. Once a week i wipe down inside the tanks and clean sponges, about two hours in total for this part.
I don't really count the times i pop in the shed to drop a bit of food in.
Put in the time & money to start with setting up & you won't be stuck in the shed for hours at night.
Regards,
Ben
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Tue Jul 05, 2011, 02:50 PM
#5
Jason seriosuly budget at least half an hour a day for checks and feeds another 30min a day for maintence and miselanous fish stuff and a hour to hour and a half every other day for water changes ph testing etc
so call it 12 hours a week
mine takes 12-16 hours a week with ~4000L of fish
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Tue Jul 05, 2011, 09:20 PM
#6
Blue Diamond Discus
Originally Posted by mscott
****, you shouldnt be gone for more than 15min a day if that, it would take 5min to feed them, then perhaps 30min one day a week to do a little water change
I'd agree if it was just for 1 tank, but 12 tanks would take a bit longer.
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Thu Jul 07, 2011, 01:01 PM
#7
you guys must be slow then, im running about 5 tanks atm, it thates me less than 30 min a day to do everything inc. water changes, filter cleans feeds, gravel vacs ect
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Fri Jul 08, 2011, 12:00 AM
#8
LOL i wish i could change 2500-3000L in 30 min
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Fri Jul 08, 2011, 12:06 AM
#9
simple, while its draing do something else, that way your using your time better, i also cheat my water changes by using a 3300lph power head attached to a hose
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Fri Jul 08, 2011, 12:55 AM
#10
LOL, i fill while i siphon (i move the siphon from rack to rack while i fill), the problem is the head height, my tallest tanks are 2.1m high, my eheim 1262's, flow @~1100l/h with that height, so even using 3 of them takes 1 hour to move that much water. I could go bigger pumps but i'm too cheap to pay the extra power (bill stands at $1700 a quarter).
Still even after that by time i set my BBS hatchers, check every catfish cave (42 in total) with a tourch for eggs, do the ph adjustment of my aging barrels (i run the room at 6.0-6.5, 5.5-6.0 on the altum tank) its about 1/2 an hour a day.
Breeding fish takes ALOT longer then just keeping fish, especially if your doing your daily changes on discus fry and running a few vessels of BBS for them (it takes 10 min to allow the bbs to settle before you can feed which is a PITA at 6:30 in the morning), just the way it goes, its also why i dont breed discus anymore, angels are enough work.
remember i'm the tool who lost over 2200 fish (bout $45K) in my wipeout last year so now i refuse to be lazy or complacent.
just saying if you tell your wife it will take more time then it actually does, she'll be much happier then if you go the other way round.
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