Holiday

[D.J]

Hi, I am going overseas with my family for 5 weeks in December.
Any hint from anyone on how to prepare the Discus before I leave?
A little bit about the tank....
Its an Aqua one AR-850, which they say contains 165l of water, but only 150l IMO, I have 5 Juvies, 1 BD, 1 SS, 2 Bunga rayas, and 1 Leopard spot. I normally do 20% w/c twice a week, 2 filters are running ATM, 1 Aqua one CF700 Cannister filter, which I use as biological filter and a build in filter that comes with the tank (mechanical).
Ammonia & nitrite is always @ 0 mg/l, ph is 7.00 after w/c and 6.85 before w/c.
My brother will come 3 times a week, which he will feed the discus with blood worm & beef heart, I will get an eheim auto feeder for the remaining time. Will that do?
He will also do one w/c per week, he won't do two no matter how hard I bribed him.
How much w/c do you think he should do?
I know it's still a long way to go, but I just want to make sure that everything is a OK before I leave. I asked the mrs if I could stay behind with my fish, but she gave the filthiest look I have ever seen thrown @ me.
Thanks for the input guys.

[flukes]

By the sounds of it, there will still be minimum maintaince kept, just get your brother too change 30% of the water.

Because they are still young you might want too look at some products that obsorb nitrates, there are filter pads on the market and there are a few pouches.

Also make up some carbon in a stocking, make a few before you go so he can just change the stocking over when he feeds them.

Other than that seems like you have done a good job planning this out.

[kalebjarrod]

and i would start doing the same changes a few months out so you know what the tank will do!

you might find you may need to do one 40% per week to keep the nirtate down

i would be more concered about the fact you may come home, find your brother has falling in love with the fish, stolen tham and gone interstate

P.S

I asked the mrs if I could stay behind with my fish, but she gave the filthiest look I have ever seen thrown @ me.

Nice work Champion, Very Nice Work Indeed

[D.J]

Thanks for the advise Scott and Ryan,

Will start doing a 40% w/c about 4 weeks before I go to get the fish used to it.
Will look for the nitrate pad, see if sls got some of them.
I won't be so worry about the fish being stolen by my brother, as I got him in to Discus 4 weeks ago.
He got himself 5 Discus from sls (where I got mine from), his mrs was not that happy abouit it.
The main reason I got him in to it is so he knows what I expect from him during my trip.
Imagine of how many more discus I could buy from my flight fare?

Donald.

[kalebjarrod]

ahhh but just think,

stop at some countries and you could sell the family recope your funds and live the life of a hermit with your fish loving brother keeping discus till the day you die. LOL

the rest sounds good, you should not have any problems now.

[flukes]

Where you going? if you cant stay home with the fish might want to convince her Penang is nice that time of year.