wilds - survival rates

[gypsy3]

just a bit of a question/poll - medium to long term, what sort of survival rates have members on here had keeping wilds?

[TW]

I have wilds, but I haven't had them long enough really to indicate typical survival rates.

[ILLUSN]

Dont know what typical is, but i've managed to kill 2 heckels in 3 months :(

[TW]

Dont know what typical is, but i've managed to kill 2 heckels in 3 months Oh, no. Sorry to hear that. What was the issue. I'm currently having issues with my Heckels too, but so far, no deaths. I still have my fingers crossed, as it could happen.

[samir]

i've killed two , but both were very avoidable, imo if you don't mix them with other fish, they should all survive.

[ILLUSN]

i second samirs advice, my own stupidity killed my 2 fish, keep them on their own, DONT let any new fish near them.

[Hollowman]

i HAVE A FEW FRIENDS THAT HAVE KEPT THEM FOR SEVERAL YEARS AND THEY ARE STILL IN FINE HEALTH.
LIKE THE GUYS HAVE SAID ABOVE, KEEPING THEM ON THEIR OWN i THINK MIGHT BE THE KEY, AS WELL AS BEING VERY SYMPATHETIC AS FAR AS KEEPING THEM IN 'THEIR' PRIME WATER CONDITIONS, LOTS OF WORK!!
THAT SAID, i DO KNOW OF A CHAP THAT HAS MIXED THEM WITH HIS OTHER STOCK WITH NO PROBLEMS :shock:

Sorry not shouting, had my caps on!! :roll:

Hollowman

[TW]

i've killed two , but both were very avoidable, imo if you don't mix them with other fish, they should all survive.
i second samirs advice, my own stupidity killed my 2 fish, keep them on their own, DONT let any new fish near them.Do you mean forever, or until they've gone through a lengthy QT. I don't have anywhere separate to keep them long term. I planned to leave them in QT until they are as big as the ones in the community & then add them.

Am I destined for problems, you think? The wild royal blue is already in the community tank.

[ILLUSN]

My problems were when i got a bad batch of turks into the fish room, something put the heckels off their food (they were in a seperate tank on the opposite side of the room bout 8m away), didn't eat for a week, went dark, white poo, used metro, no white poo, still not eating, then got dark again and died over night, i was using a common siphon for my water changes, that problem is now fixed hopefully i'll be able to keep the last one alive.

[Squid]

I've actually found them harder to kill than local strains. I've also noted that they seem to be very intolerant of nitrate. They go downhill if the nitrate gets high whereas the hybrids dont care too much

[gypsy3]

yeah, it seems very hard to bring them back from treatment. They seem fine for a while, get problems, get treated, then starve to death. i guess i've had a 50% ratio of fish successfully coming back from treatment - just wondering if this is an overall problem.

[taksan]

Had 30 odd between me and Merrilyn over the past 18 months ..killed 4 in total.

[gypsy3]

Taksan, did you treat medicate all your wilds in q/t as a matter of course, or wait for signs that they had problems and needed treatment with metro, prazi etc?, that is, did you treat fish individually as required.

[TW]

didn't eat for a week, went dark, white poo, used metro, no white poo, still not eating, then got dark again and died over night, I'm up to the "used metro, no white poo, still not eating" bit.

was using a common siphon for my water changes, that problem is now fixed hopefully i'll be able to keep the last one alive. Do you think it is also an issue to fill from a common water aging barrel, using a common water hose?

With my wilds, I did routine treatment with Big L & Prazi. Wild Royal Blue sailed through treament & is in community tank. Guess I can't be sure about Heckels, but I didn't think they were effected at the time. I believe one heckel had clamped fins from the start & was always darker. Initially did eat though (I think). Andrew Soh recently said clamped fins was a sign of parasites, so I'm thinking the Heckel brought the problem in with him.

[tc]

hi wild fish slaves
i have 8 heckels. originally nine. apon arrival 1 was not that happy. it did not eat and stayed like this until it died. i tried prazi and Big L. not metro.. slow sad depressing death. others great and still are

i bought 6 wild greens. one came with clamped fins. and a pelvis fin missing (no obvious wound). bullied by others. but ate well and happy. one day...fed them in late arvo. all was well then i came back 2 hours later for their evening meal. the fish with pelvis fin missing was gulping for air at surface, then spinning around and around to the left then layed on its side and died 2 hours later. i still have no clue what was wrong
but in hindsight both fish when they came out of the bags were not in as good condition as the others.

i am not suggesting that the wholesaler sent me bad fish either as their behaviour was not obvious - just when you buy and wait for these types of fish you observe them very closely and when you look back, you have a feeling that something was not quite right....

and they did not have domestics in with them and still dont (heckels and greens are in separate tanks)

tc

[Merrilyn]

Taksan, did you treat medicate all your wilds in q/t as a matter of course, or wait for signs that they had problems and needed treatment with metro, prazi etc?, that is, did you treat fish individually as required.

All the wilds were routinely wormed as soon as we got them, and again three months later, with both Prazi and Levamisole.

[TW]

in hindsight both fish when they came out of the bags were not in as good condition as the others.

i am not suggesting that the wholesaler sent me bad fish either as their behaviour was not obvious - just when you buy and wait for these types of fish you observe them very closely and when you look back, you have a feeling that something was not quite right....tc, that's how I felt about my heckel, which starved itself to death. He never seemed quite right to me. The other two sailed through routine Big L & prazi without a hitch & had to tolerate the metro treatment (due to him). I hope the dead one, who died Fri night didn't leave something behind

[tc]

TW
i know what you mean!

another observation in regard to quarantine. when the wilds arrived and after due proces were placed in a quarantine tank they displayed very strong schooling behaviour and there was not much if any bullying. i noticed this in both my heckels and greens. but when they finally left their smallish BB tank and i placed them in large tanks with sand and driftwood - bullying began in earnest.
my heckels are always bickering, but with 8 left perhaps the bullying is distributed. - they tend to be one - on- one fights - not a group chasing an individual
wild greens have been a different story. i was only able to purchase 6 greens. ( i am looking for more). in quarantine all they hung around together mostly.....

(another difference - heckels came out of their bags frightened, greens came out cranky!)

so when the greens went from Q to their large tank they demonstrated a lot more bullying behaviour - both one-on-one and group chasing a weaker fish... and it was this weaker fish that fell ill.

after reading Belher's discus - he talks alot about large groups being best... and i am beginning to see why.
maybe at the wholesaler there are large groups of wilds in bare bottom tanks so maybe the weaker fish are not picked on - so two things are happening when we buy them - stress from travel and then we have a significantly smaller group - which places double the amount of stress on the weaker fish.
what do you all think? has anybody got a large group? what is the dynamic?
tc

[terry]

I purchased 10 Red spotted Tefe greens 6 weeks ago, it's still early days but all are doing very well. The shop that I work in bought 2 wild greens and 2 wild blues out of the same shipment, they started off well but have gone downhill over the last 3 weeks. I think larger schools are the way to go.
Terry

[Rowland]

Very interesting to hear this. I have 4 360litre tanks with the following occupants:
1. 12 royal, semi royal and nhamunda blues
2. 13 Alenquer, curipera and red curipera
3. 9 Greens and 4 Xingu browns
4. 11 Heckels
All are on the same filtration system, although I do want to move the Heckels to their own some time. I have had very little, if any spawning behaviour and recently thought that I may thin out a bit, with a view to hopefully encouraging some sort of pairing up. Reading this now makes me think again.

[Heiko Bleher]

Hi all of you,

you all should read my 10 lessons on wilds I have written for
www.discuspassion.it - go to Heiko Bleher and than to Lezione, all lessons are in English and Italian.

The age of a (wild) discus depends ONLY from where it comes from, the origin (collector, exporter, importer, wholesaler, shipper, retailer, private), how the fish was kept before you get it. If a (wild) discus has been handled correctly and feed adequately and has no hexamita and other diseases, than it should live at last 5, up to 10 years or more (in nature much less, hardly 3 years).

Normally if you loose a wild discus in early stage, than something was wrong. Wilds are so much more resistant than tank breeds, their immune system works.

But please read, and hopefully also my book, as it tells you all you ever wanted (and will) know about wilds...

always

Heiko Bleher
www.aquapress-bleher.,com

[TW]

This has been a really interesting topic.
All the wilds were routinely wormed as soon as we got them, and again three months later, with both Prazi and LevamisoleBought my Heckels early March, so going by this advice, it's nearly time for the 2nd round of treatment. Merrilyn, do you worm all your fish every 3 mths or is this just for new wilds? I thought the norm was once every 6 months.
Normally if you loose a wild discus in early stage, than something was wrong.Makes sense. My heckel that died was about 6cm when bought in March & hadn't grown any by it's death last week.