discus forming pair

[ahsan]

how do i know that my discus is forming pair ??? Also can anyone kindly tell me the major visible differences between a discus male and a female??
cheers
ahsan

[chrissyoscar]

Hope this helps with sexing them. Be aware though that it's not always the case and some discus are very hard to sex.

[nicholas76]

Chris

I totally disagree with that illustration. Its proven to be wrong.


the only way you can pin point sex is at time of spawn

female has fat stumpy "tube" whilst male has a sharp pointy one.

when they are not in spawn mode " both sexes generally look the same IMO"



when a pair is forming they generally swim together , taek turns when eating , they Bow and also shiver - whihc his closer to spawning

Ill start a new thread of what mine look like when they bow


cheers

nick

[flukes]

Yeah it is a good indication for young fish, but i wouldnt be putting money on it using that method, much easier too tell iwhne spawning.
Or if you can try venting but i wouldnt recommend it to anyone who doesnt know exactly what they are doing.

[ahsan]

hello ,,
thank you very very much for helping me here guys ,, actually the dorsal fins of my both the discus are different , i.e , one having sharp ends , and the other one have a curved shape ,, but as you said this never ensures that i have a pair ..
Actually i am asking because my both discus acts strangely ,,i introduced them around 5 months ago , when i purchased the vendor told me that they are around an year old and he thought that it is a pair.. From the very first week when i introduced them , the larger of the two just seem to kick and hit the smaller one ,, not specifically at a certain time . but at any time it searches the whole aquarium to find the other discus and then hit em. So sometimes now the smaller discus hides its self in the plants . OK now telling you about the smaller one , he/she just seem to have some sort of liking for the larger one , every now and then he/she just goes to the larger one and swims near him . Although there are other discus in the aquarium but they are comparitively very small .... ONE MORE THING , DURING THE NIGHT BOTH THE DISCUS STAY TOGETHER ,, AND EVEN SOMETIMES DURING FEEDING , BUT ATTIMES THE LARGER ONE APPEARS IRRITATED OR SOMETHING ,, AND THE SMALLER DISCUS ,,, WELL IT ALWAYS LIKES TO BE AROUND THE BIGGER DISCUS,,, ONE MORE THING , THE BIGGER COUPLE WHICH I AM TALKING ABOUT DONT INTERACT WITH THE REST OF THE DISCUS IN THE AQUARIUM ,, THEY JUST KEEP ON PLAYING THIER GAMES WHICH IS BEYOND MY UNDERSTANDING .
PLEASE TELL ME ANYONE WHETHER , THIS IS AN INDICATION OF A PAIR OR NOT
CHEERS
AHSAN

[nicholas76]

Generally what you have said really dosent suggest pairing.

Its basic discus behaviour!

do they bow to one another?

do they shiver?

does the piar fight off other fish from the same area?

If your answer is yes to any one of these especially the first three then id say your on a winner. Then you need to ask yourself the next question?

are they a breeding pair and not just a pair!! well thats a wait and see propostion for you. :o

regards

nick

[ahsan]

Well sir , my fish are not showing any of these signs , so even if they are a opposite sex , they are ofcourse not forming any pair soo far,,
One more thing please ,, i just had a bad day today ,, i woke up and walked next to my tank and figured my smaller discus had strainght vertical lines on its body and its getting real dark and hiding behind the plantation ,, most probably the discus is under stress coz of a lot of chasing and hitting by the larger discus .. Please tell that could anything be done to stop the larger discus from hitting the smaller one ,, because the situation is getting worse and i fear once the smaller discus stop eating because of stress ,, it would certainly make it's survival difficult in the tank. SHE IS CERTAINLY NOT LOOKING GOOD AT THE MOMENT.

HELP!!!!!!!!!! PLEASE :(

ahsan

[flukes]

Seperation is really the only answer. Either that or adding more discus too the tank, but again if the bully is still the biggest it will continue to bully others. Id try seperating it and try grow it up a bit, plenty of water changes and live foods are great for growth spirts. Once its the same size as the other you can try them in the same tank again. Might still fight but hopefuly not.

[nicholas76]

ahsan


check your water parameters please. Ensure these are stable. What is your ph?


ps Vertical bars are normal in some strains. yes it is a sign of stress, but in most cases these will show up for the smallest of reasons.

now has the etire fish turned black? has it stoppped eating? is its poo black or white?? what are the other fish like??

discus hiding in the plants is normal like mine do, then come out , thn go back in etc.

Sit there and watch your fish for awhile. If you can estabilish that this smaller fish is getting bullied by another fish and you may just have to invest in a divider , sell him off, or throw him in another tank.

update me please and a picture would be good!

nick

NIck

[ahsan]

hi nick ,
thanks for showing soo much concern regarding my problem. anyway sir , i ve observed the fish in detail.
1. the PH is fine around 6.9
2. smaller fish is far better now
3. she has lost lots of its colour , maybe coz of stress but she is eating
4. poo is blackish
5. the larger discus continue to bully the smaller one
6.she just continue to get medium black coloured lines on its body.
7. Rest of the 3 discus are doing great and the two other smaller ones are not bullied by the biggest discus
8. What i have noticed is the larger discus kicks and pecks at the discus until she is cornered. Once she is cornered , the bigger discus stays there for sometime , so when the smaller discus try to move around in the aquarium or try to follow the larger one , the bigger one just start hitting again , cornering her again and again ..
I WILL SEND THE PICTURE OF THE STRESSED FISH BY MY NEXT POST. at the moment i am giving them a mixture of brine shrimps ,, blood worms ,, garlic and spinach , with couple of multivitamins and dried shrimps in it. i just make it a solution either by water or liquid vitamin and then binds the whole thing through unflavoured gilatin.
HAS FOOD SOMETHING TO DO WITH THE DISCUS HITTING THE OTHER?? I PREVIOUSLY WAS GIVING THEM BEEF HEART BUT SOMEONE SUGGESTED THAT IT MOSTLY CREATS INTERNAL PARASITIES IN THE FISH.
PLEASE CLEAR ONE OTHER THING , WHY IS THAT THE LARGEST DISCUS HAS PICKED ONE DISCUS FOR HITTING WHO IS AROUND HER OWN SIZE , JUST MINUTELY SMALLER.. WHY DONT THE LARGEST DISCUS HIT THE OTHER SMALLER ONES IN THE TANK?

THAT WS ALL I GUESS
ALSO I WOULD L IKE TO TELL YOU ONE MORE THING , I HAVE A 32 GALLON TANK ,, WITH TWO MEDIUM SIZED GOLDFISHES , COUPLE OF RED FINNED SHARK , A SUCKER MOUTH AND MY FOUR DISCUS ,, TWO LARGE ONES AND TWO SMALL ONES

aright sir i'll be waiting for your reply
regards
ahsan

[nicholas76]

Ahsan,


just call me Nick! we are all mates on this site.

Ph is fine
As it is eating and poo is black thats ok with me. Does she gasp for air? gills move qucikly??

At this stage and with the information you have supplied it genuinely looks like a pecking order. Size of the fish really dosent matter. I have seen smaller fish bully larger discus. You may want to try and seperate them later on down the track.

Food is somthing which more than likely triggers this fighting. Dominant discus will want first crack at what ever you throw in this tank, dosent matter what food type it is

One thing I noticed !!!!

sucker fish love discus - does yours ever try and jump onto the discus? Some sukers will feed off the discus slime thats why they try and hitch a ride on the discus. - protien

secondly

i am totally against mixing gold fish with discus. Gold fish IMO are like wild pigeons ( birds ) they harvest all sorts of diseases. I personally wouldnt add those to my discus tank. A couple of bristle nose cat fish , some cardinal tetras yeah for sure,,, but i wouldnt go further than that.

i genuienly look forward to your pictures

ps dont stress too much enjoy your fish :o :o
cheers

[Merrilyn]

Hi Ahsan - I totally agree with Nick. There is always a pecking order amongst discus. One fish in the tank will always be picked on by the other fish. If you remove that fish, then another will be picked on. There will always be a bully and one who is always bullied You must watch to see that the bullying does not get too bad, and that the little one is getting plenty to eat. You can alter the pecking order by adding more discus to the tank, then the bully will spread his aggression to the others as well and the little one won't be picked on all the time.
I have never heard of beefheart causing parasites. It is used a lot because it is one of the cleanest foods available.
I'm with Nick on the goldfish issue, not only for disease prevention, but also because goldfish are very greedy fish. Discus like to take their time eating, and you may find some of your discus are missing out on food because the goldfish are pushing the shy ones away.

[ahsan]

HI NICK ,

There are some real valid points made by you in the last reply , well first thing ,, the fish is not gasping , neither its moving the gills very fast ,, its just normal .. About the goldfish ,, i have been planning to give away my goldfish for some while ,, but actually i am looking for a good fish keeper because i've been keeping this pair of goldfish for the last 8 years .
One more thing Lady Red is quite right about the goldfish's greedy nature , i just sometimes is forced to overfeed just because the discus could get it's food. But inturn it pollutes the water pretty quickly.
Sucker mouth just tend to take a ride sometimes , but its mostly just after the water changes ,, actually the sucker mouth consumes a lot of aquaruim algea , IS THERE SOME OTHER FISH WHICH CAN CONSUME ALGEA , AND IS NOT DANGEROUS TO DISUCS??

i also need to ask you a few more things nick ,, first , i make 70 to 80 percent water changes after a week IS THAT ARIGHT?? after how much time i should consider changing 100% water?

Secondly in part of the world , there are just some general medicines available for discus , just like fin rot and white spots medicine , which is common for some other fish as well. sooo , i just wanted to ask that ,
CAN SOME MEDICATION BE MADE BY OURSELVES THROUGH DIFFERENT CHEMICALS AND MEDICINES , I HAVE HEARD ABOUT FLAYGYL . PLEASE TELL ME IF THERE ARE ANY OTHER AND THIER QUANTITY TO BE USED IN AQUARIUM.
About my discus pictures i am really looking forward to send you the pictures becoz i want to know whether physically they look diseased or are they fine ,, i am having some problem with my digital cam cable ,, i will send the pictures as soon i will fix it.
Hey , nick i am sorry, i have loads of questions to ask in my each post , sorry to bother you man but all i want is some healthy fish.. Because people said that i discus starter always loose some fish in the start coz discus is hard to keep.. I started keeping discus around 10 months back and soo far i have never lost even a single discus..
allright that was it !
cheers
ahsan

[nicholas76]

HI ashan,

yep good idea to move those gold fish out. And your suckers are eating the slime on your discus when they jump on.

In relation to another type of fish - I have had absolutely no problem with bristtlenose cat fish. Some people will tell you diffrently but I have never ever had problems with these. Get them very small and they will eat all left overs and alage. They are shy fish and generallly hide from the discus.

I think theres a siamese flying fox variety too. Only problem is , is that these fish like jumping out of tanks hehe

if your having an alge problem try purchasing a product from your local fish store. I use PLANT FOOD from AQUA MASTER. its stopped algae from growing and it also feeds my plants.

Your water changes are far too big in my opinion, way too big!! You are in effect removing all that good bacteria. I have two discus in a 4 ft X 18 tank which is about 270 litres of water. I do 30% a week. My fish breed every 6 days with these conditions.

When i was breeding my melons I did 3 X 50% water changes a week because I had the facilities, aged water, automatic filler , drain near by and so on. This in my opinion now is too much again.


In relation to diseases. Your discus cannot get white spot. white spot disease cannot survive at the temperature you should have your discus at. 29 whats that in your part of the world? high 80's?

Dont worry about making your own medicines. the only thing you should keep on the side is a bottle of multicure for fin rot , a bottle of PRAZIQANTEL for flukes and worms, and a packet of rock salt.

Mate dont stress im sure your fish are fine. show me some pics when you get the chance. I look forward to it. And ask as many questions as you like.

regards :wink:

nick

[flukes]

Great advice nick.
First thing i do when i think a fish is sick is too see if there are any obvious signs. If i can't determine exactly what it is, then i treat with salt and a higher temp. If your treating for things that the fish doesnt have the fish begins too grow tolorant to the meds and they wont have much of an effect on the desease.
Salt doesnt harm your fish, as for humans it can be great for healings wounds aswell. 1-2 table spoons per 40litres along with the temp being adjusted a few degrees (30-31c) (87F). If the fish still look sick you need too determine exactly what it is.

[ahsan]

HELLO NICK !
Your replies are really helping me a lot ,, one more thing i wanted to know was that ,, i have a tank with gravel in it ,, obviously you have to have an under gravel filter for it . Which pollutes the gravel up to some level .
So what i wanted to ask is that is there a 100% water change required after a few months in which you clean all the gravel of the tank. Another concern for me is filtration i have an undergravel filter along with that i have a power head filter whose water flow i have directed through a pipe in a box with polester in it and from there it goes bank in to the tank through another pipe.
That's all i have for filtration , i need to know what kind of filtration are you using in the tank ,, and how that mechinasim work. My filters are doing good job soo far, but i just wanted to know that whether this filtration is enough. Also i am trying to attach a picture of my discus , they are the smallest discus of my tank. Seen the albums here i dont think my fish are very impressive , specially the smaller ones. but i just felt like sharing those ,, in a couple of days i ll be sending pics of my larger discus they are comparitvly attractive.
i hope this 1.2 mb picture gets attached :roll:
best regards
ahsan

[nicholas76]

Hi Ashan,

First thing mate - You DONT need an underground filter. Those things are crap, dont work properly after awhile and are sold by local fish stores as a good way to make money.

I have 3 inches of sand , NO underground filer , just a cannister.

Go and buy a cannister filter. Buy a good large one that turns over many liters per hour.


Never do a 100% water change.
Never clean the gravel. Use a hose( vacuum ) to suck the crap out but only do as much as you can. Say 30% water volume loss. The following week vacuum clean the next section and so on.

Ashan for your biological filter to develop and work properly you need to keep your water. Only do a small change like i said 30% a week. Millions of bacteria will cling to the gravle, stones, glass, so never clean that out 100 %

I stress never do a 100% water change. Its like you jumping into a shower with the cold taps on. - not good bud.

If your water is dirty its becuase your underground filter dosent polish the water clean like a good cannister does.
Power head filters in my opinion are ok In VERY BIG tanks, but i dont like them. They create to much current and the sponge that they are attached to are generally too small.

Sounds like you are using a box filter? show us a pic. fill it up with dacron, sponge. bio balls. no real need if your tank has gravel and is planted. - you only need a GOOD cannister

mate 1.2 megs is massive it wont attach, you need to drop it down to about 50 k in size


simply save the picture to your desk top , right click , edit , piant shop will open, go to tools and resize pick, click in say 60% for hight and width and then re save and attach. it its too big then do it again and make it smaller.


Your endeviour to get bettter fish will go on forever - thats the discus bug!


NIck

[ahsan]

hullo , nick
have given away my goldfish ,, was a bit depressed coz of them coz when i had them they were around a quater of an inch and now after around 6 years they were more than 6 inches, anyway have got rid of sucker mouth. now have 2 pairs of discus in the tank and have bought a pair of catfish,
one more thing sir , i asked about the canister filter , nobody have it here and they say that they can import that for me but the problem is that the price they are giving me IN THAT PRICE I CAN BUY AT MINIMUM 12 PAIRS OF ENLARGED DISCUS.
I have also removed the under gravel , telling you about the power head , i have connected the nozzel from where the water flows at high current to a pipe with then goes into my box filter.
Just wanted to ask that is there i way i can improve the effiecency of my current filter , because the cannister filter , well its way tooooooo expensive ,, its because well less people here keep fish as pro fishkeepers. they just have them for some time , when it dies they restock. soo high quality water purification mechanisms are not demanded here that is why the vendors dont keep them and only give on special demand on a very very special price :oops:
can i improve my filter , box filter as you say ,, or can i make my own if someone guides me how to make one. anyway ,, its hard to buy a cannister filter ,, also i am loosing a lot of money per month coz of my python , i just caught it when it was just a few inches of size on a hiking trip NOW :( i have to feed her with chicken and mice daily which inturn empties my purse pretty soon , i cant release it coz couple of biologists say that if i release her then she would die of starving , and goosh if i try giving them to some wildlife officials ill have to pay a huge amount of palenty money for keeping such an animal without a permit or a license,, ANYWAY THE POINT IS CAN I IMPROVE MY CURRENT FILTER.
BEST REGARDS
AHSAN

[Proteus]

Get yourself a relibale air pump (only cheap) and 1-2 sponge filters...

that will work (it will take a little time to seed with good bacteria but it will help polish the water of small particles and all fish seem to love picking at sponge filters to get at little bits of food and other goodies)

[nicholas76]

spot on proteus.

Ahsan follow proteus's suggestion.


mate a good cannister will cost about $170 - $400 dollars. Its worth saving and buying one of these. How much are they quoting you? :shock:

one pair of discus will cost me about say $ 300 dollars. How much are your discus?? :shock: :shock:

dont stop with the pics now mate , post up more and lets see the snake too!!!!


nick

[kalebjarrod]

for clarity go for the sponge filters

as for the rest of the filtration setup, if you have a pump and some containers anything is possible.

never say never, never is a word used by people back in the 1940's who thought you could never keep Discus in the first place, now you can buy them at the coner store.

if you give us a rough drawing of your tank and space available, maybe a couple of pics we can come up with a idea. thiers too many minds here not to be able to help you

[ahsan]

hello , thanks for the advices every body...
well telling about the tank ,, its a 32 gallon tank , as i have told nick ,, about filtration i have a power head filter whose water current nozel i have connected to a pipe that pipe is connected to a box which contains lots of polyester peices in it .. water current flow through the polyester and then drops back in to the tank . also my power filter sponge does some cleaning and i also have to replace polyester after every week coz it almost gets black coz of contaminated material. i also previously had an under gravel filter which i removed on advice of the nick.
if there is a way i can establish a cheap and more effective filter compared to what i have now please tell me the detailed way ,, i mean the whole procedure , what things should i use and how should i connect the whole stuff.
and NICK discus have stopped fighting ,, dont know whats the reason ,, i just tried changing decor of the aquarium and did one dumb thing which worked i guess. I JUST SAT AGAINST THE TANK AND SCARE OFF THE DISCUS WHEN EVER IT HAD INTENSIONS OF HITTING THE OTHER ONE. REST IS FINE :lol:
ihave fixed my digital cam ill be sending the pictures of my larger discus tonight. and sorry for a late reply coz i was bit busy with my exams

waitin for reply
ahsan

[kalebjarrod]

i have no idea what resources you have but here goes

simplify

you will need three things

1. particle filtration - removes heavy dirty bits of crap
2. biological filtration - removes nirates
3. a sump to pump the cleaned water back from

you will need to turn over your water three to four times an hour.

let me do some searching and i will post a simple design that anyone could make tonight

[ahsan]

That's so nice of the ryan
i ll be waiting for your post
regards
ahsan

[kalebjarrod]

i realized i think i have posted this before,

try this one

get an old FOOD storage container, this will be the storage vessel for all your filtration eqipment.

next get yourself a large bucket and a stainless steel spagetti colinder

the idea is to use the spagetti colinder as a vessel to hold your particle filter, the filter could be filter wool sponge etc etc these items are available on many website's

the bucket will hold your bio balls or noddles, you will need a drip plate to distribute the water evenly over the bio balls to ensure proper filtration

each of these items will need to be suspended in the drum at the apropriate heights

under this leave enough room for your submersible pump to sit

don't drop the sponge filtration though this will keep things crystal clear, treat the idea as part one of a two part series. plus you can change the filtration media in this system whilst not distrurbing your guests.

does this make sense? i drew the quickest of diagrams to help but i don't know

[ahsan]

hello sir ,,, i am really really sorry ,, i mean if you could please kindly send me a detail , or a daigram coz i have got the few things with me but installing them all together , i just dont get the whole idea of how to do it ..
it might consume your time but that could be really helpful for me , well i have got the bioballs as well but i dont know how to use them in filtration coz i have never used ,, would you kindly send a comprehensive diagramatic detail of how to set it up.
waiting for you reply
best regards ahsan

[nicholas76]

ahsan,


glad to see you are have so much interest in your fish and there well being.

what happened to those pictures ???

[ahsan]

HELLO NICK ,, long time no see,,
ok here you go with the pictures ,, and one thing i am thinking about having a pair of angel , but someone told that they have certain common diseases which can easily be spread and could be fatal if both discus and angel is in the tank ,, does this hold true????
and here you go with the pictures :)
i know my discus are not a beauty , but still i would like to share the pictures , coz what i have seen in different gallaries here are some real beauties.
anyway regards
ahsan

[ahsan]

and here you go with the other two pictures

[Merrilyn]

Ahsan, all discus are beautiful, and your's are beautiful too :D

[ahsan]

Well ,, thank you very much ,, needed to ask that i am planning to get some angel fish with disucs ,, somebody told that this stimulates and aggrevates diseases in discus..
i mean i read somewhere i guess that if discus shows any symptoms of bein diseased remove the angel from the tank , it aggrevates the whole cause
does this hold true?????????
ahsan

[Merrilyn]

Ahsan, there are diseases that are common to both angels and discus. The angels are 'tougher' fish and can have a disease but not show any symptons and live quite happily. But as soon as you put them with discus, they can catch that disease and it could be very serious or even fatal for your discus. The other problem is that angels will push to the front at feeding time, and your shy discus may miss out on their share of food. That is why most of us keep discus on their own, or maybe with a few tetras or catfish. Cheers, Merrilyn

[kalebjarrod]

done a simple diagram but i am trying to shrink it as we speak

PROTEUS help me!

[ahsan]

hey thanks merrilyn ,, i have changed my mind now , actually i thought i could add a bit of more colour to the aquarium ,, but i guess a 32 gallon tank is just enough to keep 4 discus , my fish vendor is such a nerd that he just asks me to keep angel with discus and he just have the velvet treatment medicine which he gives for any discus disease symptoms that may raise..
one other problem ,, my smallest discus ,, well it has some problem in swimming ,, she just struggles to go at the bottom of the tank and even struggles sometimes by moving her fins vigoursly to keep herself static , fins seem to be aright ,, about the fish i have noted just one thing that it likes to eat lots of food ,, i see her really bulged tummy after every time i feed ,, i feed the fish on blood worms , beef hearts , pallets sometimes. the rest of the pack is doing great ,, does it make any sense??????? not to me ,, and i am all in air about starting any sort of treatment
best regards
ahsan

[ahsan]

hey thanks Ryan ,, i really bothered you with this ,, but my level about filtration is about 0 , so just try to make it a bit simple,, and also i am trying to work on what ever i could understand from you last post regarding setting up the filtration process.
thanks man
ahsan

[kalebjarrod]

like i say to freinds

if i was bothered i wouldn't do it!

never bothered, more like annoyed with crap computers that reduce the file i drew only reduces to 1.4meg

i will email you

hows that?

[ahsan]

hullo ,, sounds great ,,
Ryan , bro mail me at ahsanijaz2000@yahoo.com
yahoo supports greater memory space.
waiting for the mail
ahsan

[ahsan]

hey sir ,, thanks no need to mail on yahoo ,, just got the mail on hotmail ,,, i am just about to study it ,, would you be available if i need to discus certain things with you

[kalebjarrod]

chat away, chat away

[ahsan]

hello , i am pretty much clear of what i have to do here. but just need a bit of confirmations on the following things.
1. spegtti conlinder ; by that you mean a stain less steal stand to hold the particle filter ?????

2. i need to know what's a drip plate ,, the particle filter directs the water in the biological filter ,, through drip plate ,, i am not sure of it that what exactly is it ,,, one more thing is need to know that how both the particle and the spegetti filter are going to be connected together ,, i need to know the details about the drip plate before i go to the fish vendor to ask for a drip plate.

3. You used a word sump ,, does that mean the filtered water????

4. how am i going to pump the filtered water back in the tank ,,

would be waiting for your reply
cheers
ahsan

[flukes]

Ahsan,
Does the fish have a full tummy all the time even before eating?? Might have bloat. Just a thought. Fairly common desease. Just down after the bulge it should have an indent like you have push your thumb into the fish . If so i would try post some pics to confirm it and maybe someone can identify if it is bloat.
Not saying it is bloat 100% but just thought it might be.

[ahsan]

hullo ,,
well i am not sure that whether the bulge is all the time there or just after feeding ,, ill obeserve the fish in the morning after about 8 hours of starvation , does she still have the bulge. Tell me one thing does fish have swimming problems during bloat????????????????? do confirm me that ,, well after that big bulge it gets a straight thin body till the tail.
i am not confirmed but i guess after a starvation of 8 to 9 hours it swims fine ,, just let me confirm this as well ,, to be on the safer side if you can , then please post the pictures of bloat affected fish. I dont know for now whether its overeating or bloat ,, but what i have seen that discus she just loves pecking at the plants all the time ,, goes for any particle that floats in the water ,, and struggles hard to make it to the bottom of the tank , to peck up some left overs..
by tomorrow ill tell you know bout my observations bye :)

[kalebjarrod]

1. see pic - you dont need to use this, (although this one has handles and will make it easier to sercure to your your barrel)
you can use any sort of food grade item that can hold filter mats, filter wool or foam it just needs to have enough holes so not to get blocked.

2. Drip plates- are a piece of plastic with a series of holes drilled all over them, you place this over your bioballs, this will distribute water correctly and evenly over as many bio-balls as possible

here are some pics of drip plates from "fishpimp" very simple very good

http://www.discusforums.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=607&highlight=

3.Sump- that is the bottom of the barrel that is where you let the water drain to, this gives you a place to put your submersiblepump to pump the water back to the tank.

4. Submersible pumps will pump quite alot of water and are fairly cheap, this is the only part of the filter setup that you may have to buy, you should be able to pick up the rest up from kitchens, gararges and general stuff you have lying around.
Just hook the pump up to a peice of 19mm plastic pipe or pvc or 19mm polypipe - you should be able to find some sort of pipe to hook up to

heres a pic of one of my submersibles ( SORRY ITS A BIT FUSSY), i think this cost me $65.00 australian

[ahsan]

hello Ryan !
thanks a lot for everything ,, a 300 $ pump wont hurt i guess , anyway , i have got a spagetti collinder but i dont get it that how should i connect the spegatti collinder with the tank having bio balls ,, spegatti collinder has pores in it ,, that means water staining from it would disperse in all directions , so how should i collect all the drained water to be passed through a drip plate ,,, connecting the spagetti collinder directly to bio balls tank is easy ,, but a drip plate in between ???? just elaborate a bit ,,, about how the particle filter is going to be connected with the bio filter ,??
That would be great if you could show some pictures , , if not then just a short para about the whole thing would do .
thannks for all the help ,, i hope i am not bothering you
regards
ahsan

[kalebjarrod]

never bothered,

i have a couple of spare drums at home and was thinking i might make one just to show how it can bne done on a tight budget.

i will post you later today (after my footy) with the answer to your questions

[kalebjarrod]

here are a series of pics

hope this helps

[kalebjarrod]

more

[kalebjarrod]

and more

questions?

[ahsan]

Ryan ,,, that is really nice of you to help me ,all the way ,,, now i am just about to complete my filter , just need to get a submersible pump and that's it :) anyway thankyou once again
cheers
ahsan

[kalebjarrod]

i hope that my werid slant on DIY helped

don't stop useing your sponge filter, this will provide breeding clarity

when complete send me a pic always interested

[flukes]

Thats true DIY, Lucky you keep that outside the house Ryan :wink:
Will work better than any cannister filter though, ill give you that.!!

[kalebjarrod]

i am getting some drums from work to test this filter and see just how cheap a triclke can be done for

[ahsan]

currently havin some sort of problem getting the submersible pump ,, and i have decided that i'll buy it from some online purchasing services available .
oooooooooooh ,, i just got an idea ,, if i connect a small power filter at the sump ,, the very end of my filter ,, it would give a final filtration and throw
the water back in the tank ,, what do you say ,,, this would work i guess???????? would'nt it???????

[kalebjarrod]

certainly would as long as the power head could pump the water up to the tank

sometimes these pumps move alot of water but they have little to no head (distance they can pump water uphill)

give it a try and see how you go! Measure the water coming into your tank to get a flow rate.Just get a bucket or container that has measurements on it and measure the amount of water that it pumps in a minute then multiply this by 60!