What is the importance of growing out

[Duzzy]

Hi there,

since I have begun researching my discus project I have heard the term growing out bandied about a fair bit, why is it done and why is it important and does it make a difference to the resulting grown fish?

Regards Darren

 

[dirtyblacksocks]

Growing out is important because discus are one of the most easily stunted cichlids out there, they're highly nitrate sensitive and anything over about 10 ppm is going to severely slow down how large they grow.

A large, full grown discus looks MUCH more impressive then a stunted discus, and it's somewhat hard to describe without having seen it in person.

People grow their discus out in bare bottom tanks by power feeding them and performing a lot of water changes to adjust to nitrates from the extra feedings for this reason, then transfer full grown adults that don't require 3-6 daily feedings into show tanks.

 

[EVP]

duzzy dont mean to hijack ur thread but.....what is the importance of a bare bottom tank on the grow out tank? because its harder to clean? i'm doing a 75 grow out in a few months and didnt wanna go bare bottom.

 

[dirtyblacksocks]

Without bare bottom you're always going to have some sort of decaying remnants left over to create nitrates...bare bottom makes it faster and easier to clean...you'll never keep nitrates below 10 ppm with fish waste and/or decaying food in the tank.

 

[knobhill]

^^^^true

 

[Westie]

What he said.^^^

 

[benito1188]

how fast do discus grow when people do the "power feeding" in grow out tanks???? and when you said show tank, does that include moving them into heavly planted tanks??

 

[SoCalDiscus]

With a planted tank or a sump with (lots of) plants you can keep the nitrates down. I actually add nitrates daily as part of my fertilizer and still have no measureable amount. (I hope my test kit is working... hehehe ;-) I have an eheim auto feeder that drops 4x daily plus 2 feedings of blood worms and 50/50 plus and have no measurable anything except phosphate. However, the benefit of barebottom will be less peppering with pidgeon bloods.

 

[Duzzy]

Thanks for that.....appreciate it, will put that into my planning then looks like a second tank

 

[andsco]

I grow my Discus out in like a 29 gal tank until they are 4-5". ( usually 7-8 mo.)
Then can put them in either breeding pairs or a community tank.