# Other Aquarium Forums > Freshwater Fauna > Cichlids >  Wild discus from the Lago Grande do Curuai (Alenquer region)

## illumnae

This has been a long long journey. 

I have wanted to order wild discus from Hudson since more than 3 years ago. I have long admired the quality discus he collected, and it was always a dream to have some swimming in my tank. Unfortunately, due to budget constraints, this dream wasn't realised.

Come September last year, with much support from my wife, I finally decided to bite the bullet and go ahead to fulfil this dream. This was when I started talking seriously with Hudson to bring in a batch of his discus. Initially, I was in talks with his Hong Kong distributors to ship them in via Hong Kong, since no importer I knew of dared to bring in high quality discus into Singapore ("no market" they say..."cannot sell!"). Michael Chu and Stephen Yu in Hong Kong were excellent to deal with, and I almost confirmed the shipment there and then.

However, as luck would have it, on the day that I was about to confirm the shipment, I had a chat with Jia Yong at JZX, whom I never discussed this with before. I mentioned that I was going to be bringing my discus in, and he decided that he wanted to explore the quality discus market in Singapore by bringing in Hudson fish to sell. Finally someone interested to be a pioneer in Singapore by bringing in discus at a quality level that far outshines anything we've ever seen before!  :Very Happy:  Michael and Stephen were very understanding (shipping in direct would always cost more after all) and thus I introduced Jia Yong to Hudson, and our journey began!

What happened since then was nothing short of a drama serial. We had fish being unloaded at a refuel stop in a direct flight, the airline refusing to take the shipment at the last minute, even Court drama in Brazil! I never knew importing fish would be such a long drawn and stressful process... though I do think there was a huge dose of bad luck thrown in as well haha. But finally, the stars aligned...and my dream is finally fulfilled. I now have top quality wild discus in my living room tank!

I must thank Hudson especially for being a great supplier. He has gone absolutely out of the way to make this shipment happen, and went beyond what any ordinary exporter would do to ensure that the fish finally reached us - even going to the extent of waiting in the Brazil Courts for 5 hours to obtain an injunction against the shipping airline to ensure that our fish were loaded safely. If not for him, I may still be waiting for my fish at this moment!

Here are some snapshots of the end of the road of waiting for me, and the start of the road as a new owner of these discus.

I really must say that these discus are top quality, and I am extremely satisfied with the fish that Hudson sent to me. I think all new owners of Hudson's fish can agree with me (and post your photos too!)

Ok enough talk...here's the pictures of today:


After hours of waiting...the forwarder finally arrives with the fish on board!



Sending the boxes to the importer!


My box! Box #10


One of the importers unboxing for me


1 of the bags leaked during shipment and the fish was in 1 inch of water. It's being rebagged, and the rest are sitting safely in the box

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## illumnae

So, after almost 40 hours of flying and travel to Singapore (30+ hours flight, 5 hours to clear customs and deliver to JZX, 1+ hour to settle logistics etc, travel home and release them into the tank), you would expect the fish to be black and stressed and totally not picture worthy, right?

Well not really. The fish that had the bag leaked was understandably stressed at the start, but the rest of the fish took on excellent colouration already within literally seconds of entering my tank.


This picture was taken literally 30 seconds after these 2 fish were released into the tank. Note the red colouration already showing


Less than a minute into the tank



Poor thing had to endure long travel lying flat in just 1 inch of water. No wonder he's stressed (he's ok by now, I'll post pictures of him a few hours later)



Group huddle! A few minutes into the tank. Very touchingly, these guys are huddled around the stressed fish, trying to get him upright and comfortable again. They all gathered around him to support him in his time of distress!




Some shots of the royals


All in all, I'm more than satisfied. Imagine, if they look like this just a few minutes into the tank, how would they look in a week....or a month? I can't wait to see them develop further  :Smile:

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## illumnae

4 hours later, fish are still stressed. However, I just wanted to show that the initial "leaked bag" guy is now ok! The fish like to head over to the far corner (as you can see from the photos) when people walk near the tank, but they swim all over when people aren't around.


Here he is, swimming upright and no longer hugging a corner


Bottom right fish is the same stressed one. You can make out his "large center bar"


Group shot


Semi-Royal with stress bars showing (can't tell at the moment if it's the Semi Royal or the Semi Royal with Center bar)


Royal with stress bars showing


What you looking at huh?

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## illumnae

24 hours on, they still like to huddle in the corner, but every now and then will go around and explore the tank. Explorations are getting more and more frequent. Here's a video showing one such expedition. Beautiful fish in an ugly tank:




On a separate note, I haven't seen them eat yet, though they're still thick and nice. You can see in the video the other tankmates eating frozen bloodworms, but they ignored it.

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## tiintinn

Amazing fishes  :Smile:  kudos to your efforts in bringing them to our shores!

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## darter

Saw the remaining discus when i went down to JZX to buy some cories at about 930pm. Stunning. Pity i cant have a tank right now to house them.

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## stormhawk

One or two of the discus is suffering from ammonia burns. I would isolate the stressed one illumnae, just in case.

The quality of the rest is amazing. I like the royal.  :Shocked:

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## Emokidz

Very beautiful fish. Haha. Quite happy to have been able to see it all at amk that day first hand!

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## illumnae

> One or two of the discus is suffering from ammonia burns. I would isolate the stressed one illumnae, just in case.
> 
> The quality of the rest is amazing. I like the royal.


Thanks for the heads up. The stressed one is now ok and swimming normally with the rest of the group. Starting to colour up a little too. Do you think the couple with ammonia burns would be fine, or do they need to be treated separately?

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## stormhawk

Better to be treated separately away from the rest. Bright lights might not be a good idea since they spent a fair bit of time in darkness. Too sudden and they might go berserk. I think you'll have to wean them to FBW. Maybe feed with live adult brine shrimp? So they associate red color with food.

Ammonia burns can heal with time but the fins may be a little shorter than they originally were. The fins should grow back soon enough. I worry more that they might pick up fin rot. The next time you get Hudson to ship them, you might want to ask him to put some activated carbon or zeolite in the fish bags, to absorb any ammonia in transit.

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## the_oracle

AWESOME............AWESOME.............
No better word to describe....
Let this shipment be the path to more quality good discus arriving to our country...........


Sanie.

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## illumnae

Here's a long overdue update. Pictures were taken some time back.

Royal #1 - This guy is undoubtedly the big boss of the tank. He's the first to investigate anything dropped into the tank (usually food) and is also the first to approach when I walk towards the tank and gesture at them.





Royal #2 - This is the sub-dominant royal. He was being bullied by Royal #1 and constantly stressed, so I ended up trading him away for a semi-royal from the same batch.





Spotted Semi Royal - If you look closely behind the first picture, he's swimming with another Semi Royal discus, but it looks like that Semi Royal is developing almost Royal standard striations. From the earlier pictures, neither of the 2 other Semi Royals showed this kind of potential...yet here it is developing into a full royal!






New Guy - This is the new semi-royal discus that I traded the stressed royal for. He's fully able to hold his own against Royal #1!







Finally, some group shots. The fish in focus in the 1st group shot picture is the Semi Royal I mentioned above that has almost Royal standard striations.

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## Aquanoob

Amazing colour with the gentle giants. It will be so fulfilling in looking at them after a hard day at work. I think I can have my eyes on them for hours. I saw the remaining discus last week at JZX and I can only hope for a bigger tank to keep them the next time.

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## barmby

giving my thumbs up to my friend illumnae

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## sen_jie

Mind blowing pictures!

look at how well the discus thrieve under your care! 

Cheers mate!

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## illumnae

Thanks guys  :Smile:  It's really a joy coming home to this tank (and my other one with Nhamunda blue heckels) every day after a tiring time at work  :Smile:  

I've changed the sand from SUDO bottom sand (brown-tan in colour) to Gex pure sand (off-white with some red highlights) and it has made a difference to the colour of the fish. They're now less dark and less prone to showing their black bars in comparison with the darker SUDO sand.

I'll try and get some pictures up soon  :Smile:

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## sen_jie

Nice!

shall await the photos of the new gex sand which you are using (need reference to set up my 3ft tank)

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## illumnae

Will ask my wife to take pictures tonight  :Smile:  I've got shaky hands, so most pictures are taken by her.

You're setting up a 3ft tank for discus too? Planted or biotope?

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## sen_jie

Hi bro, yea i am looking at either discus or some peruvian angels. Wanted to set up a very natural amazon setup. So it will be more of woodscape rather than planted (i do not have green fingers, so having a planted is a big nono)

anyway i got my tank already. Here it is
http://www.aquaticquotient.com/forum...k-for-cichlids!
Please advise me if i need to take note on anything.

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## stormhawk

illumnae, just a side comment. The GEX Pure Sand seems to contain bits of coral in it. I was looking at the bag over at C328 with Navanod on Saturday and we noticed that it did have coral bits.

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## illumnae

Hmm thanks for the heads up. I was told that it was pH neutral. I'll monitor my pH closely!

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## barmby

got coral chip good! over time the coral chip will melt away by the low pH water : )

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## illumnae

It's good for this tank (I actually put coral bits in the sump) as I want to maintain it at pH 6+. Using RO it always falls into the 5s at least, then I correct with Seachem Alkaline buffer.

In the other tank though, I want pH to drop to sub 5 (previously was 3.7), as my blackwater fish (heckels, altums etc) love it. Coral sand would be bad for that tank  :Sad:

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## stormhawk

The packaging says that it creates pH around 6.5 to 7 if I saw it correctly.

It's a nice looking sand, much more pleasing to the eyes than Sudo is.

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## illumnae

It has been ages since I last updated this thread. Are people still interested in the progress of my discus?  :Roll Eyes: 

I've changed the tankmates a little since the last update, replacing the Biotodoma cupido with Geophagus neambi (formerly G. sp "Aereos") instead, as the B. cupido were not doing their designated job of keeping the tank clean!

I have also switched sand to a much whiter looking one (GEX "Pure Sand" instead of SUDO "Bottom Sand") and the fish seem to appreciate the lighter coloured sand much more.

The red in some of the fish has really started to pop, and it's only been 2 months! These pictures were actually taken last week, and over the weekend I have seen the red develop even more.

Ok enough talk, on to the pictures!

FTS



Group Shots







Individual Shots

After adding the new guy and changing the sand, there has been a shuffle up in the hierarchy of the tank! The one I dubbed "Big Royal" has been displaced from his alpha position to #2, and one of the formerly more timid Semi-Royals (the one I previously said was "Spotted" - and my wife has named "Pinky" due to his formerly pink colouration) is the new alpha of the tank. Here he is:



Nonetheless, the royal is still as spectacular, and has developed a deep red tone in addition to his brilliant blue striations:





Here's an update of the new guy, who has also turned reddish:




All in all, I'm rather happy with this entire batch of Curuai xlg. The only thing I can consider a "blip" is the one that came wrongly packed - the "Brown Centre Bar" which is the most timid of the lot and hides alot and shows no sign yet of turning red. He was a piece that somehow got wrongly packed in. However, Big Royal seems to like Brown Centre Bar alot, perhaps potential for future pairing?  :Very Happy:

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## illumnae

By the way, no fear about the GEX sand affecting pH. My blackwater biotope tank is at pH 4.3, and this tank fell to 5.0 before I had to add coral chips to raise it back to 6.7

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## sen_jie

Nice!
Your discus are really beautiful and stunning.
Got 1 question which i like to ask, i realise some of the discus have wavy ventral whereas some have very straight ventral. Are those genetical? 

And also saw that you have quite a handful of cory in the tank. Was wondering do you have a chiller on for them? Or maybe a fan?

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## illumnae

I think the ventral shape is just morphological (like patterns). Not sure if it's a genetic trait or not. I actually didn't take notice of it!

No chiller or fan for the cories. This tank actually is very very warm. The cabinet was initially built for canisters, and thus has very poor airflow. Now that I'm using a sump, heat gets trapped inside the cabinet and the water temperature is usually above 30 degrees.

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## sen_jie

Oh! as for the case of betta, from my understanding, when it was young and living condition is not optimal, their ventral tend to be wavy, thus i wonder if this applies to discus too. Point to discuss on in future haha

May i check what cory and angelfish are those in your tank?

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## illumnae

The angelfish are wildcaught Pt scalare from the Altamira, which is in the middle of the Rio Xingu (same area as where L46 Hypancistrus zebra are found). Cories are farmbred C. duplicareus.

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## Kekwa

How are all these wilds doing 3 years on?

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