FEBRUARY 2006 MEMBER SPOTLIGHT - FRANK FLECKNER

Hi everyone,

This month we are going to be speaking with Frank, who owns and runs Gold Mountain Discus. He's a great example of what can be done in a relatively short time in the hobby - maintaining the right attitude and keeping a hobbyist mentality and the joy of the fish. Frank, it was a pleasure "meeting" you!

So here we go!

Q - Thank you for taking the time to answer our questions today. Let's start with a little bit about you. Please tell us your real name and what you did for a living prior to discus - or if you do something in addition to discus. Please also feel free to let us anything you want to about your family life, other hobbies or interests.

A - My name is Frank Fleckner. I was born in Osaka Japan in 1951 in the Kobe US Army Hospital while my father (US Army) was stationed in Korea.
I am a second generation Infantry Combat Veteran and am currently rated as 100 percent disabled.

I am also medically retired from Civil Service in the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard after sustaining a fall from scaffolding in a dry dock. In my lifetime I have worked on road construction, building complete homes from the foundation up, plastic research, painting water towers (inside and out), US Army Infantry, US Army Logistical Coordinator for Worldwide Communications Exercises, Air Force certified Load Planner and Load Master for C130’s, C141’s and C5A’s, Naval Supply US Civil Service, Ship Painter Journeyman Apprentice and a Hereford and Quarter Horse Ranch Owner. In addition, for a few years, I was the Lieutenant Commander of Tombstone Company, Arizona Rangers.

I now live in the beautiful Puget Sound area of the Pacific Northwest with my wonderful wife Valerie. She is retired from the US Navy Reserves as a Senior Chief but still works in the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Logistics. The kids are grown and out the door. Occasional visits are wonderful.

Q - So how did you first get into discus and/or tropical fish?

A - As a kid, I did the goldfish/guppy thing. And I practically lived in the woods of Wisconsin, playing in rivers, streams and ponds. I used to catch sunfish, bullheads, pike, bass, etc. and try to keep them alive in buckets. It was sort of a Huck Finn childhood.

We even lived in a log house/cabin with wood stove heat but no electric and yes, there was an outhouse a ways from the cabin. Not bad except in the winter. The draft coming up out of that one-seater made your eyes water.
My two older brothers used to sleep in the attic of the cabin and I can remember seeing frost on their blankets in the mornings when I was given the honor of going up there to wake them. That was cold.

Anyway, back to the question. We had fish, turtles, frogs and every other manner of aquatic life that we played with. As an adult, I had aquariums off and on up until now. I eventually settled in on livebearers. Then I switched to the wild strains of livebearers, especially mollies and swords. In the first part of last year I came across discus. Up until then I had never seen or heard of them.

Q - Please tell us about your set-up; what kind of fish did you start with and what do you have now? How many tanks do you have? How many fish? What have you focused on in breeding and/or importing? What kind of filtration did you have?

A - I first started with dime to quarter size fry. It was my feeling they were cheaper and not much of a loss if I killed them. The first ones I got were 40 orange scorpions. As I started to expand my system and collect more discus, I sort of forgot the scorpions. Not care or anything like that, just the fish themselves. I looked at them once in a while, but that was about it. Quite a few months later I noticed they were not little fry anymore but 4 inch beauties and there were still 40 of them. So, I put them up for sale. A few Simply members bought some and liked them. I was amazed. They are now all sold and gone.

With my personal stock and imports I probably have around 300 discus here. From 2 inchers to 8+ inchers. I have approximately 180 tanks, though not all are being used. If people come here needing hospital tanks, etc. I give 15’s and 20’s away for free.

I am collecting breeders right now and as far as importing, I am trying to bring in quality and sell for wholesale prices. My original intent was to sell extras to pay for what I keep. That thought didn’t last long. I now bring in adults or sub adults for myself and smaller fish for sale. Price is still at wholesale or actual cost with a buck or two added. Profit is an unknown word here. I cannot and will not do this for long, maybe 3 more years.

One more issue on importing is I did a lot of research on exporters. I settled on Albert Tan who was fairly new to discus (5 years). I had them (Just Discus) join the forums and read every nasty comment I could find on exporters, import quality and hormones.

Because of this, Albert does an excellent job of selection and more importantly of quarantine prior to shipping. His fish come to me in such great shape I can almost take them out the bags and sell them. However, I don’t. They are in quarantine for two weeks with Albert and another two weeks with me. As an importer, I am willing to pay for any extra cost at that end to get great and healthy fish at this end.

If there is a type of discus I want to bring in and Albert doesn’t have them, I ask him to find them for me. His two week quarantine procedure helps with these fish a lot. The fish come to me in medicated water and after acclimation, go straight into the same type medicated water when they get here. A little pre-planning goes a long way.

Q - What are your long term goals with discus?

A - My goal in Discus is to collect breeding stock for the next 3 or 4 years at the same time I am importing discus from Asia. During that time I intend on playing with the breeders and my water so that by the time I quit importing my breeders are going strong. I have initially settled on obtaining 40 pairs of mixed strains. By the time I am done that will be down to 5 to 10 pairs for each of three strains or lines. Considering the number of breeding, growing and holding tanks needed, I could not keep up with more than three strains and their offspring by generation that will be needed to do it right. Even with severe culling.

I would love to see several smaller operations working together in a barter, trade and referral system for providing good quality and affordable discus to the hobbyist. That is already working in Simply with some of us Sponsors to some extent. It will grow I think. There is no room for the old time competitive business attitude when dealing with this fish.

Q - Do you have any specific breeder stories you want to share?

A – If you want to know about discus, I have none. I am not a breeder…yet. I have not currently raised any discus from egg to fry. I have grown out a lot of dime size fry to 4 inchers. And I get eggs all the time. However, if you are talking about discus breeders, especially in North America, I would like to say this:

It is common for us humans to each have our own opinions and agendas. That is normal. We all have a bad habit of seeing things in print and sometimes believing what we read. You see a lot of current “Breeders” on the forums bad-mouthing importers and telling you home grown is the only way, when they themselves imported or exported in their past. This is too funny.

Let’s ask God to reach down and tear the Amazon from South America with all that is in it and all that came from it. Where would we be sitting then?
I have personally dealt with both home grown and imported discus. I have not had any importing experiences as bad as I have had experiences with homegrown. Always remember that you can have bad problems getting fish from someone as close as your neighbor.

And my final comment on this: Every discus owner, whether they be breeder, importer, exporter or just the little one tank hobbyist have this in common: They all have some good and some bad discus, some quality and some culls. No one is immune.

Q - Do you have any secrets you want to share or is there anything that you do differently that you feel helps your success?

A - Being a new guy on the block, most discus people are not going to give much credence to me or what I have to say but here is what I did. I already had quite a few years of experience with freshwater tropicals. All I needed was knowledge of the discus itself - disease treatments and the parameters it requires to be healthy and to survive.

I joined several forums. I believe Simply was the very first one I joined. I learned real quick that sometimes it is better to read instead of post. Some time spent on researching Simply will quickly show that anything and everything that could possibly happen with discus is already here.

In the beginning, two guys really stood out to me as having vast amounts of knowledge and the experience that goes with it. Some of their negative experiences I would not want to touch with a ten foot pole. But the knowledge was there for the asking and given freely.

These two guys are Cary and Jimmy. They are who got me started on the right road. And they probably have no clue they helped either.

Later, I found two more guys on Simply who helped me immensely. With discus information, places to get stuff and referrals. They were George and Jack.

Once I became a Sponsor on Simply, many others came forward with help and information. Admin, a lot of the Mods, some of the Sponsors and hobbyists like Mike and Elbert. In fact, the whole membership of Simply is great in my opinion.

I believe in my heart, that every person on every forum would be great to talk to and glean information from if it’s a one on one situation and personal attitudes and opinions are pushed to the side.


Q - Where do you get your fish now? In the past?

A - I look for fish everywhere. I have bought locally from hobbyists all over the US and imported from Albert Tan and Wayne Ng. I have never purchased a discus from a LFS.

Q - Please tell us about the fish you have now and the set up that you have both on the private side as well as the professional side?

A - In our home we have a 150 set up. It is actually my wife’s tank. It has two marineland 400 filters, two hydro V sponges and two 300 watt heaters. It has a gravel bottom, some plants and a big two piece shipwreck ornament in the center.

It is home to 50 or 60 livebearers and 4 large clown loaches. These loaches are the weirdest fish I have come across. Many times I have seen one or two of them lying on the bottom on their backs. I have even reached in with a net to scoop them out for disposal only to find sometimes they sleep like that.

In the hatchery (used loosely) my personal fish are breeder discus and adults/juvies I am holding for stock. I am still holding at 20 pair of breeders and maybe 40 – 50 younger ones I am holding for stock.

In addition, I have imports from both Albert Tan and Wayne Ng. I have new shipments pending or being worked on from both at this time.

My system (although not finished and still work in progress) is automated. I use large storage tanks for aging. My tap is well water. I only add Prime.
The system when done will work on 12 station timers and solenoid valves. Each row of tanks is on a solenoid. The master timer can be set to open these valves up to 4 times per day for up to 15 minutes each time. Installed in the lines I also have manual ball valves that can not only shut down the entire row, but each tank individually. I also can drain or fill by hand with a python.

My tanks all have over-flows. I do not recycle my tank water. It automatically drains outside. We plan to put in a couple of small koi ponds and use this water for that. I have no clue if it will work.

I use ebo heaters in each tank, marineland filters 280 or 400 and hydro V sponges, airstones, etc.

My hatchery is set up with a big blower, a de-humidifier and an electric furnace. The tank heaters seldom come on. I am also in the process of learning about RO and RO systems. That will be installed soon, maybe by end of summer.

Q - Do you have any plans for developing new strains?

A - Yes, I think everyone interested in breeding thinks about that. The sad part is, it takes years and in the mean time, Asians are most likely two or three years ahead of you doing the very same thing with the very same strain you thought no one else would think of. I learned this during my livebearer days.

I am going to play with straights and crosses. I know it is more realistic to breed for quality rather than a new strain.

Q - Can you think of anything that was done when you first started that would help discus keepers today or anything that was eliminated?

A - I think it is important to lay off the medications. Human nature is to fix it whether it needs fixing or not. Get away from that mind set.

If you encounter a problem, by all means post your question. But also search through Simply Archives and threads for all possible information on your problem.

If you have given a thorough and complete posting of your problem with photos, and you search for additional info on it, you will find out by percentage of replies, what to do and what not to do. Keep in mind that all the people who provide information on Simply can only do as good as what you give them to work with.

Q - Do you have any other tips for the Simply Discus readers?

A - The only thing I would suggest is to do more reading. Forums about discus are all over the world. Make yourself a library file. Store information for your own use in a neat and orderly format. Simply has an unbelievable amount of information stored. Free for the taking.

Q - Do you have anyone that you would like to thank with regard to your discus keeping?

A - I would like to especially thank Al for allowing me to be a Sponsor on Simply. I would like to thank Albert Tan and Eunice Oh, Andrew Soh and Dr Sun for their help. After that I would like to thank the Simply Membership as a whole. It’s a fun crowd.

As far as other individuals, I mentioned the main ones before. I could never thank them enough for their help. Nevertheless, I do thank them very much each and every one.

Q - Is there anything else you would like to add about discus, the website or anything else?

A - Simply is amazing. I love the control it is handled with. Admin and the Mod’s do great jobs. The Sponsor’s are unreal. The ones I have dealt with personally are out to do good things for the Hobby and the Hobbyists. None of them are planning on becoming millionaires any time soon. They help each other too.

The Sponsors do what they can, when they can.

Al, the “Thunder God” of Simply I believe absorbs a lot of expense that no one knows about so we can all enjoy this website.

Please Donate a dollar or two every once in a while to keep this site running. Offer to help anyway you can. Donate something with shipping included to auction off or have a drawing. We need to keep this site going. We need to all work together.

Conclusion: Thanks again Frank! Please post some pics of your system and any fish you want to share! We all appreciate how candid you have been here with us and thank you for your time!

John

PS. I think we should all start calling Al by his new nickname - Thunder God. I like it!!!

John

Great Interview John !!!

Frank is one of the great guys out there and is trying to do everything right to help the hobbyist succeed. Stay the course Frank and we will be right there with you. You are benefit to the hobby !!!!!!!!

Jack

Great spotlight! and on one of the finest people there is too!...Frank you are a wonderful person and not just cause of your simply free contests either...but for the love of the hobby and the fish.
Jarrod

Agree, great interview. Frank has a great attitude and approach. Very enjoyable. Thanks.

Paul.

John that was a great interview and I am truely amazed by Franks replies to all the questions. It was very informative and I must say this is one of the best spotlights I have read up on...

Thank you, the both of you for this little pearl of info....

Sincerely

Jason

Wow, what a great interview. Thanks Frank and John for doing that. Very informative, and just reinforced my opinion that Frank is an awesome guy. :)

Great interview John. Frank you are truly a well rounded hobbiest.
Joe

Thank you for the comments everyone. And thanks to Simply for allowing me to do this. I don't know what you all can get from my little experience with the fish we love, but its too late now. hahaha
Some have called wanting a photo of me posted. You must like cruel and unusual punishment. hahaha
After searching the house, Valerie and I came to the realization that the most current photo of us together is over 22 years old. hahaha
I am going to post it and then one of me more recently at a family wedding.
Do not let children view the last photo. They may have nightmares. hahaha
I can assure you that when dressed in black silk pajamas and face paint at midnight during an eclipse I look much better. hahaha

Can you say......YIKES!!!!

Lookin' pretty spiffy there, Frank!

Now get us some hatchery/fish pics! I know the masses would approve!

John

That was a great Interview John, Thanks again ...I miss these when we don't have time for them!

and Frank...Thanks for sharing and the kind words over the site... Its good to hear the appreciation there!:)
I hope you continue to have Success in all that you are trying to accomplish !

-al
The Thunder God:) LOL...I never dreamed I'd attain that nick name..I am more used to the seedier nick names and expellatives:)

Thanks for the interview, Frank and John. That was great :)

Ryan

Thanks guys,
And Al, if you keep that wonderful sense of humor intact, this is going to remain a wonderful site!!! hahahaha
Photos coming. Have to ship this afternoon and tomorrow, but will "get er" done.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gold Mt Discus

Can you say......YIKES!!!!

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Frank...good pics too...lol...hey like fine wine we all get better with age huh?:D
Jarrod