View Full Version : Did you kill your first Discus?
Just wondering how many people here failed at their first attempt at keeping discus? I bought four adults cobalts from a local wholesaler I worked at 10 years ago for $15.00 each. I hauled them up to college and tosed them into a 90 gallon tank. For the first few months they ate frozen brine,bloodworms and flake food. I went to cub foods and bought distilled water for them. It was bare bottom tank with potted plants. Well college activities soon took over my intrest and I stopped doing water changes as often. I stopped buying distilled water and using aged tap water. To my surprise all four paired up and soon spawned under this mistreatment. Of course the eggs didn't hatch but I had to be doing something right, right. Well not soon after two of them turned very dark and became very ill. In a matter of 10 days all were dead and my first attempt to keep these beautiful fish ended in failure. Now I'm trying again but this time I'm doing everything slow and hopefully informed thanks to this website and others. In Dec I will be purchasing some adults again. What was your first attempt like?
Thanks
Drew
Not only the first one. May be the first 100. I wiped out completely at least 4 times with over 50 adults each. Mostly due to different committments in life and change in priority . Some caused by disease and stupid mistakes. The last one being the worse was a 4L. muriatic acid felt into my show tank with the top open.
Jimmy.
6 years ago the ph had to be 6.5 or under!!! I bought a few jugs of acid buffer so everytime I did a water change i would just throw some buffer into the water after i added straight from the tap. My ph was 8.2 coming out of tap.
So my discus would go from Ph of around 8 to 6 in a matter of minutes. Well you can imagine how they reacted to my stupidity, I was on Discus-l at the time and found lots of help there and soon stopped my bad ways, I even have a pigeon blood from 6 years ago although I have no idea how she survived my learning curve.
Ken
DarkDiscus
11-08-2002, 10:47 AM
And the difference between back then and now is that information is much more available and much more specific. Thanks to my friends here and lots of reading, I still have 9 of the first 10 fish I bought and all are happy, healthy and still eating like hogs.
Hopefully they will be breeding soon as well, as my BD pair has been managing more and more eggs with each try and seem to be getting it down.
What I want to do is thank all of you who lost your fish, learned from it and spread the wealth so that people like me and many others here have much more success from the start!
Thanks, guys!
John
Rick_May
11-08-2002, 10:53 AM
My first attempt was back in 88, I was getting bored of the same old selection of fish. I'd seen pictures of discus and they always were in nice planted tanks. I thought 'heck I'm pretty good at this fish keeping thing' so I found a place in northern Cal, had them shipped to me and the fun began. I had setup a nice planted 55 gallon tank, lots of plants just like I had seen. The fish were fine for the first few weeks them they began to get sick. (I think I seen this same situation about 100 times on these forums). I tried treating the tank several times with all kinds of LFS recommended meds and they kept getting sicker. I killed off all the plants with these meds. Didn’t replant wanting to get my fish better first. I finally took the sickest put it in a 10 gallon bare bottom and was surprised that within a week it was the largest and fattest out of the group. One of the things I noticed is this fish got most of his food off the bottom. So being a slow learner I put him back in the planted tank and put the next sickest fish into the bare bottom 10 gallon. I thought was just to feed foods that didn’t sink. This worked better but by the time all six fish had gone through the bare bottom 10 gallon the first was sick. During the process I had lost only one of the six I started with. Them I had a stroke of enlightenment ‘why not make the big tank bare bottom?’. Things were great from then on. I always made sure I changed 10% once or twice a week. I kept those fish for over three years before I had to sell them to a LFS because I was in the Navy and was transferring to sea duty.
I think simply's most helpful forum is the disease forum. I have never learned so much reading about the different meds and different methods of treatment. I feel comfortable if something happens the people here will bail me out of trouble. ;D
Drew
larry lob
11-08-2002, 02:03 PM
Hi
having kept tropicals for 8 years and then marines for 4 years i thought hmmmmmm discus !!!!!
bad purchasing and silly water mistakes took out the 1st tank of 10 juvis.
such was my disgust i threw the tank into a skip dismantled all my other tanks and took up fishing.
after a year or so i decided i missed my tanks and thought i would not be beaten.
soooooooo i set up all over from scratch and yes lost the next batch of fish.
this being my 3rd attempt and a sucsess as to having kept all fish alive for over a year including bad purchasess and bad travellers.
Larry
BLUEKNIGHT
11-08-2002, 02:19 PM
I started with 6 ABD and had them for about 6 months until my brother threw some angels in there lost all of them in a matter of days.
About 3 mos ago I purchased my first 6 discus - 2 each of emerald green, blue diamond, and marlboro red from a local breeder, all about 1" in size. The two greens never thrived among the others. They ate voraciously at 1st then just stopped. Yes, one at a time they turned dark, moped in the corner. The med did not help. I just laid the 2nd green to rest this past week. Others thriving. Have a 55 WITH gravel, power filter, temp 86F, 7 tbs. salt/wc with 50% wc 2x week. Variety of frozen and flake foods. Having been in the hobby all my live with other tropicals of all sorts, these by far have been the greatest challenge! I may end up taking the gravel out but the tanks look so barren. Sly gave me an idea w/his posted pics w/his recent interview - put a picture behind tank! Looks good! So my experience is mixed but 2/3 successful thus far.... any suggestions would be appreciated!
TheDiscusKid
11-08-2002, 03:19 PM
Yes I have killed my first discus. Killed probably my first 10. ut with information that there is now and with forums like this one, i am succesful for keeping these fish.
Kap, in your shoes I would.
Remove the gravel
Increase water changes to every day with stored water with exactly the same ph and temp of the tank water.
Feed live blk worms from a proven sorce with your other foods.
Ken
korbi_doc
11-08-2002, 03:37 PM
:bounce: :bounce: Well, started a year ago, lost 90% of the 1st batch; then 60% of the next batch, used that time & experience, read lots & lots of post here & elsewhere, or should I say "elsewhere & here". Feel much more comfortable with what I'm doing now , thanks to all the help from the more experienced of us who have gone through their mistakes & taken the time to help us out. A 90g has 8 fish from the 1ts 2 groups, the 125 has 6 Wattley babies, & 9 Carey's, all growing well exc for 1 melon, but he's cute anyway. A big thanks to all for the help over this time, Dottie ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::)
EthanCote.com
11-08-2002, 04:07 PM
Hi Kap,
Once you have detected a problem with your Discus, in your case, they "They ate voraciously at 1st then just stopped. Yes, one at a time they turned dark, moped in the corner. " Then I suggest looking for disease and/or check water condition and food.
There is always a solution to a problem.
As long as you catch it early, normally you can get your Discus back to normal again.
And as a rule of thumb, don't start treatment until you know what the disease is. Also if you are feeding them say 3-4x a days, then perhaps you might need to change your water a bit more than 2X a week. And you do not always need to add salt to your WC, only use salt for stress or to rid your Discus of small fungus infect such as tail or fin rot. Treat salt as a general medication and do not use it unless you have to...same goes for raising your temperature.
Those were just pointers I learned while on Simply.
Wish you luck with the rest of yer fish.
Cheers,
RAWesolowski
11-08-2002, 06:05 PM
I assume that any death after 4 years can be labelled as due to "old age", either the fish or for me.
So far, so good. I kept discus for 6 years with two successful breedings back in the late 70s. All the fish lived over 4 years. Out of the current 10, I have one fatality - a suicide. The smallest guy jumped out of the tank when I was changing water. Of course, my back was turned and I was hauling buckets.
By the time I noticed that he was missing, he had turned into a potato chip behind the aquarium and stand....
EthanCote.com
11-08-2002, 06:21 PM
Only live up to 4yrs? I thought they can live up to 5-10yrs under ideal condition.
Guess the little bugger got carry away when he was playing hide and seek.
Cheers,
Chi.
I'm sorry to say yes I killed my first discus. It was back in either 74 or 75 that I bought them. I was 15 at the time and couldn't drive yet. I was keeping tropical fish since I was 10, but liked discus from the first time I saw them.
I lived in Philadelphia at the time and paided either $1.99 or $2.99 per fish for 2 to 3 inch browns. That was a lot of money for me back then because cardinals were 10 for a dollar at that time. They only lasted a couple of weeks at that time.
Looking back at it I did it all wrong. One there was like no information available to me on how to treat them. Nor did the pet shop give any information. I placed them in a community tank that had a temperature of 78 degrees.
I continued to keep both fresh and salt water fish tanks. In 92 I bought discus from Jack Wattleys partner Bruce. He gave me specific directions on how to keep them. From the 10 fish I bought I ended up with 3 pairs and one fish did live for over 5 years.
I did go through trial and error with these fish. Almost all information availble to me came from books. I got hooked up to the internet in either 96 or 97 and this made discus keeping a lot easier.
Liz_Streithorst
11-09-2002, 12:12 AM
Yofi, Jack Wattley's partner now is Gabe. Does he divorce partners and get new ones, or what? Not being snotty...I've gotten nice fish from Wattley...just curious.
As for the killing, I killed 5 of 12 of my first ones. One other was DOA. One of the fish I had had tapes. I treated the whole tank with prazi not knowing at the time that my water didn't have enough oxygen. The prazi bound up enough oxygen to kill 5 fish during the night. Sometime later I tried to kill them with CO2 but failed. Only a couple of weeks ago I had a Fluval disaster and tried to kill them again, but again failed. I hope to get some more fish from Cary and Joe soon. I need some new ones to try on.
Liz
I still have a few from my first batch. I did manage to kill 4 of them though. They were LFS fish and they started out sick...not a good thing!
Steve_Warner
11-09-2002, 02:47 AM
Hi all,
Good question here.............I purchased my first discus back in '94. I bought 3 blue turquoise from a LFS and popped them in my 55 gal. Of course, I had no clue as to the water quality or contents here in Vegas, other than to add Thio to cut the Chlorine. They did ok for a few months, but slowly became black and withered away to death one by one. I didn't do W/C's but every two weeks and had a mountain of gravel in the tank(with a UGF). When I think back on those poor guys, I knock myself in the head for not taking the time before buying to LEARN and READ about them. After the last one perished, I began to research all I could about them, beginning with their home(the Amazon). I studied up on them, off and on for five years, all the while looking at my dormant 125 gal I had purchased from a LFS going outta business. I decided the 125 was going to be my masterpiece in the entry of my new home someday, so I thought I had better get it right the second time. Zoom ahead to 2000 when I moved into my new home and set up my tank in the entry room. I let it cycle for a good three months with some plecos, plants, aquatic soil and African root wood(Mopani). I drove up to Sacramento the summer before last to visit my Uncle and pick up some discus from Team Discus. I also met & chated with Jim Quarles at his house on this trip(I miss that old grump). On my way home from Sacto, I stopped by Bill & Brenda Norris' place(Team Discus) to pick out some discus. I spent a few hours with them as they were wonderful to talk to and learn from(Very nice, good people). Brenda showed me the artificial method of rearing fry in ceramic bowls by doing a feeding right in front of me. I told them I wanted an assortment of diff. kinds and didn't care what kinds I got. Well, here I am today with 9 of the original 10 due to one suicide(about the time my digital thermo was causing stress for the kids). This forum, other forums and the net have been a HUGE help in furthering my knowledge and understanding of the realm of the aquarium. Here is a pic of my tank now. Sorry for the ramble. "D'oh" I posted a pic of my pair and their soon-to-be new arrivals.
Steve
Steve_Warner
11-09-2002, 02:51 AM
Hi all,
Here's a pic of my tank now.
I got my first discus in 1988, 6 turquoise discus. I already had quite a bit experience with large south american cichlids, so knew how important water changes are. I lost 2 of them in the first year learning about them, but eventually got a pair from the remaining ones. This is a pic of my first pair from that group. :)
April
11-09-2002, 08:45 AM
I got my first ones from a local breeder. think they were f20s. never grew. of course...could've been me..but i did start with bare bottom.and did do water changes...had one ammonia spike...anyhow..never kept any of them. then i moved onto lfs fish. I was lucky..as i bought one here..one there...all from different lfs. didnt get a disease..could've....though.
Liz, Gabe has been Jack's partner for a long time now. Jack and Bruce are still friends. It was Bruce who didn't want to breed discus anymore. It was to time consuming. Besides the discus Bruce was breeding Marmosett (sp) monkeys and exotic cats. Gabe told me Bruce also did something with horses. If thats all not enough Bruce also has a bad back. You can see pictures of Bruce's set up in Degen's book "The Proper Care of Discus" on page 83.
Willie
11-09-2002, 04:43 PM
Sigh, it looks like I'm the oldest again. I tried discus first time as a teenager living in NYC. which must have been around 71 - 72. I had a tank of large angels which I sold and took the money to buy 8 browns. It cost around $40, which was a ton of money for me. I remember taking the subway to Brooklyn, an hour and a half each way, to a fish store. They had run a tiny ad in the NY Daily News. After reading and rereading the Axelrod bible, I had to have them.
Of course, I knew nothing about chlorine, nitrogen cycle, pH, etc. They went quickly, one after another. I didn't try discus again until five years ago. An ad in the Minneapolis Star Tribune by a local breeder featured Red Turqs for $10 apiece. I bought six, put them into a planted angelfish tank, and repeated the experience.
Then I killed more... Willie :(
discus4me
11-09-2002, 10:35 PM
I only started keeping fish 8 months ago and i had no idea what it took to even keep fish. I mean i knew nothing to give you a basic idea of my ignorance i bought a new 10 gallon tank with 2 pufferfish, 3 small oscars,and 2 pleco's on top of the overloaded tank i didnt even cycle the tank. I just threw them in to die. Obviously my intent was not to kill the fish i just thought all you needed was water and a filter to keep the fish. After 4 of the fish died i took the rest back to the lfs and decided to do some reading on fish keeping thats when i saw the discus (i couldnt wait but knew i had to because of this thing called cycling) ::). To make a long story short i have 8 discus ranging from 5&1/2 " to 2" now and all are doing well but i've killed 3 all which were blue diamonds (darn things just wont live). Anyway i feel bad enough after telling that story i'm gonna have a beer. I guess the purpose of telling that was that noone can do worse than i did as a beginner. ;D
nalah
11-09-2002, 11:26 PM
by the sounds of it,most of you had previous experience. i knew zilch.
had golfish for as long as i can remember.
i was one of those people that never did wc unless water turned green or i just couldnt see fish thru glass. new fish - no worries..dumped straight into the tank. i new about ph. thats all.
got fed up and gave them all to mum....LOL
In January,went to lfs and he told me what to buy - a heater! and he sold me nice expensive fish ofcourse. angles,discus,tetras,loaches..the lot. discus died. got 2 more... they died.
gave up... then one day at different lfs,saw discus...thought i'd give it another shot.
THEY SPAWNED... got rid of all fish,took out all wood,gravel,etc...and it was around this time that i found simply..
my discus are not show quality (although i have 4 blue diamonds that are pretty close to it) and i am learning thru my errors. its the best thing thats happened. i love it. i'm addicted....
people think i'm crazy. i don't want to go out..i have to do my wc at night... :bounce: and thats fun.
rfidiscus
11-09-2002, 11:35 PM
I have to say that I was lucky with my first discus... I started out with a cobalt blue discus and a red turq in 1987. I had a 55 gal tank setup with about 200 fish in it...jk. It actually was way overcrowded. Anyway I found these 2 discus at my lps and went for it. These 2 matured and turned into a "pair". Now the frustrations began, my "pair" ate everybatch of eggs they laid. I screened the eggs off and they patiently waited for the fry to swim through and then they ate them!!! From caviar to anchovies mmmm :P Anyway I ordered from a "breeder" in NYC 6 cobalt blue discus which ended up becoming 3 pairs. And then the real discus obsession began! I went from that one 55 to over 200 tanks. And believe me there have been plenty of mistakes here and there. My favorite was when a pump quit working overnight and around 75 3-4 inch rsg ended up in the compost. >:( Time for that backup air blower and an emergency backup generator....
discus4me
11-10-2002, 01:40 AM
hey steve-warner,
I was wondering what kind of plant that is along the top of your aquarium? Does it help the nirate level in your tank too? I want like 5 of them so i can cover up my ugly looking hood. one last question do you just stick the ends of the plant in the tank or do you cut them first?
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