dm
01-15-2003, 12:17 PM
If you have come here looking for information before getting your first Discus I have a few bits of advice that may be very helpfull to you. First of all do not change your water parameters for your Discus unless there is special circumstances for you to do so. Most likely your water is fine as long as it stays consistant. If you feel you need to change it post here first and we will let you know what to do. This is one of the hardest things to get people to realize at first. Most likely your first fish will be aquired locally and the closer your water is to theirs the better and most likely they have not changed theirs. Also it is a great idea to start out with some "starter fish". Then you can make sure you have all the basics down before you invest the farm on beautiful fish. You can always get rid of them later when you are ready to upgrade. An excellent idea would be to post here that you are new and looking for someone in your area to get some starter fish for free or really cheap. Getting fish from a hobbiest or breeder is almost always better then getting fish from your lfs and I see posts all the time of people who have some old starter fish they have never got rid of. Find one of these people in your area and you probably found your best value on some healthy fish. I see of a lot of people who have problems with lfs fish being sick. Being new to the hobby you probably can't tell the difference yet. This doesn't mean that all lfs Dicus are bad but you should try alternatives first if possible. Discus keeping is a test of patience. I doubt many people would argue with that. Take it slow and think your decisions through. Research on this board and ask a lot of questions. I am by no means an expert but I have learned so much in the last 6 months it is incredible. I feel like I have only scratched the surface of what I need to know but I have the basics down and I have not yet owned a dead discus. :) I think this is because I took the time to read and made my decisions carefully. Fortunatly my mistakes have not been major ones (yet). I still don't make any changes to what I do without seeing how everyone else does it and learning how and why I should do it. Discus are NOT difficult to keep. They just have special needs and it takes a little more time to keep the water changes up. If you take the time to learn the basics and ask question where you are confused you will end up with happy Discus. We look forward to meeting new people and helping them to become as adicted as we are.