Regret after impulse

[mikechen]

Today after my failure of breeding discus pair, I browsed the web and found a local hobbyist selling a batch of two months old discus. Not thinking too much I called the hobbyist asking for the price and found the near 50 juveniles cheap and worthwhile. He delivered the discus within two hours. I did not check the discus because of his reputation and fame on local discus web. I have to say most of the juvs are fine and eat like pigs but I find 5 are short of gill cover. They look OK on one side but scary on the other. I do not want to cull them because they are what we called "LIFE". More than this I am thinking of my exploded tank. I already have 15 adult discus in my 4.2 feet tank. So I put the juv in my 2 feet tank(50 liters) with the three runts I keep. They are small now what if they grow up? So I call my friend to share the juvs with me. I am glad he says "yes". The only problem is --The short of gill cover discus. Are they born lack of gill cover or some kind of disease caused them what they are now? And how to take care of them. I learn my lesson today~to think more before action taken.

[Willie]

The "exploding tank" phenomenon is a major reason why we cull. The runts and the short gill cover fish are never going to recover. All the runts I don't cull eventually die anyway. You can take them to a LFS or introduce them to the freezer. Alternatively, you'll end up crowding the rest of your fish. Both of your tanks are overcrowded. You'll need to cull, sell and split fish with your friend if you want them to grow well.

Life is usually a set of bad choices, Willie :(

[mikechen]

By the way- can anyone tell me 30 1 inch large discus in 50 liters tank. Will it be too crowded? I do water change twice a day. I will take some pics tomorrow.

[mikechen]

Willie:

Thanks for your advise. I call some friend to share with me and they all agree. Yeah! Sad to say life is cruel. :(

[hexed]

Well I will say this. I have one discus with short gill plates and I did not "cull" her. As a matter of fact, she paired off with one of my males and that was my first breeding pair. You can see pics of her under breeding, the thread is "breeding in a 55 gallon tank" None of the fry had any short gills and most were almost perfectly round.
Here is a pictutre of her. She is healthy, harty, happy and a perfect mother.
I believe I read in a thread here that short gills are from feeding to much food and the fry grew to quickly, but do not quote me on it and it is not a genetic defect because my female did not pass it on to her fry.
Frank

[RyanH]

I believe that short gill covers are usually environmental and not genetic; a result of growing too fast when very young... at least this is what I've been told. While it's not a desirable trait, if you want to keep them to eventually breed, you might be all right.

I agree though, it sounds like your tanks are pretty crowded. You may want to thin your herd a bit. :)

[mikechen]

Frank: I observe the short of gill cover two are quite healthy but they do not look like the female in your pic; they look much worse on one side but quite normal on the other.

[mikechen]

Frank: I observe the short of gill cover two are quite healthy but they do not look like the female in your pic; they look much worse on one side but quite normal on the other.

http://tw.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/mikechentw2000/detail?.dir=/d704&.dnm=a1fescd.jpg&.src=ph
http://tw.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/mikechentw2000/detail?.dir=/d704&.dnm=1e45scd.jpg&.src=ph
http://tw.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/mikechentw2000/detail?.dir=/d704&.dnm=4c89scd.jpg&.src=ph

My friend will pick some diiscus this Saturday, thus I do change water everyday twice.


Ryan: Yes, my two feet tank is really too crowded. I have to feed a lot and change water a lot twice a day. I wonder how people do when their discus breed with 200~300 fries?

[hexed]

Mike,
Is that an under ground filter plate in the last picture? If so why is it there?

[discus2010]

That is so sad i feel bad for the poor fish
So young too

[CAGE-RATTLER]

As much as i hate to see that ........... thanks for posting the link to it.

Ive heard of the short gill plates but have not seen a fish with one untill now.

Now i know what to look for.

Its pics like that that help us (or me at least) learn.

People can say alot about what to look for ....... but without pics its real hard to really know what to look for.

I would love to see more pics like that or pics of other things to look out for instead of seeing perfect discus all the time .................. or pics of bad fish .......... and no one saying so.

Bring on that critique section .................. and more thatn likely only the real good fish will make it there ............. so bring on a bad fish section for us newbs wanting to learn.!

[candyl70]

Wow... i have never seen that either. Poor guy. Mike, what did you end up doing with them??


Candy

[Dissident]

Wow... I would contact the breeder and see if he will do anything. That one in the pic with the short gill-plate should have NEVER been sold if he considers himself a reliable breeder.

Did you know or did the breeder say what grade you were getting or did you know you were getting culls in the batch?

I would do the job that the breeder was incompetent of doing and cull, if he will not do the right thing and replace the fish with acceptable ones.

[Kindredspirit]

That is so sad, Mike~

...and there are five like that? I wonder why these fish were allowed to get so big? Should not someone have seen this when they were like really small?

Perhaps not~


I have never seen that before and had wondered what 'short gill plate' meant~ Very informative, Mike! Could you answer a question? How many gallons is your 2 feet tank? Seems like everyone here knows that, but not me!! lol!http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/23/23_11_62.gif


Take care Mike, and good luck. You seem like a very caring and sensitive man...this can not be an easy thing~



Marie~

[discusdave]

Wow... I would contact the breeder and see if he will do anything. That one in the pic with the short gill-plate should have NEVER been sold if he considers himself a reliable breeder.

Did you know or did the breeder say what grade you were getting or did you know you were getting culls in the batch?

I would do the job that the breeder was incompetent of doing and cull, if he will not do the right thing and replace the fish with acceptable ones.

He got them cheap though. If they were inexpensive I wouldn't worry about five. Sounds like he bought them from a hobbyist and not a real experienced breeder. I'm not a discus breeder, more of a hobbyist, and I would probably have a hard time killing them. I regard my discus as pets. Current count: about 87 Plates (Discus) and holding.

[Dissident]

He got them cheap though. If they were inexpensive I wouldn't worry about five. Sounds like he bought them from a hobbyist and not a real experienced breeder. I'm not a discus breeder, more of a hobbyist, and I would probably have a hard time killing them. I regard my discus as pets. Current count: about 87 Plates (Discus) and holding.

Well that's good to know, I was hopeing that no one was trying to rip him off. Even for a hobbyist those fish should have been culled, unless the source didn't know or thought they would develop fine.

[John_Nicholson]

There are just to many nice discus in the world today to keep ones that are not nice. Go ahead and cull them and save your limited tank space for nice fish. Nothing in this old world is guaranteed a long life. In the wild animals with issues are the first to go. Why should mother natures law be broken just because we have the fish in a tank? Just because we have protected them from preditors does not mean we should keep them. It means that we need to take the place of the preditors and weed out the small, weak, deformed fish.

-john

[RobMc]

As a newbie I have to echo the sentiments of others: its really valuable to see pictures of 'what not to buy.' Sad, but good to know about.

Rob

[jim_shedden]

Mike:
Thanks for sharing this.

Jim

[pcsb23]

Mike, a lesson learned the hard way, experience is the best teacher, but it can be hard. It took some courage to post your 'mistake', hopefully other can learn from it too!
Thanks,
Paul.