Which Strain grows the biggest

[ltgoof]

Calling all discus guru...

Based on your experience which strains tends to grow biggest or shoud I say out-grow other strains. Is there such a strain that is genetically tends to grow bigger than others?

[Eddie]

Calling all discus guru...

Based on your experience which strains tends to grow biggest or shoud I say out-grow other strains. Is there such a strain that is genetically tends to grow bigger than others?

The healthy ones that are cared for properly.

HTH
Eddie

[DiscusDude85]

The healthy ones that are cared for properly.

HTH
Eddie

Haha isnt that the truth. Wc's Wc's Wc's!




Joe

[bs6749]

Altum floras and another one that I can't remember for certain (purple knights?) tend to grow larger than the other strains.

[kaceyo]

Altum floras and another one that I can't remember for certain (purple knights?) tend to grow larger than the other strains.

Your thinking of Wayne Ng's Blue Knights. They are said to grow out to 9" or 10" frequently. Although saying it and doing it are two different things.

Kacey

[bs6749]

It's quite possible that it is his Blue Knight line, I remember it being some sort of knight, but now that you mention it that sounds like the one.

[ltgoof]

The healthy ones that are cared for properly.

HTH
Eddie

:D:D:D I know somebody will jump with this kind of reply. That's why I emphasize on the word "Genetically" ;)

Any species under the sun when put in a less conducive environment would have an effect on life expectancy and growth, of course there are always exception.

The reason I ask is, for example humans or any animal species that you know have different traits and characteristics, so therefore discus shouldn't be an excemption. Some human grow taller because of genetics, so as dogs. Imagine when you see a chiuaua dog that grows 3 ft in height. :p I bet this wouldn't happen even you provide a perfect environment for this dog. You know where I'm going with this.

Anyway, thanks for your input guys. I saw some thread regarding a Blue Knight Discus that reach 10" to 12" from a breeder in Taiwan. I believe he was know as Sunny or Sonny that use to export Discus down there in the US and affiliated with WWFF.

[MHTan]

Turquoise and Leopards normally out grow pigeon blood, golden, and albino strains. Im sure this statement will not hold true forever as breeders continue to improve these newer strains.

Nice avatar - Dr. Jose Rizal =)

[John_Nicholson]

First when looking at sizes you have to specify either SL (standard Length) or TL (Total Length). Most fish people will use SL, which basically means that you don't measure the tail. I have owned some absolute monsters over the years and have never had a fish over 6 1/2 inches SL. There has been lots of people that claimed to have them but none ever seem to offer up any proof. I have been to peoples places that claimed to have 9 or 10 inch discus. I loked at ever fish they owned and never found one over 6 inches......

Anyway any discus that will make 6 inches of standard length is a really, really big discus.

For all of ya'll that claim to own this 9 and 10 inch fish don't be mad at me I'm just keeping it real.

-john

[Moon]

Most people here think TL when they discuss size. This is why 9" size keeps coming up. The largest discus i've seen were at the Ohio Chiclid Convention. Hans had some really big discus. I would think his were around 7" SL.

[John_Nicholson]

Hans is a close friend of mine. When Hans came to his first TCA show I cleared his fish though customs. I ended up getting several of the fish after the show. I pair of cobalts were real monsters. Their SL was 6 1/4 inches. 99% of all people misjudge the length of their fish. Although I amnot online that much anymore I have been on this forum pretty much since it started. When I see someone talking about their monster fish I use to always ask for the same thing....Get a towel, lay a ruler on it, lay the fish next to it and take a pic.....To this day no one has ever produced a pic of a pic over 6 inches for me. I think a lot of them measured their fish but decided against posting the pic if you catch my drift. There is a individual south of me a few hours that was claiming to have a 9 inch discus. He never posted a pic. I know several people that saw his fish. When those same people came to my hatchery they all agreedthat one of my PB's (from Hans) was larger. That fish measured 6 1/4 inches SL. I have no doubt that there are a few discus out there that reach a huge size but they are rarer then hens teeth.....

-john

[William Palumbo]

I was at one of the DSG(Discus Study Group) symposiums in NY many years ago, and Lo Wing Yat had a few of the BIGGEST Discus I had ever seen back then...and still now I have never seen any as big. We never measured them, but me and my buddy helped to break down the show room and netted his fish out, and it looked bigger out of the water! I know Mr. Feiler was there...maybe he can comment...Bill

[Rod]

Largest discus i have seen is a red melon closely followed by a blue diamond. These were huge and thick fish in an aussie fish show. I have also attended aquarama a few times and visited many professional breeders in asia, the largest discus i have seen on these tours is around 6" sl.
Fish people in general have a real problem estimating size :D

[dpt8]

I must say Al has some HUGE HUGE HUGE cobalt type. He can correct me on the variety name. If you go to his websight and look under the section titled something like " about us", you will see them ( I think) in the tank to his left. I have some huge fish he has sold me but mine are not as large as these. I cannot say how many inches they are but I doubt there are any much larger. It is great to have awesome huge fish but I am learning through him that certain varieties are bred for color and pattern, not largest size. Also like waterfowl, the largest specimens are too huge and lathargic to be good breeders. Keep in mind genetics plays a role and you could have huge disus, medium size discus and smaller size discus all in the SAME batch of siblings, and you may have to grow out a LOT of fish from the same batch to get the largest size. That's why I like buying young adult matching groups. You pay good money for them but they are well worth it. All grown out and matching in size, color and shape. As stated in other threads, the German varieties and classic varieties such as turqs have been bred for size.

[mikel]

Yup, they are BIGGGGGG!!! This is why I call Al's Beef heart the "magic food"....mike

[MostlyDiscus]

I saw some of Peter Thouds BDs that were between 9 and 10 inches. Graham may have seen them too. Graham?

[John_Nicholson]

Like I have said before lots of people claim monster fish but those people never seem too also own a tape measure or a camera.......

-john

[brewmaster15]

I'm With John,
I've seen alot of discus and I have had some really Nice big ones.. but I think that the glass, water and size envy thing gets in the way of real sizes verses wishful thinking.:) I'm sure that there are some monsters out there... but If I don't see a tape measure it...its just a big discus to me....but I take the 9,10 and up inch sizes with a grain of salt.

-al

[casw]

John Nicholson's posts make the most sense to me. I drew out a discus based on a 6 1/4" SL line and the discus fills up a 8" X 10" paper. I'm no good at drawing but I think my proportions were reasonably correct. With a 6 1/4" SL the discus can be 8" TL and over very easily.

If you're good at drawing and base your discus off a 6 1/4" SL line then I think it'll make more sense. Sadly I've never seen a truly huge discus in real life either. Guess I'll have to wait and see with discus which seem to grow faster than their tankmates.

[brewmaster15]

It really isn't a problem to just net the fish and measure...takes a minute... and its not going harm the discus at all.. I just netted one of my big blues... probably my beefiest and largest discus here currently...

Most people that see this fish in person over estimate its size... I really think that alot the "monsters" we hear about are large fish that got bigger with the telling and are just that..Large fish....though I am sure theres some that really do dwarf this one ...I'd personally like to see more Tape measures by these though...it just really helps with the facts.

Hth,
al

[ShinShin]

SL, TL. We all must be on the same page when we discuss size. Once, I always thought TL should be used because the tail is part of the fish, and when we measured the bass or trout we caught, we always included the tail. Hans subsribes to that theory -the head is part of the tail.

Then I started to see differently regarding discus because height is as important as length. I now subscribe to the SL model of measurement. In another post, I spoke of a pair of Cobalts that pushed 9". This was TL. The male was 8 7/8", the female 81/2" by the tape. This was not an estimated length.

I also talked about a 9+" pair of Red Dragons I saw that were from Viet Nam. This, too, was TL. I bought a pair of Red Dragons that day, the male was 6"SL, the female 51/2"SL, and the other pair absolutely dwarfed the pair I bought. They were tending a spawn of what looked like at least 600 eggs. I have never seen discus that big or a spawn that was that large.

Mat

[Cooldadddyfunk286]

It really isn't a problem to just net the fish and measure...takes a minute... and its not going harm the discus at all.. I just netted one of my big blues... probably my beefiest and largest discus here currently...

Most people that see this fish in person over estimate its size... I really think that alot the "monsters" we hear about are large fish that got bigger with the telling and are just that..Large fish....though I am sure theres some that really do dwarf this one ...I'd personally like to see more Tape measures by these though...it just really helps with the facts.

Hth,
al

hey Al, what strain is that right up there?? ^ its a beautiful fish, I love the color. I'd like one just like it! :D

[lemondiscus]

You know, you are absolutely right! I have a Heckel I thought was 8" and is only a bit over 6".... just netted him and measured... wow I suck at guessing fish sizes! lol

Well, most of my fish are 5-6" lol.... and wow do they look so much different in size!

[DLock3d]

Largest discus i have seen is a red melon closely followed by a blue diamond. These were huge and thick fish in an aussie fish show. I have also attended aquarama a few times and visited many professional breeders in asia, the largest discus i have seen on these tours is around 6" sl.
Fish people in general have a real problem estimating size :D

Ironically enough this goes for fisherman too! It was THIS BIG \||||---------------||||/


Those are hands btw.

[lemondiscus]

Ironically enough this goes for fisherman too! It was THIS BIG \||||---------------||||/


Those are hands btw.
Yeah I was shocked how far off I was... my measurement was FL a little over 6" on my largest specimen... I feel dumb now :?

[Scribbles]

According to Eddie/Basshead the largest strain is the Japanese Hardware Store Discus.:D IMO its quality not size that counts.

Chris

[Eddie]

According to Eddie/Basshead the largest strain is the Japanese Hardware Store Discus.:D IMO its quality not size that counts.

Chris

Thats what she said!

LOL

[Tito]

You guys are Discus freaks!

LOL

I love Discus as well and that's why I came back to them.

But allow me to amuse you.
I have kept many kinds of fish and because of that I have been to many a breeder's house looking for a particular fish. And sometimes just a hobbyist who is selling his fish.

Let me tell you. Hobbyist either are liars or just plain suck at telling fish size. Many of the breeders were honest about their fish size but some of them were pretty shady on sizing fish as well.

IMO many regular folk just suck at describing the size of their fish. I'm with you experienced Discus guys - must Discus I've seen as adults were basically 6 to 6.5" total length.

[Eddie]

6 to 6.5" total length.

Read my last post. LOL

Eddie

[Scribbles]

Thats what she said!

LOL

LOL ;):D

Chris

[Dutch dude]

The "size" discusion came up again so here a link to a previous post not so long ago. Lots of people claim to have seen or to own a huge discus but only few were able to post pics and proof the large size of the discus. Hans was one of them and as you can see he does have huge discus of several strains. Still the 6 1/4 inch SL or 8 inch TL is the largest size that came up.

Here the link
http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showthread.php?t=68655&highlight=mythical&page=5

[NeW2tHeBrEeD]

Your thinking of Wayne Ng's Blue Knights. They are said to grow out to 9" or 10" frequently. Although saying it and doing it are two different things.

Kacey
wow 9 - 10 inch!! holy!!

[DiscusOnly]

Alright. This was easy.. I managed to get myself and the camera wet with all the splashing trying to measure these guys. Poor picture but got the tape measure in the picture. One hand on the ruler and the other on the bulky camera. Most of my discus are like the red ones. The 2 SS are exception.

This is 3 of the discus from this tank.

And yes, they do look much bigger in the tank when the fins are out.

[seanyuki]

Hi Van,

You got some very big discus.....so envy:D.....but hardly see any albinos discus that are 9 to 10 ins.....hope to see some king size albino.....anyone care to share their big albinos discus


Cheers
Francis:)

[DiscusOnly]

Francis,

My albino golden are no bigger than 5.5" Out of a dozen, I can pick out about 4-5 that I really like. They eat, just don't grow. I have a feeling I need to give it another 9-12 months to get another 1" or so but much more rounded.

BTW.. just about every discus in that tank is cleaning glass every WC but I think there is like 1 female in there.

Van

[Eddie]

Nice big fish Van, fatty's. ;)

Eddie

[Dutch dude]

Vlam,...you posted the last pic in an other post and I already detected the 2 large once but I didn't knew they were that large! Very nice fish :thumbsup:

[Cooldadddyfunk286]

Van, what a sweet snakeskin you have, wish I had one of those big boys floatin around in my tank :) Im waiting for my LSS to get that big, but I hear they take longer to grow, which I am already noticing. killer snake tho man, the reds are beautiful too!

[Don Trinko]

My biggest fish are RT's. I have some Alencers that have grown faster than any of my other discus but are young enough to grow a lot more. I do not have any 8 to 10" discus. My bigest is abought 7"TL. I supose I could take it out of the water and get my micrometer out but It realy isn't that important to me to have a presise measurement.
I don't like to move my fish unnesisarily so I made a ruller from clear medical tape and taped it up to the tank and waited for the fish to stop in the wright place.
I am a fisherman and I do realize that sometimes fish "grow" considerably over time. I caught a 2.5 pound bass when I was a kid. It was close to 3 pounds by the time I got it home and when they put my pickture in the newspaper it must have been at least 5! Don T.