Wild Tefe Discuss from Wattley Discus?

I've been looking at various "themes" for my new 125g discus tank and keep going back and forth with either keeping colorful domestics or doing a tank with a single strain of wilds. (The tank will be bare bottom until they are grown out and then I'd like to do some easy to maintain aqua-scaping).

I'm local to Jack Wattley's in South Florida and saw that he has wild Tefe Greens 10 for $475.

My question is does anyone keep these or have they purchased them from J. Wattley's?

Do these need special water conditions or will clean tap water roughly 7.4 ph after ageing and aeration suffice? I'll be ageing the water in two 55 gallon brute containers.

Should I, as a soon to be new discus keeper, settle down and just stick to domestics and make my order from Han's once the new tank is setup?

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Originally Posted by FLBlue

I've been looking at various "themes" for my new 125g discus tank and keep going back and forth with either keeping colorful domestics or doing a tank with a single strain of wilds. (The tank will be bare bottom until they are grown out and then I'd like to do some easy to maintain aqua-scaping).

I'm local to Jack Wattley's in South Florida and saw that he has wild Tefe Greens 10 for $475.

My question is does anyone keep these or have they purchased them from J. Wattley's?

Do these need special water conditions or will clean tap water roughly 7.4 ph after ageing and aeration suffice? I'll be ageing the water in two 55 gallon brute containers.

Should I, as a soon to be new discus keeper, settle down and just stick to domestics and make my order from Han's once the new tank is setup?

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Blue, after reading all of this I'd recommend that you first settle down and take a breath.

Don’t know why but I’m seeing these wild greens in my local pet stores since the summer. Wondering if someone is breeding them. That said who knows the quality of these fish. Wattley sounds like he’s buying his discus from wholesalers now. Hans!! To me his discus are the best beginner discus. Start with 6 and grow them to 4” and see how it goes. You don’t need to do this in a 125. Start in a 45-55. Grow them in there while your setting up your 125. Than at the 4” size add them to your 125. If your happy with how it worked out get another 6 and put them in the now empty 55. This set you can do again at 2.5” fish or but the bigger 4”. Leave them in the 55 for at least a month. When your sure they look and act as good as your first set add them. 12 in a 125 is a good group. Now you’ve got that grow out tank as qt tank. Anything new going into the discus tank goes in there first.

Wild Tefe are one of my favorite.

Two summers ago, I visited a fish keeper in St. Paul who kept fancy guppies to get some stock. It turned out he also kept discus. He had just gotten two dozen wilds from Wattley Discus. Gabe was just starting to import wilds then and his initial shipment certainly looked healthy to me. This kept them in straight St. Paul tap water which is fairly hard, but definitely preconditioned the water. His tanks were way overstocked, but he made huge water changes daily.

Just need to qualify that this observation is from two years ago. I don't have any insight into more recent shipments.

Just saw that the guy I referenced is selling a mated pair of wilds on AquaBid. Again, I have not seen him since that last visit and this is not meant to vouch for him or the fish, just that he got his fish from Gabe.

I have seen some junk come from Wattley lately. Perhaps if you can hand pick your fish it maybe worth it. If I was getting wilds I would get them from John K. (snookn21).
Pat

My comments related strictly to health. Shape/color reflects fish price and I'm more likely to buy from John as well.