Old Stendkers meet New Stendkers!

[fishguy456]

This may be a dumb question, but how do you get your fish to grow so large!!! Also, would it be okay to mix hans discus with asian discus? I thought his were german and I heard it wasn't a smart move to mix german and asian discus. thanks!

[strawberryblonde]

Hi David,

I actually don't do anything special at all to get them to jumbo size. I think my water is part of the equation. I have VERY high pH and VERY soft water, which is unusual. My TDS is only about 100 most of the time (varies from summer to winter, but never higher than 110).

In the beginning of my discus journey I bought from Discus Hans and thought perhaps the large size was all his fault, but then I raised a tank of oddball discus from another supplier and they got just as big. I still have one of those discus and he's a full 8".

And currently I have a tank full of Kenny's discus and they are growing out just as big, though not quite as quickly. They are all between 7-9 months old now. The smallest is 6" and the largest is 7.5". They have another year of growing to do, so I'm thinking they'll definitely be jumbo's by then.

If I was you I wouldn't mix Asian's with Germans. I know that some people on here do it successfully, and Kenny's discus are the Asians they mix with Hans fish without problems (from what I've read).

But for me? I lost an entire tank of my Germans when I accidentally cross contaminated my tanks during one water change. My Hans discus became sick within 3 days of exposure to the wrong cleaning brush and eventually all but 3 of them died... I had 11 of them at the time. So not good odds at all!