cheshire oaks discus

[chtty]

has anyone had any fish from here are they ok

[Paul Sabucchi]

I have never been there so can't give a review, the stock on their YouTube videos though seems very run of the mill LFS quality (to be kind). I can see a lot of football shaped big eyed fish, some of the PB strains have a lot of peppering. I would advise you to try and purchase the best quality fish your budget will stretch to, if you start with genetically flawed and stunted stock no matter how much you feed them and how much water you change the results will probably be underwhelming, you would just be polishing the proverbial. There are a fair few top notch breeders and retailers in the UK, so maybe do a bit more research before you buy your fish

[RogueDiscus]

The main things I would add to Paul's comments are if you can get actual pics of the specific fish being offered, or better yet, see them in person, and they have nice round shape and eye to body size ratio, they might be OK. His raising techniques do sound reasonable. Paul did not say it specifically, but unless you are experienced with raising discus, buying adult or near adult fish is recommended, and since they are very social, groups of 6 or more. Otherwise, the fact that he advertises being a seller with over a thousand fish suggests he's a wholesaler also, which is not always the best source. Just be careful.

[Second Hand Pat]

Hi Paul, first let me welcome you to SimplyDiscus and Paul and Steve have giving you some excellent things to consider. I would also suggest checking out BIDKA, the British International Discus Association http://www.forum.bidka.org/ which is a UK based forum and I bet you could find or inquire about some good references on UK based discus vendors. Best of luck in your search and please, if you get some discus share them here.
Pat

[Paul Sabucchi]

Although the BIDKA forum is also one of those on the verge of extinction, sadly it seems to have very little life left in it. Would be a real shame to see it go, particularly because I am unaware of any other UK based discus forum. Anyway I would advise you first to at least go and have a nosey at at least one of the tried and tested retailers, depending on where you live (presumably West Midlands) or work takes you: Chen's discus, Devotedly Discus, Punchards discus or DL discus just to name a few. This way you should have some kind of standard to compare the fish you can see at Cheshire Oaks. As Steve rightly said purchasing older discus, although more expensive, will remove a lot of hurdles. If on the other hand you want to grow out juveniles, although it involves a lot more work it can also be pretty rewarding. Feel free to bounce your thoughts on this forum

[chtty]

thanks all ill do a bit more looking around i think

[Paul Sabucchi]

Shopping around is a good idea.
Francis Hu (Chen's) gets most of his domestic discus from top Asian breeders such as Daniel Indarta in Indonesia and his wilds from Brasil collected by Victor Hugo Quaresma (Santarem discus), DL discus are supplied by Lawrence Soon (Luckytropical fish farm Malysia), Devotedly discus gets top quality discus mostly from Stendker (Germany), these are all world class discus breeders. Punchards as far as I know breed a fair bit in house, particularly the wild type strains.

[Second Hand Pat]

I meet Francis Hu at the NADA 2018 Discus Show. What a great guy. He won Grand Champion at the show.
Pat

[Paul Sabucchi]

Lately he has made a habit of going home with most prizes from the shows he enters, he sure can pick a good looking fish. I don't know if he is planning to go to Aqua Expo Tage in Dortmund at the end of September

[Swedgin]

Also Mark Neill at IP Discus Scotland, he is the UK agent for Tony Tan Discus and H&K (Hudson) wild Discus.

[Leighannsparks1988@gmail.]

Hi

My name is leighann and i just wanted to post a warning to anyone considering purchasing from Cheshire Oaks discus.
Within the last month and a half we have purchased over 500 pounds worth of discus fish from Cheshire Oaks discus from a man named Gary and all of the fish have died due to carrying diseases.
We had a happy healthy thriving tank full of large beautiful mature discus so we are not new to discus keeping and consider ourselfs relatively knowledgable when it comes to caring for them. We have a large tank and decided to add some new discus. We originally purchased 10 3 inch discus from Cheshire oaks for 160 pounds which were delivered and seemed ok at first however 2 days after introducing the new discus all of our beautiful large original discus began to look unwell with damaged rotting fins and displayed worrying behaviour and stopped eating within the week all of our original discus were dead to top it off we had also lost half the discus purchased from Cheshire oaks. We followed all the usual steps such as regular water changes and kept a close eye on our tank from the moment we introduced the discus and started treating the water as soon as we noticed problems however it was no good and our fish had all died. We realised that there was a chance there could have been some kind of bacterial clash between our original discus and the new ones purchased although we did find it strange that the new ones we purchased had also started dieing. We continued to care for our tank and did regular water changes daily plus medication to try and save the 5 small new discus that had survived. During this time we had spoken to Gary at Cheshire who stated it must have been a bactira clash apologised and explained if we purchased some more he would send them free delivery he assured us that they should be fine as they were the same batch as the original 10 he had sent us. We decided to purchase 20 from him at a further 300 pound and were hoping to rebuild our tank again from scratch. Although we were devestated as it had taken allot of care time and effort to raise our original discus we excepted that these things happen and we would start over. We waited anxiously over the next couple of days for our new fish. When they finally arrived out of the 20 purchased only 7 were alive. We quarantined and slowly added the additional 7 following again all of the usual procedures water change etc.
We were now really worried due to more than half the fish turning up dead and were starting to feel like we were throwing money down the drain not to mention the loss we had suffered from our original discus. We contacted gary to explain the majority of the fish had arrived dead and he explained he cannot understand what had happened apologised and assured us he would send replacements. We decided to leave it for 1 week before getting the replacements sent in order for us to introduce the 7 that had survived to our tank and get them settled the following day we added the fish and now had a total of 12 small discus all purchased from Cheshire. We kept up our maintenance and tested water daily which always came back as good quality however all of the discus started dieing off from both the original 5 and the second batch of surviving discus. We began noticing that their stools were white which indicated some internal infection. When we spoke to gary again he stated that it must be that the 2 orders he had sent us were not great batchs and were chinese discus and that he would be sending us european ones as replacement and he was confident these would be fine. We were very apprehensive due to all of the issues we had had however felt that we had no choice but to give it a go as we were desperate to get our tank with fish in happy and healthy. We then recieved another batch of discus in replacement of the 13 that had been delived dead plus an additional 7 to make up for the ones we had lost yet again over the week. They arrived all alive and we added them to the tank and within a couple of days they all began to die off. We now have 3 small discus remaining all of which look unwell and arent feeding. We have tried to contact Gary and ask for reinburstment but he is refusing to even part refund us any of our money. We are devestated and our entire tank has been devestated by Cheshire oaks discus and i want to try and spread the message as far and wide as possible to anyone considering to purchase from them not too.
Me and my partner are experienced discus keepers and know that the fish they are selling are of poor quality and are contaminated and we would hate for anyone else to have to go through the ordeal we have. I never post online or even review products i purchase however due to how robbed i have been and how devestated this situation has left me and my partner i wanted to try and avoid it from happening to anyone in the future.

[danotaylor]

Did you quarantine the new arrivals appropriately? If not, then there lies "your" mistake. Discus can carry and be immune to different pathogens the other discus are not immune to. Healthy looking/acting fish can carry pathogens other discus are not immune too which can make them sick or even die. The new discus seem to have infected your existing fish, and your existing fish could well have also infected the new ones, even though the existing fish appeared clean of disease. I cannot comment on how the supplier handled to outcome, but to be honest with you, you really could have avoided this whole situation by following proper quarantine procedures.
Sorry mate

[AJMaskrey]

I went to view his discus and walked away empty handed. It was sad to see the state of his fish there were dead ones in almost every tank, all were peppered dark and hiding in corners, they looked riddled with parasites I didn't see 1 discus I would have even considered buying I'd reccomend you dont buy from him but that's just my personal opinion

[danotaylor]

I have no comment about the quality of his discus, and I believe what you and the other person posted about the quality of his discus. I just believe the whole situation with losing their good fish would have been avoided if she qauratined the new arrivals. Experienced keeper or not, not QT'ing properly is a dangerously risky thing to do. It's a pain in the bacon, but so essential.