How did you begin your discus hobby?

[Disgirl]

A good friend here asked me to tell my discus story so I said I would. I have kept tropical fish most of my life. All the usual fish with Angelfish always being my favorites. I lived in the Philippines from 1971-73 where I had a nice little tank of fish. I got them all at a lfs and remember paying 25 cents or less per fish. 25 cents bought a nice little angel...

About 30 years ago I was in a fish club meeting at a member's home. She had an old metal framed, slate bottom tank with the most gorgeous fish I had ever seen. She had just ordered them from a man named Jack Wattley in Florida. There were 6 of them, about 3" diameter and the most beautiful turquoise/green I had ever seen. They were a fish I had never heard of, Discus. Well it was love at first sight. I have had them almost ever since then.

My current discus, Flachens, look a lot like those Wattley Turqs from way back then. Here is my recent pic of them. They are older and larger and more beautiful now but you get the idea.

Also long ago, I visited Gwynbrook Farm Discus Hatchery in Owings Mills, Maryland. Peter Thode ran it then, he must be retired by now. But I got 4 young discus from him, he had raised them on sight in his less than beautiful hatchery. But each tank had wonderful clean and clear water with huge spawning pairs of gorgeous discus. I went twice over the years and got 4 discus each time, $25 each.

So, many discus later, and learning how to properly care for them by being a member here, I am still a discus keeper with beautiful healthy hopefully long lived discus. Here are my current ones. And I still keep angels, just way better conditions than long ago.

Now, how did YOU begin your discus journey?
Barb

[Filip]

Great story about a long history and experience with discus Barb . I've enjoyed reading it and enjoy seeing those beautiful flachens you currently have too .

[Filip]

I started with my first discus 8 years ago , I guess .
It was that fish that I always wanted but was scared away because of its bad reputation along with it's high prices .
After long reconsideration I took the plunge but was totally uninformed about them at that time . Having 20 years of previous experience with freshwater tanks made me feel very confident that I'll find the way for them too and boy was that confidence fake .
Being the Taurus that I'm, failure after failure I just got more stubborn in my plan on succeeding with them instead of just quiting them . When I finally started seriously reading the net about them , most of the info on discus took me to this place and here i am still hanging here and learning new stuff every day .

[LizStreithorst]

Barb, forgive me for pressuring you. I just had to. You've been keeping Discus for 30 years! You must have a lot to tell that even I haven't heard. I bet people would love to hear about again about visiting Gwynbrook.

Sorry I outed you as a very long time Discus keeper although, truth be told, if I'm find value in finding out what it was like so long ago, other serious Discus keepers must fine it intereating, too.

[LizStreithorst]

I got started in 2001. I hooked up with a sleazy guy who imported fish from Tony Tan. I call myself stupid but I guess I was just naive. Later, he screwed me on two different shipment that he never made right. Oh well...I was younger and still stupid.

Despite having to kill all my fish in the fish room twice, (Hansie helped get me through it). He is a very kind man.

Discus still have a hold on me. I would love to get to the point where I could introduce Stenker's into my line. I've crossed Asian with German before. I got offspring that had the best quality of both.

It aint much, but that's my story.

[14Discus]

I’m rather new to Discus ( three years) after 45+ years of doing tropicals.....tetras, angels, plates, and gouramis either at home or in my classroom. After retiring, I thought I could provide more time needed to do these fish enabling me to take the plunge. Ive also been into koi seriously for 30ish years. Ive always loved Discus, but was concerned abt their husbandry. Interestingly, when I sort of got the Discus bug, I found this very site to be the turning point. When I get into something, I research the heck out of it and I love taking care of animals.......even raised champion bantam chickens for a while. SimplyDiscus provided me with the newer knowledge of keeping these marvelous fish. My first Discus were not the best, but I learned. Then I tried Kenny’s and the real fire was lit. I’ve even trained the wife to do basic stuff when I’m away collecting insects or fishing for muskies. I do like challenges and Discus are indeed challenging to do successfully. I will now say thanks to this site for being the tool getting me into the coolest of fish.......thanks all.

[Second Hand Pat]

My discus adventure started here on SimplyDiscus and my whole history with discus is recorded here on the forum. Most of that is in my homesteader. I started out doing research to domestics which resembled wilds and ended up becoming a wilds keeper. The forum membership embraced me. Help answer all my newbie questions and SimplyDiscus became my discus home.

So I went from a newbie wilds keeper to breeding wilds a couple of times and keeping altum angels. In 2016 I sent all my wilds to Al due to a family crisis and was discus-less for a time. Early last year my discus passion returned and I am back with a nice group of wild heckels, a couple wild blues and a group of 16 F1 Cuipeua growouts from the wild discus I sent Al in 2016 (Thank you Al).

I have been in the last two growout challenges, flunked the first one and way more successful with the current one. The growout contests are a wonderful learning experience. I have also been part of NADA for many years now and attended the 2012, 2014 and 2018 shows and have meet lots of wonderful folks at the show and many which are here on the forum (including Liz ). I have yet to meet Al but hope I will in the future.

I was invited to become part of the SimplyDiscus team in 2012 and have trying to help as best I can. The SimplyDiscus team are great folks to work with and it is fun to be on the planning side of the forum.

I also got my photography start here on the forum compliments of Al, Paul and Ricardo. Today that is something I am also passionate about.
Pat

[Disgirl]

It's interesting to read how others began keeping Discus! So many different ways we began. But here we are at SD and learning so much. Here is the most important thing I learned from Simply Discus as a new member:
We don't need neutral ph, low tds water! I went without my favorite fish for about 9 years when we moved to a new neighborhood that had the good old "liquid rock" tap water. After being here awhile and reading I soon found out that Discus will do just fine in this water. They just can't have eggs that hatch. But that is OK with me.
Barb

[Mando]

Thank you for sharing your story

So, my journey began when I was about 10 years old with salt water tanks. We had this huge 500g tank in the living room with 4 canister filters and a sump. My biggest memory was the joy of cleaning up all the water when we had a power outtage due to the lack of check valves. It was fun . We had seahorses, TONS of coral, anemones, clowns, a few tans (dories). It was so wonderful seeing the clowns take to the anemones. I remember saving coins in a tall "Red Crayon" piggy bank, it was about my height at the time, and, whenever this piggy bank would get full, we would run to Exotic aquariums in Miami, Florida, on Bird road and 73rd ave, to buy more fish and corals. It's still there but I'm sure the owners are different. This is where I would find the old school Marlboro strains and it was my first place ever seeing a discus. Back then, a 6.5" discus would run about $65 - $75 but my parents would never allow me to buy this fish. Flat + colorful + forbidden = My favorite discus. I truly believe this is why Marlboros are my favorite of all strains. As a child, and possibly as an adult, when you want something and you can't have it, you want it even more.

I also had a tank with gold fish and another tank with Angels in my room. I kept my angels in rain water and I remember running outside on overcast days to open all of the storage barrels to collect rain water in order to complete water changes throughout dry season. This is how I started to breed Angels back then, and I was like the cookie lady in my neighborhood. All the kids would storm my house on the weekends to buy some Angels and Guppies.

I sold everything once I started high school (not even sure why) and never had another tank since. After 19 years of not keeping any fish, I joined SimplyDiscus. I joined because I made the jump and bought 12-15 or so Marlboros from an online store. One arrived dead and another 2 had no oxygen because the bags had ripped. Needless to say, I put them into my tank and it was a nightmare there forward partly due to my lack of experience. I lost these marlboros and then simply helped me through my second batch. After that year, I got the hang of keeping discus and now I have successfully raised a few batches and had the pleasure of watching discus pairing and breeding, but no luck on growing out fry as the parents would eat them. Shy of 2 years later, here I am with 13 discus in the main tank, a high-tech shrimp/tetra tank, a batch of Red Covers x San Merah cross which I plan to grow out and breed, and a foreseeable future with a fish room build somewhere in my 1.5 acre property.


Not my photo but the piggy bank was just like this one.
Crayon.JPG