On average how many discus do you lose in a year?

[RNJ]

Have been keeping discus for 6 months now after years of keeping community fish tank and today lost my first discus for no apparent reason. 5.5" PB, perfectly healthy, eating and doing his thing yesterday and this morning found him dead. No signs of trauma. Water parameters are fine and rest of the discus (15 of them) doing just fine in my 180 gal tank. Change water daily with aged water, feed them Vibra Bites and FDBW. Recently treated the tank with Metro in water and food due to two other discus with white poop and not eating, but they recovered well and back to normal, eating well. The PB that died never had any issues since I got him. So still don't know why the sudden death of a seemingly healthy fish.

So brings me to the point. Are discus really that fragile? For all the people on this forum, please say how many ADULT DISCUS do you lose in a year on average?

A) NONE

B) 1-3

C) 3-6

D) I LOST COUNT!

[Iminit]

I’ve lost one in a year and a half. Same as yours. Died suddenly. I think it had something to do with beef heart. I had just started feed them bf and it died. I think it couldn’t digest it.

[Willie]

You get to a certain point in this hobby when you know if your fish is healthy or not. I probably lose 1 - 2 discus a year, but it's almost never a surprise. Sometimes a runt dies. Other times, a discus gets sick and does not recover in my medication tank. If a discus dies and it's a surprise to you, that's the time to worry.

[peewee1]

I think that it is not so much a number but rather a percent. If you own 1 and it dies you lost 100% of your stock. If you have 20 discus and 2 die in one year then yu lost only 10% in that year.

[Shan_Evolved]

I'm not gonna answer this LOL.

My first batch went horribly due to inexperience. But my current batch is doing amazing not a single loss.

herpderp

[Johnny95132]

*Cough, cough
Ok, I'm probably going to scare you all with my total number of fish lost. Apparently I'm a discus serial killer. So here it goes for last year 2019 and this year 2020. Started off by buying 3 discus from a local hobbyist, killed one during water change. Bought 12 discus from Golden State, all survived but eventually sold them. Bought 20 discus from Discus Hans, then mixed them with asian discus and 15 out of 20 withered away and died. Sold the remaining 5. Bought 8 discus from Kenny's, 4 got sick and died from cross contamination with existing discus. Bought 8 more from Kenny, but killed them during a water change in which I forget to add dechlor. That one really stung. Bought 4 from Kenny, and 2 died during a water change which I made the same mistake of forgetting to use dechlor. Finally, I bought 12 discus from aquabid, and 8 out of the 12 died due to tank overheating during the summer. The tank was situated under a window which allowed the sunlight to heat the water to 93 degrees.
So in total, I lost around 40 discus last year in my first year of keeping discus mostly out of carelessness during the water change. Honestly, I'm ashamed to call myself a fishkeeper having messed up so many times.

[LizStreithorst]

Does this count the ones all the fry my parents have eaten?

Other to my parents poor showing I haven't lost an adult in years. I had a beautiful Blue Scorpion female breeder that committed suicide 3 or 4 years back. Even Al mourned with me when I lost her. As far as my babies I have had more than my share of disasters over the years. My average overall would be impossible for someone like me to figure. Numbers make my head swim.

[Shan_Evolved]

*Cough, cough
Ok, I'm probably going to scare you all with my total number of fish lost. Apparently I'm a discus serial killer. So here it goes for last year 2019 and this year 2020. Started off by buying 3 discus from a local hobbyist, killed one during water change. Bought 12 discus from Golden State, all survived but eventually sold them. Bought 20 discus from Discus Hans, then mixed them with asian discus and 15 out of 20 withered away and died. Sold the remaining 5. Bought 8 discus from Kenny's, 4 got sick and died from cross contamination with existing discus. Bought 8 more from Kenny, but killed them during a water change in which I forget to add dechlor. That one really stung. Bought 4 from Kenny, and 2 died during a water change which I made the same mistake of forgetting to use dechlor. Finally, I bought 12 discus from aquabid, and 8 out of the 12 died due to tank overheating during the summer. The tank was situated under a window which allowed the sunlight to heat the water to 93 degrees.
So in total, I lost around 40 discus last year in my first year of keeping discus mostly out of carelessness during the water change. Honestly, I'm ashamed to call myself a fishkeeper having messed up so many times.

The endurance and iron will of this man

[LizStreithorst]

*Cough, cough
Ok, I'm probably going to scare you all with my total number of fish lost. Apparently I'm a discus serial killer. So here it goes for last year 2019 and this year 2020. Started off by buying 3 discus from a local hobbyist, killed one during water change. Bought 12 discus from Golden State, all survived but eventually sold them. Bought 20 discus from Discus Hans, then mixed them with asian discus and 15 out of 20 withered away and died. Sold the remaining 5. Bought 8 discus from Kenny's, 4 got sick and died from cross contamination with existing discus. Bought 8 more from Kenny, but killed them during a water change in which I forget to add dechlor. That one really stung. Bought 4 from Kenny, and 2 died during a water change which I made the same mistake of forgetting to use dechlor. Finally, I bought 12 discus from aquabid, and 8 out of the 12 died due to tank overheating during the summer. The tank was situated under a window which allowed the sunlight to heat the water to 93 degrees.
So in total, I lost around 40 discus last year in my first year of keeping discus mostly out of carelessness during the water change. Honestly, I'm ashamed to call myself a fishkeeper having messed up so many times.

Anyone who says they have never killed fish is not to be trusted. We all do stupid things or get too sick to change water on fry or didn't clean our breeding pair and the kids started dying at 3 weeks. It's part of the hobby. I think that in a way Discus become an addiction.

[dornblaser]

When I first started purchasing discus it was from 2 online stores that I learned later had terrible reputations and lots of complaints from the BBB. Those fish were all sickly, stunted, and died. I now order discus from one well-known source where I can talk to the owner by phone or he replies to emails within hours. Of the dozen or so discus that I have purchased from my current source, I have lost one discus, a discus that was hiding in the vegetation and that I was thinking about moving to another tank. Same with GBR's once I changed my purchasing sources they stopped dying, in fact, I just received another group from CoralBandit of mainly females, all very healthy. Thanks, Tom!

Post-Script: as to fry, I am finally set-up to properly raise them.

[Willie]

The only difference between a beginning discus keeper and an advanced one is the number of discus killed. I qualify readily as an advanced hobbyist.

[CliffsDiscus]

The only difference between a beginning discus keeper and an advanced one is the number of discus killed. I qualify readily as an advanced hobbyist.

I guess I'm in the advanced hobbyist. I lost around 30 tanks of Discus back late 80's from the Discus Plague then another 30 tanks after the San Francisco Earthquake. Now the number of losses are mostly fry around one week old after free swimming, seems to me that the new color form are much more weaker.

Cliff
more weaker.

[LizStreithorst]

I had the Plague too, Cliff. The few that didn't die were sterile. That was a hard one to get over but I kept going. Back when I was younger and more resilient I had Cryptobia. I had to kill every fish in the fish room and sterilize everything. Have you ever had that? I think that having that now would do me in as far as fish.

[CliffsDiscus]

I had the Plague too, Cliff. The few that didn't die were sterile. That was a hard one to get over but I kept going. Back when I was younger and more resilient I had Cryptobia. I had to kill every fish in the fish room and sterilize everything. Have you ever had that? I think that having that now would do me in as far as fish.

Liz, The Plague is airborne, it travel from the second floor down to the garage and front of the house. Then it really messed up my liver, for the next 6 weeks I had to do a blood test.
The lab tech by this time
me knew me well. The remaining Discus left now were carriers that were destroyed.



How I got the plague is a story by itself.

Cliff

[Davegtr]

So far I've lost none in the 7 months I've been keeping them (hopefully I didn't just jinx myself).

I had a beautiful Blue Scorpion female breeder that committed suicide 3 or 4 years back.

OK I'm intrigued, how does a Discus commit suicide?