Did you kill your first Discus?

[yogi]

I'm sorry to say yes I killed my first discus. It was back in either 74 or 75 that I bought them. I was 15 at the time and couldn't drive yet. I was keeping tropical fish since I was 10, but liked discus from the first time I saw them.

I lived in Philadelphia at the time and paided either $1.99 or $2.99 per fish for 2 to 3 inch browns. That was a lot of money for me back then because cardinals were 10 for a dollar at that time. They only lasted a couple of weeks at that time.

Looking back at it I did it all wrong. One there was like no information available to me on how to treat them. Nor did the pet shop give any information. I placed them in a community tank that had a temperature of 78 degrees.

I continued to keep both fresh and salt water fish tanks. In 92 I bought discus from Jack Wattleys partner Bruce. He gave me specific directions on how to keep them. From the 10 fish I bought I ended up with 3 pairs and one fish did live for over 5 years.

I did go through trial and error with these fish. Almost all information availble to me came from books. I got hooked up to the internet in either 96 or 97 and this made discus keeping a lot easier.

[Liz_Streithorst]

Yofi, Jack Wattley's partner now is Gabe. Does he divorce partners and get new ones, or what? Not being snotty...I've gotten nice fish from Wattley...just curious.

As for the killing, I killed 5 of 12 of my first ones. One other was DOA. One of the fish I had had tapes. I treated the whole tank with prazi not knowing at the time that my water didn't have enough oxygen. The prazi bound up enough oxygen to kill 5 fish during the night. Sometime later I tried to kill them with CO2 but failed. Only a couple of weeks ago I had a Fluval disaster and tried to kill them again, but again failed. I hope to get some more fish from Cary and Joe soon. I need some new ones to try on.

Liz

[Lynn]

I still have a few from my first batch. I did manage to kill 4 of them though. They were LFS fish and they started out sick...not a good thing!

[Steve_Warner]

Hi all,
Good question here.............I purchased my first discus back in '94. I bought 3 blue turquoise from a LFS and popped them in my 55 gal. Of course, I had no clue as to the water quality or contents here in Vegas, other than to add Thio to cut the Chlorine. They did ok for a few months, but slowly became black and withered away to death one by one. I didn't do W/C's but every two weeks and had a mountain of gravel in the tank(with a UGF). When I think back on those poor guys, I knock myself in the head for not taking the time before buying to LEARN and READ about them. After the last one perished, I began to research all I could about them, beginning with their home(the Amazon). I studied up on them, off and on for five years, all the while looking at my dormant 125 gal I had purchased from a LFS going outta business. I decided the 125 was going to be my masterpiece in the entry of my new home someday, so I thought I had better get it right the second time. Zoom ahead to 2000 when I moved into my new home and set up my tank in the entry room. I let it cycle for a good three months with some plecos, plants, aquatic soil and African root wood(Mopani). I drove up to Sacramento the summer before last to visit my Uncle and pick up some discus from Team Discus. I also met & chated with Jim Quarles at his house on this trip(I miss that old grump). On my way home from Sacto, I stopped by Bill & Brenda Norris' place(Team Discus) to pick out some discus. I spent a few hours with them as they were wonderful to talk to and learn from(Very nice, good people). Brenda showed me the artificial method of rearing fry in ceramic bowls by doing a feeding right in front of me. I told them I wanted an assortment of diff. kinds and didn't care what kinds I got. Well, here I am today with 9 of the original 10 due to one suicide(about the time my digital thermo was causing stress for the kids). This forum, other forums and the net have been a HUGE help in furthering my knowledge and understanding of the realm of the aquarium. Here is a pic of my tank now. Sorry for the ramble. "D'oh" I posted a pic of my pair and their soon-to-be new arrivals.

Steve

[Steve_Warner]

Hi all,
Here's a pic of my tank now.

[Rod]

I got my first discus in 1988, 6 turquoise discus. I already had quite a bit experience with large south american cichlids, so knew how important water changes are. I lost 2 of them in the first year learning about them, but eventually got a pair from the remaining ones. This is a pic of my first pair from that group.

[April]

I got my first ones from a local breeder. think they were f20s. never grew. of course...could've been me..but i did start with bare bottom.and did do water changes...had one ammonia spike...anyhow..never kept any of them. then i moved onto lfs fish. I was lucky..as i bought one here..one there...all from different lfs. didnt get a disease..could've....though.

[yogi]

Liz, Gabe has been Jack's partner for a long time now. Jack and Bruce are still friends. It was Bruce who didn't want to breed discus anymore. It was to time consuming. Besides the discus Bruce was breeding Marmosett (sp) monkeys and exotic cats. Gabe told me Bruce also did something with horses. If thats all not enough Bruce also has a bad back. You can see pictures of Bruce's set up in Degen's book "The Proper Care of Discus" on page 83.

[Willie]

Sigh, it looks like I'm the oldest again. I tried discus first time as a teenager living in NYC. which must have been around 71 - 72. I had a tank of large angels which I sold and took the money to buy 8 browns. It cost around $40, which was a ton of money for me. I remember taking the subway to Brooklyn, an hour and a half each way, to a fish store. They had run a tiny ad in the NY Daily News. After reading and rereading the Axelrod bible, I had to have them.

Of course, I knew nothing about chlorine, nitrogen cycle, pH, etc. They went quickly, one after another. I didn't try discus again until five years ago. An ad in the Minneapolis Star Tribune by a local breeder featured Red Turqs for $10 apiece. I bought six, put them into a planted angelfish tank, and repeated the experience.

Then I killed more... Willie

[discus4me]

I only started keeping fish 8 months ago and i had no idea what it took to even keep fish. I mean i knew nothing to give you a basic idea of my ignorance i bought a new 10 gallon tank with 2 pufferfish, 3 small oscars,and 2 pleco's on top of the overloaded tank i didnt even cycle the tank. I just threw them in to die. Obviously my intent was not to kill the fish i just thought all you needed was water and a filter to keep the fish. After 4 of the fish died i took the rest back to the lfs and decided to do some reading on fish keeping thats when i saw the discus (i couldnt wait but knew i had to because of this thing called cycling) :. To make a long story short i have 8 discus ranging from 5&1/2 " to 2" now and all are doing well but i've killed 3 all which were blue diamonds (darn things just wont live). Anyway i feel bad enough after telling that story i'm gonna have a beer. I guess the purpose of telling that was that noone can do worse than i did as a beginner. ;D

[nalah]

by the sounds of it,most of you had previous experience. i knew zilch.
had golfish for as long as i can remember.
i was one of those people that never did wc unless water turned green or i just couldnt see fish thru glass. new fish - no worries..dumped straight into the tank. i new about ph. thats all.
got fed up and gave them all to mum....LOL
In January,went to lfs and he told me what to buy - a heater! and he sold me nice expensive fish ofcourse. angles,discus,tetras,loaches..the lot. discus died. got 2 more... they died.
gave up... then one day at different lfs,saw discus...thought i'd give it another shot.
THEY SPAWNED... got rid of all fish,took out all wood,gravel,etc...and it was around this time that i found simply..
my discus are not show quality (although i have 4 blue diamonds that are pretty close to it) and i am learning thru my errors. its the best thing thats happened. i love it. i'm addicted....
people think i'm crazy. i don't want to go out..i have to do my wc at night... and thats fun.

[rfidiscus]

I have to say that I was lucky with my first discus... I started out with a cobalt blue discus and a red turq in 1987. I had a 55 gal tank setup with about 200 fish in it...jk. It actually was way overcrowded. Anyway I found these 2 discus at my lps and went for it. These 2 matured and turned into a "pair". Now the frustrations began, my "pair" ate everybatch of eggs they laid. I screened the eggs off and they patiently waited for the fry to swim through and then they ate them!!! From caviar to anchovies mmmm :P Anyway I ordered from a "breeder" in NYC 6 cobalt blue discus which ended up becoming 3 pairs. And then the real discus obsession began! I went from that one 55 to over 200 tanks. And believe me there have been plenty of mistakes here and there. My favorite was when a pump quit working overnight and around 75 3-4 inch rsg ended up in the compost. > Time for that backup air blower and an emergency backup generator....

[discus4me]

hey steve-warner,
I was wondering what kind of plant that is along the top of your aquarium? Does it help the nirate level in your tank too? I want like 5 of them so i can cover up my ugly looking hood. one last question do you just stick the ends of the plant in the tank or do you cut them first?