Is it just me....

[steelheaderdu]

....or has the quality of discus plummetted in the last few years? I have been in and out of the hobby for over 15 years now, and the quality keeps getting worse and worse. I see more triangle shaped fish with enormous eyes (most of my last fish fell into this category, I'll admit...) but things seem to have gotten out of control.

Look at aquabid. I'd say 1 out of 25 posts has fish that I might consider giving a second look. The bumpy foreheads are taking over!! About once a month I consider filling my tanks back up, then I see all the stuff out there. It's enough to keep my tanks in the garage.

Where have all the round discus gone?

Am I being too harsh?

[DiscusOnly]

There are plenty here.

Just look in the sponsor section.

Here are some home grown: http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showthread.php?t=62016

Dan sells some nice and fat juvie. My feeling is the same about a lot of the discus I see out there. Heck, I even own a few. The biggest problem is that once discus hit the LFS, they begin to shrink until a new home is found with an owner that will give it some care.

[White Worm]

Your problem is that you are looking in the wrong places like aquabid. You need to get in touch with some serious down to earth breeders like those in Simply's sponsor section. If you cant find something you like from the group found here, it may be that you are too picky or it just doesnt exist.

[dpt8]

I agree about checking out the sponsors.. There is no better place to find awesome discus.. Discus now are really round.. I have a few that look like they have double chins and such beautiful colors to choose from now.. Wilds are a different shape as you may observe.. We like them really round but some are more oval.. Good luck. Check out the sponsor's pics.. Good to see you joining in !! David T

[terps]

I think the quality has gone down a lot too. It must be obvious to others, because hardly anyone bids on the discus auctions on aquabid. The problem is many importers buy the cheapest discus they can get. Cheap discus almost always equals poor quality discus.

I think there's a glut of poor fish on the market now for a couple of reasons. First, some breeders don't allow new fish into their hatchery for fear of getting disease. So they are constantly inbreeding their fish. Eventually this inbreeding will catch up with them and they will start producing lots of fish with genetic defects. Another problem is that many breeders are crossing and criss crossing many different strains trying to come up with something new that will sell well. Unfortunately, most of the time they wind up producing junk. The genetic pool gets muddled and you have lots and lots of duds for sale.

[Apistomaster]

I tend to agree with terp's comments but as many have stated, there are good discus out there.
I am outcrossing some of my Red Turquoise strain with wild Blue Discus to work on making improvements in shape. I want and like the form of wild discus best of all but my RT's already have nice conformation but it is time to bring new genes into the line..

[steelheaderdu]

Thanks for your responses, guys!

When I do get back into the hobby, I'll use a sponsor.