Forced growth and lifespan.

[roclement]

Does anyone have any Disus in their tank that is over 5 years old? If so, was that fish power fed like most fish are these days?

My question is more curiosity then anything else, with all the always present discussions on how often and what to feed our fish, I was thinking on how are we affecting the lifespan of these hybrids versus older, or wild strains.

I have seen pictures of young fish here in the "challenge" section that are very young and yet fully mature in size. Are they also sexualy mature?

Not looking for an ethics debate on over feeding fish here, etc, just curious as a hobbyist. It seems to me that now a discus pair that is producing and is a couple of years old is seen as an "older" pair, and young yearlings are in full swing and mature.

Please enlighten me! thanks!

rod

[Eddie]

Does anyone have any Disus in their tank that is over 5 years old? If so, was that fish power fed like most fish are these days?

My question is more curiosity then anything else, with all the always present discussions on how often and what to feed our fish, I was thinking on how are we affecting the lifespan of these hybrids versus older, or wild strains.

I have seen pictures of young fish here in the "challenge" section that are very young and yet fully mature in size. Are they also sexualy mature?

Not looking for an ethics debate on over feeding fish here, etc, just curious as a hobbyist. It seems to me that now a discus pair that is producing and is a couple of years old is seen as an "older" pair, and young yearlings are in full swing and mature.

Please enlighten me! thanks!

rod

Hey Rod, the challenge fish are not sexually mature yet. They have a few months to go but there could be some early bloomers. Size is a very inaccurate way of aging discus. About power feeding and it affecting the fishes age, guess thats something thats been brought up but no actual studies have been accomplished. Eventually, in few months actually, the challenge fish will not eat as much, the fishes appetite will slow down. ;)

HTH

Eddie

[roclement]

Thanks for the reply Eddie! My question stands in terms of longevity, does anyone have any fish that is over 5 years old?

My curiosity has more to do with how this force feeding and sterile environment is affecting longevity, again nothing scientific but in my early Discus days it was not unheard off to own a Discus for over 8 years, as long as you knew what you were doing!

As a paralel, farm raised chciken and cattle that are bred and fed in order to grow quickly and feed us, have been shown to live less then half, sometimes less than one third of their expected lifespan, would this apply to disuc as well?

Again, I am not judging the practice, I am power feeding this group I got from Bob as we speak, their growth rate is much better then I had in the past, and in the case of the discus challenge fish, some seem to be reporting 5 inch + fish at 12 weeks! Big fish used to be 6 inches for wilds, and early hybrids, 7 to 8 inches were prize winners and old, very old.

I want big, perfect fish and this latest crop seem to be achieving that much more constantly then ever, but how long is their lifespan? Most of us will not keep a fish for that long anyway, but I am more curious then worried, so please share with me if you have a Discus that you know is over 5 years old.

Thanks! Rod

[Eddie]

Thanks for the reply Eddie! My question stands in terms of longevity, does anyone have any fish that is over 5 years old?

My curiosity has more to do with how this force feeding and sterile environment is affecting longevity, again nothing scientific but in my early Discus days it was not unheard off to own a Discus for over 8 years, as long as you knew what you were doing!

As a paralel, farm raised chciken and cattle that are bred and fed in order to grow quickly and feed us, have been shown to live less then half, sometimes less than one third of their expected lifespan, would this apply to disuc as well?

Again, I am not judging the practice, I am power feeding this group I got from Bob as we speak, their growth rate is much better then I had in the past, and in the case of the discus challenge fish, some seem to be reporting 5 inch + fish at 12 weeks! Big fish used to be 6 inches for wilds, and early hybrids, 7 to 8 inches were prize winners and old, very old.

I want big, perfect fish and this latest crop seem to be achieving that much more constantly then ever, but how long is their lifespan? Most of us will not keep a fish for that long anyway, but I am more curious then worried, so please share with me if you have a Discus that you know is over 5 years old.

Thanks! Rod

Right Rod, I understand what you are saying. Guess we'll have to see in 5 years. :D

Something else to keep in mind, the challenge fish were 3-3.5 inches when first received. So lets say at 6 months of age, the fish are hitting 5+ inches. That is really good growth!

Take care,

Eddie

[mmorris]

farm raised chciken and cattle that are bred and fed in order to grow quickly and feed us, have been shown to live less then half, sometimes less than one third of their expected lifespan,

I would think so! :D

[Daniella]

we do not "force feed" discus. We put food often and they eat if they want. They do need that much food because they grow fast.

Since stunted discus usualy live a less healthy life, I would think that a discus which has plenty of food available will be more healthy, will grow better and will live longer.

And water in an aquarium is never sterile either..just take a bit of floss from your filter and look at it under the microscope and you'll see. There are bacterias too..all sort of them even if you keep your tank very clean.

Chicken that are feed constantly for fast growing up are also kept in cage, 2 by cage, so tight that they cannot move. They spend all of their day pecking at each other. It's really pathetic and we would not live very long in those condition either.

The only animals that I know about force feeding is the geese, as they force feed them to make they sick and die from liver disease and that's what we eat in liver pate.

those animals that are raised and breed to feed us don't live very long because well...we kill them as soon as they reach selling size.

I think it's more detrimental to discus to underfeed them than to overfeed them when they are young and growing.



Thanks for the reply Eddie! My question stands in terms of longevity, does anyone have any fish that is over 5 years old?

My curiosity has more to do with how this force feeding and sterile environment is affecting longevity, again nothing scientific but in my early Discus days it was not unheard off to own a Discus for over 8 years, as long as you knew what you were doing!

As a paralel, farm raised chciken and cattle that are bred and fed in order to grow quickly and feed us, have been shown to live less then half, sometimes less than one third of their expected lifespan, would this apply to disuc as well?

Again, I am not judging the practice, I am power feeding this group I got from Bob as we speak, their growth rate is much better then I had in the past, and in the case of the discus challenge fish, some seem to be reporting 5 inch + fish at 12 weeks! Big fish used to be 6 inches for wilds, and early hybrids, 7 to 8 inches were prize winners and old, very old.

I want big, perfect fish and this latest crop seem to be achieving that much more constantly then ever, but how long is their lifespan? Most of us will not keep a fish for that long anyway, but I am more curious then worried, so please share with me if you have a Discus that you know is over 5 years old.

Thanks! Rod

[wgtaylor]

Hi Rod, welcome back to the discus world. Didn't know you then but I've had discus for quite a while. 5 year old discus, ya, no problem.
Answer to a couple questions at least from my perspective with my contest discus. First I don't believe you can force feed discus for growth.
I feed them when they are hungry and don't feed them if they do not come up to the front of the tank begging. Seldom has happened so far.
The way I feel is we are giving them the care, water changes and food to reach their potential, you cannot force them to do better than that.
There are overly fattening foods that probably should be limited like white worms. I don't keep a sterile tank but keep food, feces and bioload low.
Still have a fully operational bio filter running. As long as they are growing I don't believe the food is turning directly to fat but to growth.
They will start slowing down before long and the food will also slow if they are fed only when hungry.
I have some wilds that are around the 7" mark, would take both hands to hold them. Got them at 5" about 18 months ago.
You know, being in this contest makes me want to try to force feed them because of the competition but that really won't work,
they only eat what they can eat and no more, the rest is just pollution in the tank. jmo

Take care,

Bill

[Scribbles]

On average my discus have lived around 6 years or so. Some of my first, which were stunted, about 4 years. I agree with the others that you can't force feed a discus. I think alot depends on what you are feeding and if you overfeed and let food rot in the tank fouling the water. With beef cattle and chickens alot depends on feeding and care too. For economic reasons these animals are packed in and are not always fed top quality feed. If you have ever tasted home grown beef you would never eat what is sold in the stores. If we raised our discus like comercial cattle we would stock 1 discus per gallon and feed them the cheapest goldfish flakes on the market. So I don't think that you can really compare the two.

Chris