Discus Q

[Star_Rider]

:thm: great advice folks

I will only add.. you get what you pay for.

that said if you just want to try your hand at Discus(after the proper research) and you are not looking for really expensive Discus. then you should look to a good source and at the less desirable colors. Still great and Beautiful fish, but maybe a more 'common' color.

 

[fishshaped]

just had to chime in, 29 gallon tank is quite small even for a starter tank. if your keeping your fish correctly they will out grow this tank in a matter of months, i am currently housing 6 discus and 2 rams in a 55 and these fish are an average of 4" diameter and are only 4 months of age,(excluding the german ram's which spawn every two weeks one average, they eat the eggs everytime though. but that's more than likely because of the 21 gallon water change they get every other day, i use a bio wheel 350 pro 60 in conjunction with a marineland powerhead connected to a u.v sterilizer(unneeded, i know but i have one none at my disposal,) the important thing is, do you want monster fish or do you want acually kind of boring fish that are stunted, unhealthy, only get a weekly water change and won't last you too long.

 

[LuciferSam]

Okay, well tommorow after snagging a good deal on Craigs list I'm picking up a 40B, and a 20g, for 60$. I've decided to use one of my Eheim 2217's that I have sitting around and I'm building a stand this weekend. Due to school, there is no way i can manually feed every few hours. So has anyone used the automatic feeder made by Eheim, or know of any others that are reliable? I'm going to use the 20g mounted under the 40B for daily 50% water changes.

The 40g breeder tank is 36" x 18" x 13"

 

[Discus-Hans]

Your LFS might be a really good fish store, but Stendker does not ship their higher quality Discus to the LFS'. I know this for a fact.


Its not a question of your LFS being great or not, its what they get sent from Hans.

Over the years I've read the biggest BS on forums.

This is I think by far the most stupid one.

Poconogal, I think it's a waste of my time but let me try to explain.

95% of my business is with the LFS, in the high season we get every 4 weeks between the 1,500 and 2,000 Discus in (and ship them out) my income comes from the LFS, they need to sell the Discus, if they sell, they order new ones.

Now if I would send them low quality Discus, they won't sell and I kill my own business. Now guess again who gets the better quality Discus????

Now of course if you ship that many Discus, there will be a few lesser Discus over the years, I will be the last one to say that this is not so.

If you've to ship out 10 boxes of Discus a day, you don't take a chair and sit in front of the tank and pick the Discus one by one.

For selecting for private people we try to take some more time or if you really want and have the change, make an appointment, send me an email discus-hans@comcast.net and pick your own Discus. Our fish house is open for the public, best for us is Friday, Saturday and Sunday (YES we work 7 days a week) because those are days we don't ship out and I've a little more time to show you around.

Best regards,

Hans
Discus Hans USA

 

[bs6749]

Hans,

In her defense, I think what she is saying is that the local fish stores won't receive many "show grade" or "potentially show grade" stock from you and I would agree as I have seen Stendkers that a LFS got in 2 days before I saw them and they weren't anything I would have purchased. They were healthy no doubt, but they certainly weren't the "quality" that I was looking for as far as shape. When YOU pick out fish for Simply Discus members you take the time to hand pick them yourself, even as you admitted, and when this is the case the person will end up with really nice fish guaranteed. I don't think she meant that you sell the local fish stores diseased fish, and they certainly aren't the regular "LFS discus" that are often diseased and stunted. She is just saying that Stendkers are nice, but if you want the best you have to go directly to the man in charge (you) in order to get the best.

Furthermore, it can't be expected that every discus you sell is a potentially show grade/show grade discus, since those would naturally be more expensive. The average person likes average discus and the "average discus" that YOU sell to LFS are MUCH BETTER QUALITY than other LFS discus. The average person isn't going to want to spend more money on a better quality fish, since they wouldn't even be able to tell why they were spending more money, but us discus fanatics would and we are serious about our fish! We demand the absolute best and that's why we feel it's better to go directly through YOU to get nicer pieces.

I hope you see what she is trying to say about your fish and hope this didn't start a fire.

-Bryan

 

[LuciferSam]

Hi Discus Hans, thanks for chiming in, you do Send ALOT of great discus to Fish Gallery in Houston.

I'm not an Idiot... If I knew I was getting a bad deal from my local store, I would be ordering them Direct. However this store is different, I've never gotten a "bad" fish from this place, And the only "Bad" fish I've seen in there Are ones that got beat up by the Huge Puffer in the display tank, Or by one of their Dovii Cichlids.

And their Freshwater manager has been kepping freshwater fish for over 3, almost 4 decades, and discus for atleast 25 years.

I'm not going to quote anyone here, but if you are going to comment on the tank size I intend on using you should know that it is now a 40g Breeder tank, 36x18x13, with a 20g for aging water.

Also I would like opinions on the Eheim automatic feeders, Are they reliable, easy to use, Would you trust one, does it Over feed, or under feed?

 

[bs6749]

I don't think it is necessary to age your water. I never have and my discus are doing fine. Just add dechlorinator if you need to and you should be fine.

I don't think that tank is great for growing out discus but it will work for some time. A 55g is the minimum that you should be looking at to grow out the juvies. Ideally you'd get 6-8 discus and grow them out in a 75g tank and keep them there for life (just my opinion).

I don't have any experience with Eheim auto feeders but from what I hear according to numerous people is that they are THE BEST out there. If I were to get an auto feeder it would DEFINITELY be an Eheim.

 

[LuciferSam]

What makes the 55 gallon a good platform for discus? Becaue if I have to I can buy one in my area for about 50 dollars.

 

[poconogal]

Over the years I've read the biggest BS on forums.

This is I think by far the most stupid one.

Poconogal, I think it's a waste of my time but let me try to explain.

95% of my business is with the LFS, in the high season we get every 4 weeks between the 1,500 and 2,000 Discus in (and ship them out) my income comes from the LFS, they need to sell the Discus, if they sell, they order new ones.

Now if I would send them low quality Discus, they won't sell and I kill my own business. Now guess again who gets the better quality Discus????

Now of course if you ship that many Discus, there will be a few lesser Discus over the years, I will be the last one to say that this is not so.

If you've to ship out 10 boxes of Discus a day, you don't take a chair and sit in front of the tank and pick the Discus one by one.

For selecting for private people we try to take some more time or if you really want and have the change, make an appointment, send me an email discus-hans@comcast.net and pick your own Discus. Our fish house is open for the public, best for us is Friday, Saturday and Sunday (YES we work 7 days a week) because those are days we don't ship out and I've a little more time to show you around.

Best regards,

Hans
Discus Hans USA

Hans, I know I did not post BS. Furthermore, that was a very nasty, uncalled for comment: that this was the most stupid one. But if you want to be nasty, that's fine... whatever floats your boat.

Did you take a look at my fish? Not a pretty sight at all. My friend also bought at the same time and wound up with poor quality as well. I have several other friends who've not been happy either. I've been to That Pet Place in PA. I've seen them there as well. I left them there. My point was that the OP should order directly from you or from a forum sponsor, whether on this forum or another. But according to your post, you send the better quality Discus to your LFS distributors. So then forum members don't get the best quality when they order from you or other forum sponsors?

Now if I would send them low quality Discus, they won't sell and I kill my own business. Now guess again who gets the better quality Discus????

I've not seen much in the way of what I'd call very high quality Discus in LFS, whether Stendkers or not. As far as killing your business, I would venture to say that most of those who do purchase Discus at an LFS do NOT know what a high quality Discus is... what it should look like, shape, color, pattern, eye size, lack of the Cichlid hump, no saddle, no peppering, etc. They are usually newbies to Discus. If they don't know these things, what they buy at the LFS, to them, is a great Discus. To an experienced Discus keeper, things would look different. Since my friend and I had to special order and pay in advance, we did not get to see what we were getting, but instead relied on reputation. If we had seen them in advance of ordering, we'd not have ordered them through the LFS. That's it - I'm done.

 

[LuciferSam]

Hey If yall want to argue can you do it over PM?