Is Discus industry dying in Sydney?

[madaboutfish]

Just a thought. Maybe with the higher cost of living. Most hobbyist no longer have the disposable income to spend on Discus. So most aquariums are not willing to invest in quality fish. Here in WA good discus have always been difficult to find and ordering fishes from the east may end up being a disappointment as we cannot select our fishes. I just wish I could go down to one of the sponsors and choose what i want.

Nick

[samir]

The popularity of wild discus has exploded over the past 12 months and thats a good thing IMHO.

I'll have to start agreeing with you on that one, though I love my "mutants" , wilds are so much stronger and easier to keep than the ten generation inbreds coming in.

[ivo]

i agree with both of you (samir and taksan) about wild discus. problem is they are not easily to be found to purchase. unless you have connection like taksan and merrilyn, the quality of the wilds we can purchase is generally very average. when comparing to those wilds that are available overseas it only makes you think what is the point to buy and keep the very average ones that we can buy in here.

[samir]

the quality of the wilds we can purchase is generally very average. when comparing to those wilds that are available overseas it only makes you think what is the point to buy and keep the very average ones that we can buy in here.

buy them at 8cm any quality, pump them with metro for three days, deworm with levimasole and treat for flukes with prazi. keep them in a separate tank and pump them up with a beefheart heavy diet. Withing three months they will be the nicest round wilds you have ever seen.

[taksan]

pump them up with a beefheart heavy diet.

[samir]

hehehe gotta get them to grow fast

[TW]

buy them at 8cm any quality, pump them with metro for three days, deworm with levimasole and treat for flukes with prazi. keep them in a separate tank and pump them up with a beefheart heavy diet. Withing three months they will be the nicest round wilds you have ever seen.

by unfortunate necessity, my surviving Heckels went through this 3 stage treatment. Would you say that we should include metro as part of the routine treatment of new wilds?

[samir]

Here's a very good article by Jim Quarles on DPH, I don't use pp because it freaks them out.

http://article.discusnews.com/cat-01/cleaning.shtml


If you use metro on day one they will start eating everything from granules to beefheart within the first couple of days right out of your hands. Its important imo to have them eating as soon as possible and as much as possible so one can grow them to their maximum size.

Once fully grown, they are bullet proof and almost impossible to kill. My fish had discus plague and the heckels hardly even caught a cold

If you don't treat with metro they will take a week or so to settle down and will never eat as much.

If you mix them with domestics and then do metro, the metro will not be as effective and the prazi will be totally useless.

[TW]

Here's a very good article by Jim Quarles on DPH, I don't use pp because it freaks them out.

http://article.discusnews.com/cat-01/cleaning.shtml

Will check the article out later (thanks)

If you use metro on day one they will start eating everything from granules to beefheart within the first couple of days right out of your hands. Its important imo to have them eating as soon as possible and as much as possible so one can grow them to their maximum size.

Once fully grown, they are bullet proof and almost impossible to kill. My fish had discus plague and the heckels hardly even caught a cold

If you don't treat with metro they will take a week or so to settle down and will never eat as much.

Good to know. If I manage to get my hands on new wilds, I will remember this.

If you mix them with domestics and then do metro, the metro will not be as effective and the prazi will be totally useless.

Shame, as you know i moved rose red to share QT with them. I was going to hit them with a 2nd Big L / Prazi treatment - but you say this would be useless. I don't want to move rose red back to the community for a while, to make sure no sickness left in QT. So do I forget the treatment for now? Also if I remove Rose Red, there are only 2 in the tank - which also isn't good.

Do you mean never mix wilds with domestics? Or do you mean just for QT period? Royal Blue already is & I don't have room (or ok from finance) to set up another tank. Options are to get rid of my Africans or thin out plants in my heavily planted 3ft apisto tank (no swimming room for big meaty fish like discus). Not sure I want to do either- but should I? Is it necessary?

[samir]

if your domestics are healthy go ahead. most of the domestic discus we get nowadays have flukes that are resistant to prazi and trichlorfon. A lot do not react to metro as well. Previously a fish with white poo would react to 250mg/40l of metro, now its taking 1000mg/40l.

My point being that wilds do not contain resistant strains of superbugs. I know many people are keeping them with domestic discus without any hassles. imo the last thing you need with heckels is a gill fluke you cannot get rid of, they will be doing donuts all the time. imo you will get much better growth and survival rates if you don't mix them with other fish.