A demystifying Discus rant

[Paul]

I've had the time over the last couple of days to watch some Youtube vids on Discus. What I found somewhat annoying was the perpetuation of the myth by the presenters that these fish need coddling and are difficult to keep. Yes Discus and probably 99.9% of the other cichlids in the hobby shouldn't be kept by beginners.With that being said Discus are cichlids, which many people seem to forget, and if you can successfully keep other cichlids you can keep Discus. Unless you plan on breeding them they should be kept in groups of no less than 5 or 6 (just like most other cichlids it helps reduce aggression and they like the company) in at least a 75 gallon tank add clean warm water (84F+) with consistent parameters and a varied high quality diet and you get happy fish. Unless you're growing out fry they don't need massive daily water changes. 20% a week works just fine. They don't need to be kept in a bare bottom tank. They do really well in planted tank with gravel and wood.Discus don't need to be kept in a species only tank. I currently have Bosemani Rainbows, Rummy Nose & Cardinal Tetras, Pencil Fish,Corys, Ottos & a single male Krib in the tank with them. I've also successfully kept Angelfish, Apistos & Rams in the tank as well. All these fish species like warm water. Finally if your water is basically liquid rock you definitely want to stay away from wild caught Discus but that doesn't mean you can't keep Discus. The Germans have been producing beautiful tank bred Discus for years in hard high pH water that are available in this country. Rant over. Happy New Year!🥂🍾🎉

Edited January 1, 2021 by Paul

[KoolFish97]

I want to second everything you've said. I completely agree. 

The only thing I'd like to add is I believe a lot of it sadly comes down to prestige from my personal experience 

If you tell everyone how hard it is to keep them then you can tell people how amazing you are because you keep them as there "so" difficult. 

That's not everyone some people just follow the rules that were "established" and just had great success but thats not the only way to keep discus and it hurts the hobby to say things like that. We as hobbiests (as is done in this forum) should be encouraging people advising help but don't scare them away with "how there elitist some things are to keep"

[KaitieG]

I have a feeling that part of it may also be the cost of the fish.  I wanted to try neons even though I have super hard water.  Okay, so I went and got 12 neons for 25 bucks, added them to my community tank, and am seeing how they do (everyone's been doing great for a couple weeks anyway).  If they don't do well, that's a $25 lesson learned. 

If I decide to go buy a few very beautiful discus at $80-$150 each, that seems like a much more intimidating experiment...and if I were to make a YouTube video telling people to go out and give discus a shot without qualifying that with lots of "warnings", and they all made that kind of investment and things didn't work out...well....

[gardenman]

I agree with Katie. Part of it is the pricing. They're typically a very expensive fish compared to "typical" South American cichlids. A young Angelfish is typically under $10. The same with Oscars, and most SA cichlids. About the cheapest you ever find Discus is $70 each for very young fish. If you're buying a bigger Discus, you're looking at spending over $100 per fish. That implies they're a difficult fish to breed, keep, and raise. To add six Discus to a tank, you're looking at about a $500 investment at the minimum. I understand I could keep them, but is it worth $500+ for me to try? From what I've heard from Discus breeders, they're not hard to breed. If they were retailing for $10 each, they'd sell like crazy. I'd fill a tank with them at $10 each. At $100 each, not so much.

[Daniel]

10 hours ago, gardenman said:

 If they were retailing for $10 each, they'd sell like crazy. I'd fill a tank with them at $10 each. At $100 each, not so much.

The discus that are just beginning to spawn for me now were nickel sized when I bought them back in July of this year. I just went back and looked at the Aquabid invoice. They were $17 a piece (not including shipping).

The good thing about starting with very young discus, other than the price, is that they grow up in your water and eating your food.

[Andy's Fish Den]

I agree 100%, I have kept and bred discus several times in my fishkeeping hobby. The only time I did water changes more often than weekly was when I was raising fry. As long as you keep them warm, start with good quality fish, feed them properly and have good filtration you will be fine. 

Once the weather warms up some and all the shippers settle back to somewhat normal, I am going to be getting a group of wild discus, I've been wanting some for a while now, I had some years ago and I like them a lot better than the domestic strains. I wish that Dean shipped, I would buy some of his F1 in a heartbeat.

[Coronal Mass Ejection Carl]

3 hours ago, KoolFish97 said:

I want to second everything you've said. I completely agree. 

The only thing I'd like to add is I believe a lot of it sadly comes down to prestige from my personal experience 

If you tell everyone how hard it is to keep them then you can tell people how amazing you are because you keep them as there "so" difficult. 

That's not everyone some people just follow the rules that were "established" and just had great success but thats not the only way to keep discus and it hurts the hobby to say things like that. We as hobbiests (as is done in this forum) should be encouraging people advising help but don't scare them away with "how there elitist some things are to keep"

I do think it's snobbery. I haven't seen any evidence that discus are particularly fragile and need massive daily water changes with RO.

Meanwhile, the numbers coming from Stendker are what cichlids can easily tolerate:

There's also nitrate/water change snobbery. On another forum, there's one fellow (who besides spewing out misinformation on a daily basis) that blames every illness on nitrate being >5 ppm and takes every opportunity to  post pictures of his setup and low nitrates. In one instance, he suggested that someone whose fish had an obvious bacterial infection perform water changes to lower his nitrate levels (which were something like 10-15 ppm). I suggested treating the bacterial infection.

He went with the water change advice and lowered his nitrate. Then the fish died. Gee, I guess it wasn't nitrate.

[Paul]

58 minutes ago, gardenman said:

If they were retailing for $10 each, they'd sell like crazy. I'd fill a tank with them at $10 each. At $100 each, not so much.

@gardenmanI know of several places where you can get high quality 2.5” discus for about $25.  $100 will get you a much bigger fish. Having somebody else growing out any fish does come with extra costs. So that’s really not out of line. Most Rainbowfish start at about $20 each there’s even Pencilfish that sell for that amount. Yes you’re not going to get a Discus for the price of a mutt guppy but as I just demonstrated that the price of entry into Discus keeping isn’t out of line with other non entry level fish. 

[gardenman]

Just now, Paul said:

@gardenmanI know of several places where you can get high quality 2.5” discus for about $25.  $100 will get you a much bigger fish. Having somebody else growing out any fish does come with extra costs. So that’s really not out of line. Most Rainbowfish start at about $20 each there’s even Pencilfish that sell for that amount. Yes you’re not going to get a Discus for the price of a mutt guppy but as I just demonstrated that the price of entry into Discus keeping isn’t out of line with other non entry level fish. 

I was just looking at Aquabid, and there's one seller there selling small discus at 5 for $55 which isn't a bad price at all. Shipping adds quite a bit to that price though, but it's better than the local prices. Most of the other sellers though are in the more typical price range I quoted.

I have a pet theory that you can open a store where you breed your own fish that you then sell. You cut out everyone else in that process and can keep the prices lower or the profits higher. We had a local mom and pop store (Evans Tropical fish) in the 60s and 70s that did that on a very small scale. They had tanks all through their basement where they raised common fish (swordtails, guppies, mollies, platies, angelfish, etc.) Their store was an enclosed porch off their kitchen. The fish were always very healthy and good though. Better than you could get in a "normal" pet shop.

The startup costs for a shop like I envision would be high and you'd likely need six months to a year before you had the stock necessary to start selling, but if you could survive that, and produce quality fish, you could do very well. Once you got past that initial startup cost and time period, things should go very well. If local production outstripped demand satellite stores could be opened and supplied from the breeding location or you could move to online sales. Buyers would be getting fish raised entirely in one place from birth to sale instead of having been moved from place to place. Could you compete with the Petsmarts/Petcos of the world? Probably. In some of Cory's videos from China you see tanks with digital readouts and styles of tanks you just don't see here. If you could replicate tanks like those and offer them at a reasonable price in addition to the quality fish, you'd become quite a popular store for aquarists. Make it a no BS store where you only sold stuff that you knew worked and not junk. The startup costs are the killer though. You'd need a huge footprint for  store like I envision. I also have this weird vision of a tank crane that would move larger tanks and stands much like the boat lifts move boats. That could make selling and installing large tanks much easier. Roll the lift around the tank/stand. Tilt it forward and back to slide straps under it. Hoist it up. Wheel it where you want it. Lower it back down. Even something like Cory's 800 gallon tank could be moved by maybe two people with such a tank lift. I'd also culture and sell a variety of live foods. Pretty much make it the dream store for every aquarist. Instead of just a scribbled name on the front of the glass, have a full printout giving all of the details of the fish for sale. Sell schooling fish in schools instead of individually. Even have some of the most popular fish prebagged and ready to just be picked up and taken on weekends or busy days, much like we see overseas.

[Paul]

2 hours ago, KaitieG said:

I have a feeling that part of it may also be the cost of the fish.  I wanted to try neons even though I have super hard water.  Okay, so I went and got 12 neons for 25 bucks, added them to my community tank, and am seeing how they do (everyone's been doing great for a couple weeks anyway).  If they don't do well, that's a $25 lesson learned. 

If I decide to go buy a few very beautiful discus at $80-$150 each, that seems like a much more intimidating experiment...and if I were to make a YouTube video telling people to go out and give discus a shot without qualifying that with lots of "warnings", and they all made that kind of investment and things didn't work out...well....

@KaitieG as I said Discus aren’t for beginners but you can easily find 2.5” Discus for $25 which is in line with numerous other fish species. I don’t know what you mean by warnings. Literally the only thing I do differently in my Discus tank is the temperature is higher. Everything else is the same. 

[Fonske]

2 hours ago, gardenman said:

If they were retailing for $10 each, they'd sell like crazy. I'd fill a tank with them at $10 each.

That's what they cost where I am. Less than $8 equivalent for about 3-4" big discus. For the same money one can get a very nice fancy goldfish of roughly the same size. Despite that, I feel fine about filling a tank with fancy goldfish, but afraid to even think about doing the same with discus. "They are very difficult to keep" is too deeply ingrained. 

[Lemon]

5 hours ago, KoolFish97 said:

I want to second everything you've said. I completely agree. 

The only thing I'd like to add is I believe a lot of it sadly comes down to prestige from my personal experience 

If you tell everyone how hard it is to keep them then you can tell people how amazing you are because you keep them as there "so" difficult. 

That's not everyone some people just follow the rules that were "established" and just had great success but thats not the only way to keep discus and it hurts the hobby to say things like that. We as hobbiests (as is done in this forum) should be encouraging people advising help but don't scare them away with "how there elitist some things are to keep"

that's the issue with reef tanks to if someone says i's heard they are hard, the average reef keeper will probably agree because makes them fell good about themselves

[KaitieG]

52 minutes ago, Paul said:

@KaitieG as I said Discus aren’t for beginners but you can easily find 2.5” Discus for $25 which is in line with numerous other fish species. I don’t know what you mean by warnings. Literally the only thing I do differently in my Discus tank is the temperature is higher. Everything else is the same. 

This has been educational.  The cheapest I've seen discus sold around here is the $80+ range, and I've admittedly never even considered keeping them considering my hard water and the "they're so hard" info I've read and haven't shopped around online, so it's interesting to know that price varies so much.  

I'm sure you're right that snobbery/prestige is a huge part of it--and it's too bad that there's not more information out there like what you've experienced.  That sounds like something a lot of people would benefit from knowing and that would encourage more people to try discus.  But at least where I live I personally think price is probably a factor as well.  If you go into a fish store and see discus at the price point I mentioned, that's pretty intimidating by itself.  

[Fish Folk]

Yes. Yes, yes, yes. 100% agreed.

 

[Siett88]

Since you guys seem intent on busting discus myths, and I've been interested (but scared) in keeping them, I'm going to throw some (dumb) questions out there that might get my head bitten off elsewhere:

-Can you keep a single discus as a centerpiece in a (hot) planted community?

Well I guess thats all I got today, lol.

[Daniel]

2 minutes ago, Siett88 said:

-Can you keep a single discus as a centerpiece in a (hot) planted community?

Discus are super social. They love being with other discus and hate being alone.

[gardenman]

2 minutes ago, Siett88 said:

Since you guys seem intent on busting discus myths, and I've been interested (but scared) in keeping them, I'm going to throw some (dumb) questions out there that might get my head bitten off elsewhere:

-Can you keep a single discus as a centerpiece in a (hot) planted community?

Well I guess thats all I got today, lol.

Can you? Yes. Should you? No. They're a schooling fish and are more comfortable when in a school of discus. You can keep one neon tetra, but it won't be happy. It's the same with discus. I would say four would be the absolute minimum I'd keep together and preferably six to twelve, or more. 

[Paul]

1 hour ago, Siett88 said:

Since you guys seem intent on busting discus myths, and I've been interested (but scared) in keeping them, I'm going to throw some (dumb) questions out there that might get my head bitten off elsewhere:

-Can you keep a single discus as a centerpiece in a (hot) planted community?

Well I guess thats all I got today, lol.

The long and short answer is no. A Discus kept as a specimen will find a hiding place and live a very miserable life. They like to have other Discus around. As I said earlier if you’re not breeding them the fewest Discus I would keep in a tank is 5-6. 

[Ken Burke]

Discus are my Dream Fish.  My wife says keep dreaming, so i guess that's a good sign.

 

[Paul]

2 hours ago, Fish Folk said:

Yes. Yes, yes, yes. 100% agreed.

 

@Fish Folkgood job!

[HenryC]

Can anyone recommend any hard water discus sellers in the US? My water is near 18gh (about 370ppm last  I checked) and 7.6pH. Liquid Rock!

Edited December 30, 2020 by HenryC

[Fish Folk]

3 minutes ago, HenryC said:

Can anyone recommend any hard water discus sellers in the US? My water is near 18gh (about 370ppm last  I checked) and 7.6pH. Liquid Rock!

You can reach out to Discus Hans USA over near Baltimore, MD and inquire about your situation. He breeds and sells Stendkar discus, a line developed in Germany for high pH scenarios. Obviously high pH and hardness are different parameters entirely. If it were me, I’d just look at Lowes or some similar Home Depot, etc, and buy a ca. $150 R. O. system. You can mix you tap with R. O. to a desired level for your discus, rams, and other soft-water South American species. To recover the cost, just determine to buy discus small - half dollar size, and hunt for them on the cheap. A guy in our fish club was selling them 10x for $100 for club members. Some photos he posted copied below. Reality is, it’s going to take time, expense, and work to grow discus fry out to 3-4 inches for sale. Breeders know this, and would rather sell young discus cheap than preserve tons of larger ones in time-intensive contexts. You do want absolute clarity, however, on the care and water chemistry the young come from. They’re usually bred in R. O. water, and then migrated over to water with some hardness over time. But for what it’s worth, we’ve bought ours at $20 each. Straight from Florida and California distributors. Most all did very well. 

 

[Cory]

I'd like to caution people here. The tone of some of these posts are not in line with respecting other hobbyists. I encourage you to show your success in the way you keep your fish, instead of pointing out how others keep their fish incorrectly by a different standard.

[shkote]

7 hours ago, Daniel said:

 

The good thing about starting with very young discus, other than the price, is that they grown up in your water and eating your food.

 

Discus are beautiful fish. I've always wanted to keep them, but man... I don't wanna spend $100 on a fish that's going to eat my food.

[HenryC]

1 hour ago, Fish Folk said:

You can reach out to Discus Hans USA over near Baltimore, MD and inquire about your situation. He breeds and sells Stendkar discus, a line developed in Germany for high pH scenarios. Obviously high pH and hardness are different parameters entirely. If it were me, I’d just look at Lowes or some similar Home Depot, etc, and buy a ca. $150 R. O. system. You can mix you tap with R. O. to a desired level for your discus, rams, and other soft-water South American species. To recover the cost, just determine to buy discus small - half dollar size, and hunt for them on the cheap. A guy in our fish club was selling them 10x for $100 for club members. Some photos he posted copied below. Reality is, it’s going to take time, expense, and work to grow discus fry out to 3-4 inches for sale. Breeders know this, and would rather sell young discus cheap than preserve tons of larger ones in time-intensive contexts. You do want absolute clarity, however, on the care and water chemistry the young come from. They’re usually bred in R. O. water, and then migrated over to water with some hardness over time. But for what it’s worth, we’ve bought ours at $20 each. Straight from Florida and California distributors. Most all did very well. 

 

Thanks! You know, I've been wanting discus for such a long time, but I want to keep everything so simple. I don't want to put an extra step in my daily water changes and implement RO system! It gets hectic changing water weekly for 7+ tanks as it iis hehe, but the advantage is that all my fish are fine in this water, straight from the tap. Even the severums are growing up quite nicely.

Edited December 30, 2020 by HenryC