Strikingthematch Discus

Well a few weeks ago I invested in six 2 inch Discus from a breeder near by. After letting my newly built sump settle in and finish it's mini cycle I finally picked up the fish this weekend. I was happy to see them in good health and after a little hiding they finally ate a little flake food last night. Today they got feed some beef heart and eagerly ate all of that. Things are off to a good start most of their color has come back from the time I picked them up and their eyes are getting the red back. These will be the first Discus that I have raised so I hope that all continues to go well. They are in a 75 gallon tank presently with a 55 gallon sump. Only other fish in the tank are few neon tetra and one bushy nose catfish.

These are sold as "blue scorpion" discus and look to me at least to be pretty good stock. Although a few have a break in the eye stripe most look to be close to 14 stripes and have a very nice blue color to them, some winners for sure!

As always here are some pictures of the little guys!

They look nice.

nice discus!

Great looking Discus!Nice tank also!

Thank you all!

They are all still eating very well, they LOVE beef heart and brine shrimp and are still getting used to eating my flake foods.

Very nice! Beautiful fish!

Very nice looking fish!!

Wanted to post a little update on their growth in two weeks. It has taken two weeks now but I would say they are fully adjusted to their new home. I am now a food source and not something to fear so I get a fairly warm welcome for only having them two weeks. They are growing very fast and some of the smaller ones have really put on size in just two weeks. I want to keep a somewhat weekly log of photos and watch their growth to adulthood.

8th


15th


Hard to tell from the pictures but some good growth taking place for sure!

Some other pictures taken a few day ago

Happily eating some frozen food out of a feeding syringe.



Starting to show more color.

Well it has been sometime now. Over a month has gone by and for those who have never experienced the growth rate of these little discus all I can say is you will be continuously impressed! The largest of the bunch is reaching well over 3.5 inches.

It has been lots of hard work so far but it is paying off. They are very healthy and always eat from my hand. You can't get near the tank without them thinking it is food time... even if you just fed them!

Here are a few comparison images for one month of growth!

This one was taken May 25th



and NOW July 3rd. Like I said the growth of these guys is amazing! It is very hard to tell in these pictures I will try to get some better comparaison shot for everyone but trust me when I say over and inch of growth is very noticeable lol.

Looking good ! Never tried my hand in discus but seems like a lot of work but beautiful reward! Keep those pics coming.

+1 Flippercon

Lets see some recent pics! Beautiful discus though. I like the idea of having only one color variant too. Great pics man

They are definitely coming along nicely.

they look good.

Well It has been some time now since I posted some update pictures.

The Discus are doing great. Watching them grow is something that I have to say is my favorite part of the hobby. They have been happy and healthy since I got them and continue to grow.

Out of the batch I have a few all stars and of course a few bench warmers. They are all great but it is clear that some were stunted when I got them. I didn't get to pick from best of the best I actually took all that was left out of a batch. Overall given what I paid I am still very happy with them.

The one larger discus is the oldest is only roughly 10 months old. It has grown a great deal since I got it. I doubt weather it will be more then 6 inches in size but I could be wrong.

The others are all a few months apart from the older and have already caught up in size. They will most likely be very large once full grown.

The remaining were the runts of the batch and their size now continues to show that. As I said before though for what I paid even if only 1 fish turns out to be stunning I will have recouped all my losses.

here is a little time line.

Today 4SEP11













July 8th (note the larger one in there is the one pictured above! what a difference a little over a month makes!)





June 17th



May 8th

Oh they are all so beautiful

They looked great when I saw them. Glad they are doing well for you.

I felt like so many other people do when you first take on Discus. Every moment was like a heart attack waiting to happen.
I don't want make light of how difficult it can be to raise these fish BUT what I will say is that once you get past the first month or so with them it just sems to get easier. After the fish adjust to their new homes and they gain their hunger back things really pick up.

I can't down play how important water quality is for these fish and a very good feeding regimen. The two end up going hand in hand. You MUST feed these guys (mine get fed every 2-4 hours during the day -only what they can eat in 2-4mins) because you feed them so much the water quality goes down hill quickly. As such frequent water changes become needed. I do 30 gallons a day (30% total for me) and on the weekends they get a larger change done.

Now what I believe is that it is not about how much water you change but rather how clean you keep their tanks. This is why almost every discus breeder has bare bottom tanks. If I did not suck out the waste once a day during that 30% water change the water would get filthy quick! That is why I think that maintaining over all water quality is important and I feel that I can do with with daily smaller water changes vice larger weekly ones.

I will in effect do close to 2-100% water changes a week. This is believe it or not very little compared to what some discus keepers do (up to 2-100% a DAY!) but having seen good result and more importantly being able to manage this amount of a daily base is much more important to me.