Discus Breeding System

Bigfishnut

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I've been following your thread since the beginning and have a bit of advice to offer. I breed discus as well and I've learned a whole lot through the experience. The number one thing I've learned the hard way is about acquiring your stock. I've bought discus from many sources including discus hans and frank (the istore). What I've found is that buying small discus is a waste of money. I suspect the small 2" to 3" discus are more or less culls. They don't exhibit good traits as they grow. I've bought adult discus from hans that are super nice, and then bought several of the same varieties at the 2.5" size and as they grow up they don't compare to the adults I bought. Same with the istore discus from frank. About 1 out of ten are passable as potential breeding stock...if that. Most have pale color or terrible form and shape. You will save a whole lot of money buying high quality adults and proven pairs. If you buy a bunch of small discus you'll be stuck with a bunch of unsellable stock that you would never want to breed. Not to mention losses...you will lose several small discus as they grow out. This is inevitable. Larger discus are much hardier and someone else took the loses to grow them out. The old saying 'you get what you pay for' has never been more true when it comes to purchasing discus. Hope my experiences help you to not make the same mistakes I made in the beginning. Good luck man!
 

gmaniac

Jack Dempsey
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Bigfishnut Bigfishnut Thanks for the advice! It sounds like you have had some bad experiences with 2" and has left a really bad taste in your mouth. Surely it can't be 1 in 10 2" either die or should have been culled?
 

Bigfishnut

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Think of it this way...if your breeding discus to sell, your going to save the best couple out of every batch to grow out to maturity to sell as adults or breed. The rest you would sell as small discus. That is exactly what the breeders do. So you are buying substandard fish when you buy young discus...the best have been taken out already. I've bought hundreds of discus...I speak from experience
 

Bigfishnut

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You'll spend far more money in the long run buying small discus...trust me on this. You are way farther ahead to buy high quality adults and proven pairs. You'll save a whole lot of time and money.
 
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BIG-G

Goliath Tigerfish
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Bigfishnut Bigfishnut this makes perfect sense. It's exactly what I would do if I were a breeder.
You know they keep the best to grow for their own breeding stock or at least to sell as adults.
 
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Bigfishnut

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Bigfishnut Bigfishnut this makes perfect sense. It's exactly what I would do if I were a breeder.
You know they keep the best to grow for their own breeding stock or at least to sell as adults.
Yes sir...wasted a lot of time and money to figure this out!
 

Hendre

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Definitely learning a lot about discus, one thing is that you never have enough tanks!
 
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gmaniac

Jack Dempsey
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Thank you all for your advice I did end up ordering small discus. I found a breeder that will ship them dime sized so before you are able to remove quality. Really though I like the color variations and they have good shape (the parents that is).

I purchase 15 dime sized discus from Joe Gargas
  • 5 x Curipera Red
  • 5 x Wild Tefe Green X Super Red Discus
  • 5 x White Spotted Super Red
Now I know it looks like I did not take any of your advice Bigfishnut Bigfishnut and BIG-G BIG-G . However, I thought about this a lot and talked it over with my wife. I went with getting small discus for a couple of reasons:
  1. I want the experience of raising them. This will not just be about making money for me, I want to enjoy the whole process.
  2. I know you say I will save money just getting pairs, but I anticipate some losses. In that I don't currently keep discus, I will make mistakes. A loss with $300-$700 pair is a lot greater than a $17.
  3. It may seem like I am not taking advice however the advice to get babies over adults is from one of The King of DIY joey02 joey02 videos. Where he goes through the different options of finding a discus pair and he recommends going small. He has not led me astray yet, so I will continue to follow his advice.
  4. Lottery factor. I have a chance for 7 pairs as opposed to 1 guaranteed.
I should be receiving them the week of Sept. 10th. I will definitely take pictures of them and keep you all posted.
 

Fish Tank Travis

Potamotrygon
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I definitely don't think it's a bad idea to have gone with small discus this first go-round. I do think Bigfishnut Bigfishnut is right about the quality discus having already been stripped from main population by the time they are sold, even at 2". I also think he's right about needing to get quality adults and/or adult pairs if you want to breed to sell. However, since you've never kept discus, it's definitely a good idea for you to get experience with raising them, that way when you do buy the $500 pair, you will know how to care for them and how to raise their fry. If you get one or two large and well colored adults from this batch, I would just say that you're ahead of the game.
 
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