Buying really small discus?

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Freezekougra

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Feb 18, 2009
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Brooklyn, NY
I want to get a 55-75g during the summer and make it a barebottom tank with discus. I've already read http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=210176.

Would it be really hard to keep "0.5-1" discus as long as I keep up with water changes? How much would they cost?

Btw, could someone recommend a quiet and not too expensive filter that would still be able to keep the water clean for discus? Ty ^^
 
You can use 2 large sponge filters with a large air pump in such a tank. That's about as cheap as it gets. They will work fine as long as they are cycled, and contain bacteria before you add fish. I can't recommend such small fish for a rookie discus keeper. Such fish are very demanding. We are talking 5+ feedings of high protein food daily, and large daily water changes. Ever wonder why discus are expensive? It's because a lot of time and work goes in to getting them to a saleable size of 3" or so. I would recommend getting discus at least 3". I don't buy them myself smaller than that, and I've kept them for many years. They extra work and potential losses of tiny fish outweigh the extra cost of larger fish.
 
A 55 is a good sized grow out tank, but as the previous person said, there's a lot to growing out fry.

Don't let that discourage you though. Get all the information you can, and decide if it's worth it to you. Every great breeder had a first attempt at growing out fry.

Good luck
 
do any breeders, even sell .5- 1 inch discus. I know a breeder down the road from me won't sell any of his discus till they are at least 2.5 - 3 inches big. lets see a small 1 inch discus is going to need to be feed 5 times a day, and just say you have 5 of them and they eat a cube of blood worms each. that is basicly a package a day for them at 4- 6 bucks a package. so 28-35 dollars a week, 112-140 dollars a month to feed, plus the water changes and chemicals. in my opinion it's better to get bigger discus.
on avrage a good healthy discus will cost 20 dollars an inch. (so one correct me if i'm wrong, but that what I see at the discus fish shop down the street from me).
also remember you get what you pay for, not trying to be rude. just telling you what it is.
 
do any breeders, even sell .5- 1 inch discus. I know a breeder down the road from me won't sell any of his discus till they are at least 2.5 - 3 inches big. lets see a small 1 inch discus is going to need to be feed 5 times a day, and just say you have 5 of them and they eat a cube of blood worms each. that is basicly a package a day for them at 4- 6 bucks a package. so 28-35 dollars a week, 112-140 dollars a month to feed, plus the water changes and chemicals. in my opinion it's better to get bigger discus.
on avrage a good healthy discus will cost 20 dollars an inch. (so one correct me if i'm wrong, but that what I see at the discus fish shop down the street from me).
also remember you get what you pay for, not trying to be rude. just telling you what it is.
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The value of watching them turn from quarter size to 5+ inches after 12-18 months is priceless. If you are thinking of raising them to sell and make money.. that's a different story and I'll advise against that.

The smallest one that you could probably get is about quater size (body only) but they are very demanding in feeding and WC. Once you go through the process of getting the little discus big, you will appreciate the large discus in a different way. Starting out with the small juvie at $10 is a good way to start getting into the hobby. Just realize that there is a learning curve and you WILL have set back. You will get a lot of different opinion but if you keep it to the basic and keep it simple, it will save you lots of heaches down the road.

Basically start with.

1. good quality discus
2. feed them with variety of food and often
3. change the water

You are going to need to establish a tank first and make sure you know the condition of your tap water.
 
Well I've heard 1 adult discus/10 gallons. If I do get small discus, I'm planning on getting 5 or 6 and leaving them in the tank permanently, not for a growout. I don't mind changing water daily...but is it okay if I feed them a variety of pellets for a daily diet, and give bloodworms only as a treat? I could try hatching and raising brine shrimp...dunno how that will turn out though
 
Yeah, 6 small fish (by small, I mean 3" or so) would be fine. If you can keep up with daily water changes, you could even go 8. You'll find they tend to grow better, faster, in larger groups. With small fish, it's likely they have only ever eaten live and frozen food, so you'll probably have to teach them to eat dry food. Hikari Discus Bio Gold is a good food for this. It's about the only dry food any of my 40+ discus will even eat. It's granular and sinks so the fish can pick it off the bottom, which discus enjoy doing. Some people have had success with Ocean Nutrition Discus Flakes, and Ocean Nutrition Prime Reef, which is a saltwater flake fish food, high in protein. Good growth can be achieved by feeding beef heart, either as a mix with other things, like shrimp or whatever. I prefer to feed it raw. I use frozen cubes, and chop the cubes up into bite size pieces still frozen. I find it much, much less messy this way. Mixes tend to foul water very quickly. I also use brine shrimp, frozen bloodworms, and glass worms, frozen daphnia, and sometimes live black worms. It's better if you can feed a mix of dry and frozen foods daily. You could feed frozen morning and night, and dry during the day from an auto feeder for example.
 
hillbilly;3064861; said:
Yeah, 6 small fish (by small, I mean 3" or so) would be fine. If you can keep up with daily water changes, you could even go 8. You'll find they tend to grow better, faster, in larger groups. With small fish, it's likely they have only ever eaten live and frozen food, so you'll probably have to teach them to eat dry food. Hikari Discus Bio Gold is a good food for this. It's about the only dry food any of my 40+ discus will even eat. It's granular and sinks so the fish can pick it off the bottom, which discus enjoy doing. Some people have had success with Ocean Nutrition Discus Flakes, and Ocean Nutrition Prime Reef, which is a saltwater flake fish food, high in protein. Good growth can be achieved by feeding beef heart, either as a mix with other things, like shrimp or whatever. I prefer to feed it raw. I use frozen cubes, and chop the cubes up into bite size pieces still frozen. I find it much, much less messy this way. Mixes tend to foul water very quickly. I also use brine shrimp, frozen bloodworms, and glass worms, frozen daphnia, and sometimes live black worms. It's better if you can feed a mix of dry and frozen foods daily. You could feed frozen morning and night, and dry during the day from an auto feeder for example.
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Thanks :D
Now to find myself a summer job :naughty:
 
One more thing that you should remember buy cheap discus or expensive one all cost the same money that you gonna spent to grow them. For me I like spent more money to fine nice discus than buy cheap one then when the grow not good looking. See some forum simply discus sponsor they sell some nice discus.


hedut
 
/\--- cheap discus in my opinion are not good discus, unless the person selling them to you is a good friend/breed that you know and see the way they have grown up and feed.I use to think that $200.00 to $400.00 was expensive for an adult 6.5 inch discus in LPS.so I'd look at the smaller 2.5 inch that where 29.99-39.99 and 3.0-40 inches ones for 49.99 to 79.99 and I'd get the 3.0-4.0 inch ones. then I started to add up how much it would cost in prime and food to raise the little baby-juvies from small to full grown, and I can also respect the price of adult fish because I now know how hard it was to raise them and all the food cost to get them from .5 to 6.5+
 
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