stendker discus vs. asian discus

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
I only care about giving out correct information. So if you go over my statements you will see I have only stated what I have learned via talking to Hans, and other Discus keepers plus my own experiance.

And you are absolutely correct there are wholesalers that will buy discus from asia, and then try to quickly sell them for a profit before they loss money on losses and such. I again state that I know next to nothing about these types of wholesalers for Discus except to stay away from them.

All I am stating is that to my knowledge Hans is the largest Discus wholesaler in the US, and that the topic asked specifically if one should buy Hans or Asian.

We have basically stated the same concerns. I personally felt I should emphasize that buying a cheap discus doesn't even make sense even if it turns out to be healthy and not have any disease. (IE 3.4 dollars a month to raise a discus is a good number and that is what I ended up in my previous post.)

So if we actually disagree then we do, but I don't really see where. (Like I said when you use the word often and then try to exclude the largest Discus wholesaler that doesn't really work.)

Source: http://prlog.org/10407158
 
Stendkers are quality fish, I've had them in the past, and still have offspring from some of them. I also have many fish from Asia, most originated from Discus Forrest. I mostly have Asian fish at the moment, because I find newer strains fun to work with. I've already worked with most of the older strains. (Although I may try to breed some of those newer Stendker Tefes one day). I only have space for around 100 to 125 or so adults, so I sell or trade off fish with friends occasionally to try something I've not raised before. Like I said in the beginning, good fish come from both Asia and Europe, it's mostly how they are raised that make the difference. If a person buys quality fish from a good source, and raises them properly, it really doesn't matter where they were hatched. :D By the way, I was speaking in general terms, and did exclude Hans from anything. I was simply stating what happens to no name discus that end up in pet stores. I don't know how you thought I was somehow singling out Stendker fish. I was talking about no name fish from who knows where at the pet store. Stendker discus is a brand dude. LFS advertise that they sell Stendker discus! LOL!
 
FYI hundreds of thousands of discus are imported into the US every year by many US transhippers/wholesalers. Hans is probably the single largest discus source in the US as that is all he does, but collectively among all the importers who deal in discus he is a small drop in the tank.

Typically asian discus that are imported for resale to LFS are of much lower quality....it is a numbers game with the exporters, not necessarily a quality thing. Most "wholesale" grade discus coming out of Asia have a price of $1-2 each at the point of export (thailand, vietnam, malaysia, etc). Once they are landed in the US their costs are around $4-5 each via a transhipper (few dollars more if going through a true wholesaler). The unfortunate side of Asian discus is that a lot of them are sold at 2-3" and are hormoned. Hormones really screw with their bodies and eventually they will break down and become sick and die. Not all "wholesale" quality discus exported from SE Asia are like that, but it is safe to say a decent amount of them are. Dont forget that the general Chain of Command (CoC) can be quite long and that in itself is very stressful to any fish...stressed fish = stressed immune system = sick fish....Some CoC's are very long. Farm->Broker->exporter->Importer/transhipper->wholesaler->LFS->end customer. Granted not all fish have that long of a CoC, but it happens frequently.

German stock is typically much higher in overall quality. There are several reasons for this. Mostly because the Germans have a higher standard for their fish (no live feeds, no hormones, etc). Also the CoC is MUCH shorter generally. Hans for instance, his CoC is about as short as you can go as a wholesaler/importer.....farm->Hans->end consumer. Very few change of hands, higher quality stock (better overall health), and proper handling leads to a better product. Same goes for all major US discus importers from Asia (Kenny, Mike Beals, etc, etc). Their CoC is shorter and their quality of stock is much higher.

When dealing with any fish, the CoC is very important thing to think about...it makes a difference in the overall health, quality, and life span of your fish.

-Ryan
 
what about taiwain discus? are they any good. I've had taiwain discus from a oreinital guy, and I see 2.-3.0 inch discus with color at 4-5 months. hormoned and stunted right.
I'm about to give up discus, the feeding, and up keep is killing my pocket. I thought about switching to angel fish, would I still be loved in the discus world if I switched to angel fish?
t
 
I'm A dealer, LFS & sell Discus from Hans & have not had problems with the fishes or selling them. I do have some customers looking for some of these newer color strains but as a business the cost/risk to bring in these is to high, but I'm still loooking. I have talked to some of the big Asian importers about buying but they want to much for me to turn around & sell these & make a profit. Plus a single order I can fill a lot of other tanks of fishes that sell daily etc.. Supply & Demand.
I also have known some breeders in the past tht have lost a ton of fish/money bringing in some asian imported discus that end up wiping out their exisiting stock.

When I was in discus was about 27 years ago when most here were not eve born yet :) There was 3 types. Brown, Heckle & blue/green face. I spent a lot of money when I was 15 years old trying to maintain these awesome fish but there was limited info on care etc..There was no internet back then either.

Hans fishes will be good to go & are hardy but you still have to give them what they want in their life style of discus.
The LFS should have the fish in their own tank(s) & not on some sytem & use a dedicated soft net etc.. for handling them.

me Dave
 
This is something I posted a while back on an other forum.............


...........were a discussion was going about the "plague" and don't buy Discus from "over sea".


The "plague" is still around, that's for sure. But that doesn't mean you can't buy imported Discus, you only HAVE to know WHERE they are coming from.

Okay, what do I mean.

A lot of importers here in the USA get their Discus from different sources, that's were the problem starts, mixing Discus from different sources, 1 rotten apple in the basket and HELL breaks lose. Now I hear you say, yes but we get them from 1 source over sea, that's the next problem, are you 100% sure your source oversea ship you only Discus from his own breed, own place, own tanks???? In 99% of the chases NO. A lot of oversea "breeders" are not even breeders they are what I call collectors, they get their Discus from 5 ~ 6 and some even more smaller breeders, one is breeding the red, other one the spotted, etc. etc. The collectors get them on shipping day from different breeders, if needed repack them and put them on the pallet to ship to the USA.

Some shippers oversea are really breeders!!!! But most of them breed 5, 6 maybe even 8 "strains" but offer for sale some times 20 or 30 "strains" were do they come from???? Read up.

The importer get them in, put them in his tanks and, here we go again, HELL BRAKES LOSE. Here in the USA they trow all kind of medicines over them to keep most of them alive, some times a process of weeks with the loses that come with it.
The survivors are sold on the market here in the USA, but............those survivors still carry the problems with them, at the moment you get them you play a kind of Russian roulette with your Discus, you can PP them, you can put them in a Ph4, you can trow your whole medicine cabinet over them, it won't take away the "plague" It all helps a little bit to survive what ever the plague is.

When the day comes you've to mix those Discus with the Discus you already have, you can be lucky and do fine or......for the 3rd time: HELL BREAKS LOSE.

Okay, now to our situation, as you can see my screen name, I'm Discus Hans, I run Discus Hans USA and we import the World famous Stendker Discus from Germany. Yes I'm also one of those who gets my Discus from "oversea" but.......one little difference, ALL DISCUS WE GET IN FROM STENDKER COME FROM STENDKER'S FACILITY, NO EXCEPTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
All +/-20 strains we get in from Stendker are bred by Stendker.
What are the results of getting Discus in from ONE source. About every 4 weeks we get Discus in in our facility in Baltimore to fill up our stock (normal stock between the 6 and 8,000 Discus) every shipment is 1,500 to 2,000 Discus. We put those new shipments in the tanks/systems with all our existing stock, we do this for 4 years now without ANY problems.
All shipments come in on Thursday, we start feeding them Thursday evening and most of the Discus are ready to be sold the next week. Exception on this are some of the adult Discus 6 - 7" after shipping some are slow on start eating again, so those have to stay a little longer to get ready to be shipped again.

Why do I tell all this, am I trying to put other importers down, no everybody has the right to make living, do I tell this because I'm an importer too, YES.
But......I'm one who can sleep at night (if I've time)

But beside an importer, I'm also a Discus idiot, a kind of lucky #$#^&%#@ (fill in what you want) who made from his hobby his living. For me it's 70% business and 30% still my hobby and what's going on in the Discus Hobby worries me a lot for the future.

For those who don't believe me, it's your right, but this Thursday we get a shipment in again, if you want to witness it, send me an email and you can come and help putting the Discus away

Feel free to comment on this, it's just my 2.......no make that 3 cents.

Hans
www.discus-hans-usa.com
discus-hans@comcast.net

Of course with posts like this you get always people who are pro and who are against what's been said. Not so funny thing but what more or less proved what I was talking about happened a few weeks later:

http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showthread.php?t=75710

lot of reading but if you want to learn something, here you can find it,

Hans
 
nothing ever good comes out of Asia . Look at toyota now. Asian fish should stay in Asia . Import rice and not fish
 
FishPimpin101;3853433; said:
nothing ever good comes out of Asia . Look at toyota now. Asian fish should stay in Asia . Import rice and not fish
Click to expand...

That's not true, I've to disagree with you, there are very nice Discus in Asia and there are people who are bringing them in. Kenny is one of them.

Forrest who supplies Kenny is doing a good job by keeping them in Q for a while before they ship them out to the USA,

Hans
 
Discus-Hans;3854506; said:
That's not true, I've to disagree with you, there are very nice Discus in Asia and there are people who are bringing them in. Kenny is one of them.

Forrest who supplies Kenny is doing a good job by keeping them in Q for a while before they ship them out to the USA,

Hans
Click to expand...

Agreed.

-Ryan
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
MonsterFishKeepers.com
Top Bottom