Transition: "intro" to "quality" discus

[broadfoot]

I want to know how to transition into better discus. I haven't had my discus for a year yet, but I'm already looking longer term. They're great fish. So naturally I've been checking out the awesome discus that are winning comps like Aquarama.

I guess the fastest way to cheaply get better discus is to buy them as fry and raise them, but there are two issues with this. The first issue is availability. I don't really see people on the classified selling 12 Stendker, Piwow or Tan fry. The second issue is that even if I buy 12 fry that doesn't guarantee I'll get 12 really nice discus.

Is a better option to buy a breeding pair of quality discus (LFSs sell Stendker pairs for ~$900) and raise their fry?

I'm not going to get into racks and racks of breeding tanks to cross breed myself competition-level discus, but how get I get really nice discus?

Thanks for reading, Ben.

[turquoisegirl1]

Hey Ben;

This is a difficult one - better quality discus always come at a price. stendkers are amongst the more expensive and there are very few importers/suppliers here in aus so the prices will be unlikely to drop anytime soon. The best was is ultimately buy "juvenile" discus (the "fry" is the young when they are very very young - i don't believe any are sold at this stage).
This is always difficult as discus take 12-18 months to mature fully, depending on the strain, and sometimes longer. Eruptions and snakeskins, which are considered quite desirable, are amongst the strains that take longer to mature.

I own a tank of Tan discus and am very much taking them for granted - however will be getting them into breeding tanks over to coming months if you are interested. I'll be playing around with snakeskins, spotteds and red turqs, which when bred together will be bound to throw some interesting fry.

In my personal opinion, source mainly young discus and maybe invest in a pair or two as well, to start you off :) hope this helps you a little.

Jacqui

[broadfoot]

Thanks Jacqui,

I'm definitely keen to see how your pairs go and maybe source some of the juveniles or even fry they produce. I've got red turks at the moment which are pretty nice but the juvenile colours aren't the nicest, I just have to wait.