Boston Aquarium Society Message Board

Hi!

So, I think I'm heading down this road, finally... I'm in the market for 2-3 small discus to add to my crew. Do any of you have experiences with them? Would anyone be interested in a group buy from any of the breeders? I've found a few who seem to have nice stock for very affordable prices ($15-30 for 2-3" fish, shipping around $50-75).

Thoughts?

~Khrysti~

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Mmmm.... fishies.

Ned's sell really nice discuss at a pretty reasonable price.

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~Aaron~

Wasn't there a guy who used to come to meetings who bred them? I f I recall he wanted $20 a fish but this was a couple of years ago.

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At least two-thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity: idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religious or political ideas.
Aldous Huxley

Oh yeah? Maybe we can figure out who that was...

I'm planning to reward myself for finishing my thesis draft (due March 31st!) by doing a small overhaul on my 125 in time for the TFSRI auction at the end of March. There may be a few discus at the auction (I've seen them at a couple of auctions) but I don't know if I want to wait until then!

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Mmmm.... fishies.

All I remember is that he was a skinny African-American fellow. and it might have been 30 not 20

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At least two-thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity: idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religious or political ideas.
Aldous Huxley

You mean, Dave? If you are talking about him, he works at the Petco in Cambridge.

If you want discus, the little shack in chinatown has some nice ones at reasonable prices (thats the only good thing they have in my opinion)

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Eric - Secretary/Bowl Show Chairman

Oh, I've met Dave a few times - I'll stop by the Petco and ask him if he's still breeding. Thanks!

Maybe I'll check out Chinatown too... if they're surviving there, maybe they'll have a chance in my not-designed-around-discus tanks!



On a similar note - what's your favorite method of reducing GH? My 125 is currently somewhere between 75-150ppm GH (40-80 KH) and a pH of somewhere right around 7. I've yet to try any of the Seachem products like Neutral Reg/Discus buffer or Alk/Acid buffers or similar stuff from other companies. And I don't have a car so regular purchase of R/O from Skipton's or somewhere else is possible but inconvenient. Alternatively, I do have some peat and I'm willing to toss that in my filter and go "au natural". What are your experiences?

Thanks!

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Mmmm.... fishies.

to lower the hardness, adding salt works. Salt is a natural water softener.

You can get Morton kosher salt at the supermarket in the RED box (not the black one!) for about $2 for 3 pounds.

It is important that you use pure salt to soften the water and not instant ocean or anything like that.

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Eric - Secretary/Bowl Show Chairman

Not sure if a road trip is interesting to you; but I have good friend here in CT that breeds.

Rich

I guess that depends on whether it's worth the trip... ;-D

I think I can assume by your suggestion that he has good stuff, eh? What part of CT and how long a drive is it from Somerville?

Thanks!
~K~

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Mmmm.... fishies.

Northford CT, and around 2 hours or so. He does ship as well. If you are gonna get into discus, I suggest joining this board: simplydiscus.com

Excellent place to learn, and you will find connections for fish there that cannot be beat. Folks there are importing direct, and there are lots of plain old hobbiests as well. The best discus resource I have ever been involved with. Al owns that site, and his username there is brewmaster15

Take a look you won't be sorry!

Thanks! I'll definitely check out that site.

I'll keep a road trip visit in mind, too.

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Mmmm.... fishies.

Did you get any new discus?

Simply Discus is a real good website. I watch it for a long time. Al is a great guy. He orgnized a party for discus lovers last year, but unfortunately, I couldn't go.

Although I don't have discus in my tank. I like them very much. Hope someday we can carpool to Al for some nice fish. I live in Arlington, near from you.

I second Ned's, he gets them in quite a bit at fair prices, and in every size imaginable. He orders from major, high quality and trusted breeders as well.

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Trying to concentrate on dart frogs, African cichlids and Aphyosemion killifish (oh, and mysnake pair and reef too). I've always got something for sale, PM.

I don't have any discus -- yet!!! (but I'd sure like to!)

But I want to add something about softening water. There can be a problem with adding salt (NaCl) to do that: exchanging hard water for brackish water, and discus definitely are not brackish fish by nature. Commercial water softeners, the kinds used for households, not fish tanks, do work by replacing Ca2+ with Na+, but softwater fish don't usually do well with a lot of Na+.

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BAS member