The Puffer Forum

My second choice aside from puffers would be Discus. I have some tank space, one I have my heart set on a lurker type puffer. the other tank I am torn between african cichlids and discus. I would like to know everyone's opinions & experience about them.....anything is appreciated...

Looks like I can't touch a Discus for under 40 bucks around here. Kinda pricey, since I think they're the most overbred cichlid on the market....

I have been keeping fish for 37 years. Still can't keep discus alive for over 3 years. And I'm pretty sure I was doing everything right.

Well, kinda biased. African cichlids have dominated my tanks for well over 20 years. Only started branching out beyond a coupla tanks of other fish when the fish room was finished a coupla years ago. Still, 'bout 3/4 of my tanks either have African cichlids or are waiting to be stocked with African cichlids I haven't kept before, as I get a chance at 'em.

Hard to really say what the pros and cons of Africans are without knowin' what yer lookin' at. There are so many species and more books than what's out there could be written on the subject and still be incomplete. West African cichlids generally come from rainforest streams and do best in softer water and a slightly acidic pH. Many will do alright with plants. The Rift Valley cichlids, the ones most people think about when the topic is brought up, are generally divided into several groups based on diet, behaviour, habitat, origin and ancestry. RV cichlids are generally aggressive and very picky 'bout conspecific tankmates. Over the years I've kept several dozen species of Africans from across the continent and have enjoyed every one.

I had a discus once, a long, long time ago when I was in high school, a WC green. Didn't know a thing 'bout 'em. Thought he was cool, bought him, and threw him in a 20 gallon community tank with an angel, some tetras and danios, and a coupla cories. He lived there happily for six months 'til a friend said he shouldn't be alive 'cuz they're delicate. Met a guy who was trying to breed discus and sold it to him a few weeks later. Either I stumbled across one tough discus or I inadvertently provided great water quality and an appealing food source. Regardless of which, I chalk it up to pure luck that it lived that long and stayed healthy.

Cheers,

WYite

IMHO, discus are moderately impressive fish, but are seriously over-bred, weak, picky aquarium show critters. To me they were not worth the tender loving care and hand prepared or raised foods the Discus fanatics I knew provided for them in their hard-plumbed tanks (required for their daily water partials in their warm,gentle current large planted tanks. That was over 40 years ago. Nothing I have seen since has changed my mind. There are more color varieties now. Big deal.

The Rift Lakes peovide myriad species and local variants of aggressive hardy and highly breedable fish with fascinating breeding systems (Discus do get points in that area also) coupled with unbeatable hardiness in captivity. I started out a Cichlid nut and have never really recovered. But I can do well without the blackwater fragile lines. Give me the Central American hardy and colorful fish or their distant African cousins any day, thank you very much.

All JMHO, YMMV.

I did 90% weekly WC, fed a diet of live blackworms soaked in Selcon:

Pufferpunk wrote:I did 90% weekly WC, fed a diet of live blackworms soaked in Selcon:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v345/ ... usTank.jpg

Spectacular tank.

It was--they died anyway...

Everything I come across points to a fickle fish. Overbreeding seems to be at fault, as even the chain stores won't touch them because they're to risky. I've seen this in 2 other animals, wait, 3 - pitbulls, corn snakes & bearded dragons. Trying to obtain certain color morphs, in the latter 2 has really made them a weaker species.

Some of my discus:

Thier coloration is unmatched. `Cept some of those flowerhorns come close...

I think they are a bit freaky lookin. I don't know what it is about them, I just think they look a bit evil

Very cute face!

What's that 2nd one? A rutti-tutti-sherbert-i-teenie?

A number of Angelfish strains went away a while back in the "plague". That was basically over-breeding as well. There are limits before the critters are too weakened to be hardy. The live-bearers went that way decades ago. Now a number of tank-bred crosses are following suit. No matter how "desirable" some color forms may be, the resulting fish have lost the ability to survive even in controlled conditions.

Not in my fish tanks, no thank you.