Kagan Menekse

Kagan is one of those indomitable discus lovers whose passion for the discus fish Symphysodon sp. has taken him across Europe and back in order to find 'the right' discus. On his travels he tore up and down the UK with yours truly, he has visited the esteemed Erix Hustins and so much more. Why not read Kagan's article about some of his adventures.

I started the aquarium hobby in 1993 and have bred many different kind of cichlids. It was in 1995 when I realized the “discus” word meant something in the aquarium hobby and not just on the sports field. I also realized why discus were known as the "king of the aquarium".

Back then I just visited petshops whenever I needed to buy anthing for my tanks and I needed some beefheart food, the thought never corssed my mind that beefeart could be a DIY project. When I entered the shop, there were two large, round fish in a tank. They were definitely bigger than 20 cms and I learnt that they were called discus…red turquoise discus in fact. I simply promised myself that I was going to have discus in my tanks some day, since I couldn’t afford them in those days.

It was the summer of 2000 when I bought my first discus and I went on to collected 9 discus in 10 months. There was nothing spectacular in the group of fish; iust a couple of turqs, fineline snakeskin and pidgeon blood. What I noticed was that my new discus doesn’t swim like my other cichlids. I fed my discus a food called 'discus bits'. I sometimes changed the water, I didnt worry about the water parameters much, and I didnt bother much with their diets. Worst of all I didnt observe them carefully enough. The only thing I seem to have done right was that I had these guys in a barebottom tank.

The end was so obvious - NOW!. I lost two fish within a couple of months. At the time I was in full university life and exams; I did not have the brains to give these fish the attention that they needed. I did remember how I felt when I first saw those two red turqs and how I felt when I saw the dead fish.

Then something happended that made me want to care, to want to understand the king of the aquarium.

I remember that I had not made any water changes for the last three weeks and one day I noticed something weird in the tank. All except two of the discus fish were grouped in one side of the tank. The two that were on the other side of the tank were acting strange. At least it looked strange to me that day. When I observed them, they were making pairing and spawning moves. I watched them for a long time and they laid about 300 eggs on the filter inlet. That was the day everything changed for me and my discus. That was the day I started reading and of course, that was the day I did not study for my final exam lol.

It was quite hard to find a website about discus covering valuable information. If something went wrong, you had to search through the forums and read lots of text that is irrelavent to your situation. In addition, lots of people commented on other people’s problems. Most of the time there different comments and this seemed very risky to me. I then realized that this hobby is getting complicated with the king of the aquarium.

I had to live the experience and find the solutions by myself when things went wrong. The forums were just the place to get used to discus photos. I had to see lots of discus in order to see the problem when I look at my tank. Time was very important when you dealing with a illness so I had to improve myself while determining how to tell if a discus was a quality one or not. A couple of months passed and I was a member of almost all discus forums around the world. I had read almost all the forum pages and posts during that time. What I was lacking was the experience.

During this time, I realised that I had to have baby discus to grow on, but I was not so lucky. I lost the female of the promising pair which put me back to the beginning. I had to find a way out and I thought that it was worth trying to put another “possible” female in the tank and to see if the male would pair up with her. After some trials, I had my pair and everything was back on track and I got my first batch of baby discus. This was also the catalyst to building my own website.

What I had to do was learn how to take good photographs of the tanks. I became member in some of the top digital photography forums. The website (DiscusKago) was up and running and a surprise was waiting for me…in just two days. I received an award of quality and honor for my website.

I am aware that this was only an introduction to discus. The rest seemed easy though. More and more experience came as I studied hard. Until today, I have succesfully bred and grown different strains and fought with different sicknesses. More importantly, I tried helping people from all over the world with their problems (Hope they are not cursing lol ). Now, the hardest part has just begun. I have bought some wild discus from Eric Hustinx. My goal is to keep them healthy and to breed them. Then I would think that I have taken part in the life and hobby that surrounds the discus fish the king of the aquarium - because, until now, I have just done what most of the hobbiests have done… nothing more, the real challenge will be to duplicate nature as best in order to provide a real home for my wild discus!

Regards Kagan