DISCUS-SINER.SK

Discus – Siner is the family business, whose mind and heart is the fish keeper Jozef Minčák, the economic section is being taking care of by the executive manager Antónia Minčáková and their son Daniel Minčák is in charge of a promotion and communication with a foreign clients.

Jozef Minčák´s taken up an interest in the aquaristics 40 years ago, and since 1995 specializes on the Discus keeping. Our family business has started commercial fish keeping in 2002. We are from Slovakia, from Bartošovce, near the historical city of Bardejov. In 2007 we have built the new hall, where we have connected Jozef Minčák´s fish keeping experiences with the available technologies, which we keep up to date. Nowadays, the capacity of our tanks is 80 000 litres of water on the area of about 300 square metres. We are constantly working hard on the high quality of a fish we are keeping. There is always a sufficient amount of a diffrent color varieties in our tanks, which you can find on the global Discus´s market. We also offer them in a diffrent sizes.

About us

Our philosophy in the Discus keeping is to create such a conditions for them, in terms of a water rate´s ( the filtration, the capacity of the tanks) and a feed, so they will grow fast and have a strong imunity. Therefore they can reach nice disc-shaped body and a size with good following adaptation on a new evironment in our customer´s aquariums.

We´ve managed to achieve, during the years, that our fish don´t have a parasites as gill´s worms, nematodes (capillaria sp., camallanus sp., oxyuris sp.) and testodes (tapeworms). These parasites inhibit the growth, mostly in a small fish up to 5 centimetres, but also limit the prosperity of a fish of all the sizes. A whipworms are latent parasites, which help with the digestion in the intestines of a fish. Once the imunity is lost, which can be caused by the problems with a water, but mainly by a low quality feed, these parasite will start to reproduce fast. As a result of this process, fish will stop to eat, therefore cannot grow and may die. Until 2013, we were feeding our fish with the mixture of a beef heart with a vitamins and a granules from a diffrent comercial brands. We´ve discovered, after this kind of feeding, that some of a fish will grow very well, but others will fall behind and won´t flourish. That was the reason why we´ve started with developing our own feeding mixtures. At first, it was the frozen mixtures based on a beef heart, later we were adding another protein components, starches, algae, herbs and a componets for fish coloring. We´ve found out, that in the frozen form, fish cannot receive all of the neccesary components, which would provide them with the full nutrition. That´s why we´ve started to try feeding them with a granules from a diffrent companies, but it only proved, that if we want the full, well-balanced nutrition, there isn´t a complete feed for Discus to be found on the market. It was either granules with a high protein contents, the others contained algae or probiotics and it turned out, that while they would accept one kind of a feed, they would refuse another one, which in the end would raise the prices of a feed, because of the need to buy more kinds and change water more frequently, as not all of the granules were being consumed.

Based on all of these findings, we´ve decided to come up with our own formula, which would contain, without the compromises, all of the componets needed for a full and well-balanced diet for a rare fish, such as Discus, and also for a wild catch. In 2018, after the years of trying in our breeding facilities, we´ve brought to the market our own brand of the granules ROYAL MENU. These granules meet all of the requirements for feeding a fish from the 10th day of their lives up to an adult fish, because we offer them in a 5 diffrent fractions. Fish of all the sizes take our granules heartily.

ROYAL MENU granules contain the complex components for a fish nutrition, starting with proteins, through different kinds of medicinal herbs, shiitake mushrooms, chia seed oil to probiotics and prebiotics, which all come together to help nutrient´s absorbtion from a feed, maintain a very strong imunity, provide a balanced growth and a beautiful colouring of a fish. Thanks to this complete formula in one, it is also a very economic solution, because fish will get the complete nutrition without the compromises in one product, so it is not needed to mix it together from a diffrent products.

Our breeding facilities

Our breeding facilities are situated in the separate building, which was designed from the beginning, construction and technologically speaking, for the Discus keeping, and contains 5 rooms on the 300 square meters area.

1st room

In the first room, there are 4 pools with capacity of 5000 litres, 5th pool is designed in an „amazon style“ and serves as a decorative tank. In this room, there are also tanks for a young, growing up breeding fish.

2nd room

The second room is so-called fish reproducer, which contains the tanks for a pairs and for a breeding of an young fish from 1 to 6 centimeters. We let our carefully chosen breeding pairs breed their own offsprings to ensure their good immunity and growth. We are also feeding them, after they start to swim from the 5th day, freshly hatched artemia (brine shrimp), and from the 10th day they very well accept the smallest fraction XS of our ROYAL MENU granules.

3rd room

In the third room, there are 12 tanks situated, with the capacity of 1000 liters of water for a fish available for sale. It is possible to visit our commercial premises after the previous arrangement.

4th room

Technological part of the procces is being taken care of in the fourth room. There is a system of the water tanks with full capacity of 8000 litres, the equipment for water heating using a solar panels and a boiler running on a natural gas, whereas heat distribution is solved by a special technology. It is a combination of heating the base of the tank for the aquariums and the pools are being heated up by a specially made stainless steel spiral, located in a filtration part. Heating is regulated in several circuits through a thermostats. All of the rooms are being ventilated using a recuperative unit of an air technology (exhaustion and an exhalation units in the ceiling), which is operated by a sensor for a humidity measurment.

5th room

We added this part of the building in 2020 and it serves as a dry feed storage for our ROYAL MENU brand. From this unit we are distributing the feed for our customers from all over the world.

The care

Temperature in our breeding facilities is being kept in a range from 29 to 31°C, conductivity of our breeding water is in a range from 250 to 350 µS/cm, °kH is in a range from 2 to 6 and pH is in a range from 6,5 to 7,5. Inlet water used for a fish breeding has value of 7,5 pH, conductivity of 300 µS/cm and 5 °kH. The source for the water is from the forest stream, flowing down from the Čerhov hills in the northeast of Slovakia. This location is considered to be one of the purest in the Europe.

For the water regulation for a spawning we are using an industrial osmosis, which can produce 3000 liters of water with the conductivity of 1 to 8 µS/cm. For finalization of water for a spawning we are using diffrent kinds of a special salts.

The health of the fish and their constant appetite is being ensured by clean water. For this purpose, we are using a multistage filtration working in 8 circuits. The capacity of the filters is from 600 to 1000 litres. The first chamber is being used for a mechanical filtration and the middle chambers for a biological filtration are constantly using an air powered and rotating BioChips. Another chamber is a bioceramics and in the last one, based on the need, we are using the ion exchangers, form the SZAT company, for the removal of the high rates of NO3 and PO4 and for the crystal clear water in the tanks. Every chamber has its own exhaustion system, for a regular water replacement and a sediment removal, as well as an individual water inlet.

We are feeding our fish daily, from the 10th day until the maturity, with ROYAL MENU granules and to make it more varied, few times a week, we serve them a frozen artemia or red mosquito larvae. Discus up to 5 centimetres are also being fed frozen mixtures based on a beef heart and a fish.