Discus

Hi @Marco

Yes these guys are really interesting and im now super curious as to how they going to pan out.

Here are some more close up pics. Not much colour yet, besides the red edging on the dorsal and anal fin and a few blue specks on the anal fin and a slight blue haze. Not sure if its that clear on the photos.

Anyway, enjoy.

 

Hi @pHish_man,

Nice red eyes hey.
It could happen that these turn out to have some red spotting on the body. They be lovely if they do. Then again I think they are going to be lovely anyway!

Watching with anticipation

Marco

 

@Marco

Updated photo of one of the barless guys starting to show some colour.

Enjoy

 

my guess is that he will turn out similar to that beauty in your avatar!

 

Decided to move the latest batch of fry to their own tank yesterday as the young were starting to nibble quite aggressively on the mom.

Here is a photo of some of the damage these guys have caused:



My best spawn so far, 45 fry in total in the process of moving:



guys settled in and now enjoying their first taste of 'benkers' :

 

AMazing....cant believe those little fry can do that? It is obvious that it can lead to infection?

 

Even with the damage the mom is beautiful! Congratulations and well done... 45 fry is awesome!!

 

Male leopard fanning eggs spawned 04.09.2014

 

Just out of curiosity how many fish do you have in total now....

Seems like you will be opening a discus farm soon lol

You definitely have a wining schedule going.

 

Female fanning the eggs

 

Updated photo of this 'bar-less' guy

 

@pHish_man I see he/she is getting some spots, does this mean he will be a leopard?

 

Hi Hennie,

To be honest I am not sure at this stage how he will pan out as an adult. Both parents are snakeskin, ie more than 9 vertical black bars. The father is leaning more toward being an oriental dream type. But there are a number of young in each spawn of this pair that don't have bars or if they do, they seem to be red or gold in colour. @Marco has touched on there possibly being a ghost gene in the mix but we will have to wait a few months to see how they develop. I would really like to find out more about this.

Andrew

 

Ok so we wait and see! Keep us posted Andrew.

 

Here is another with feint red bars slightly visible.

 

these folks are getting interesting. Very nice discus

 

Hi @pHish_man

Stunning !!
And look - lotsa red. I remember saying these guys might have some red spots.
I still maintain that I doubt they will be as striped/spotted as their "normal" barred siblings - but thats pure guesswork from me.

Just to clarify @pHish_man - this is not uncommon in Snakeskin lines. Its not really a "ghost gene" and should also not be mistaken for the Ghost strain mutation which ocvurred in the 90's. It could possibly be related but I can only speculate.
@HennieRoux - you are not completely wrong in your assumption that they will be Leopard. They will however retain the Snakeskin variety of this and thus be Leopard Snakeskin.
From all I have gathered these fish are unique only in appearance and does not breed true unfortunately. Crossing them to even another barless Snakeskin may not even result in any barless offspring. Its part of genetics that I simply do not understand.

I guess its similar to the Heckel bar which for some reason appears in F1 from crossings with Heckel - but in F2 its mostly gone unless bred back to a Heckel again.

One should appreciate these for their unique and pretty appearance though.

Well done Andrew

 

@pHish_man I will be moving begining next year, and have decided that I want to keep some discus again. SO by then you should perhaps have some fry ready to go. Would love to get some locally bred Discus. So you will be my first contact.

 

Wow, very nice! Are these guys colouring up quickly or is mine just slow as I have fry the exact same age as yours (in the pic) and mine are all still colourless (plain white and some with black stress bars). I think perhaps its a nutritional thing from my side as I hardly feed any "red" colour foods, but they looking very nice Andrew! well done

 

@Marco

Thank you once again for your valuable and informed comments. So basically then I will grow out a handful of these barless guys just for interest sake but will not include them in any breeding programme. I will keep on with the ss/ss pair for this season as they are throwing out a fair proportion of the barless type, but also snakeskin and leopard types. I am sure the snakeskin types will look more like spotted snakeskins and then I can use these offspring down the line with my leopard/ss off spring to enhance the spotted snakeskin types. Does this make sense?
@HennieRoux

Thanks for the interest in my little discus programme. Always the biggest compliment is when someone wants to obtain fishes from a spawn, so just give a shout when you ready and we can see what is available ( perhaps some of my para-free guys will be in production by then....... )
@1300wipass


I am NOT feeding any red colour enhancing foods at the moment. That would be counter-productive if one wanted to select for natural red colouring. So these guys are definitely not on any enhancers whatsoever.

Any chance you can pop a photo of your fishes on your thread so we can see the progress?

Andrew