discus

Dear Marco,

Never has a truer word been spoken, I agree with your point of view entirely.

Shakester, I would wholeheartedly advise that you follow Marco's advice.

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

Tx Prof Dirk.

 

Think past your discus and give me an equal answer,
thats 4 neons eaten already, i am going to upgrade to bigger neons

 

A discus is a Cichlid. Cichlids Will eat fish that can fit in their mouths. In nature Discus eat neons. I'd go with cardinals! Seriously. They are better than neons.

 

The point I was trying to get across Shakester, is one which is at the bottom of this. You asked what you should do, and whither you should take the Discus back to the shop. I said that you should make up your mind what it is you want the main focus of your tank to be. If it is a Discus tank, then there are numerous tankmates you can put in, but neons are not one of those. Definetly Not! Not black neons, not Jumbo neons! Not cardinals either! Cardinals life span will be greatly reduced by the temp requirements of Discus. If it IS Discus you wish to keep, then get the tank set up for them first and foremost! Any tank mates should then fit into that same environment 'comfortably' otherwise they should NOT go in there! If however you wish to keep neons then get rid of the Discus. Its all about what tank you want that to be.

 

So what fish make good tankmates for discus ?

 

kuhliloach, I think Prof Dirk should answer this. I keep Ramirezi's with mine and apart from the Rams eating first I have no problems. There is much debate about this issue

 

Dont rams easily get sick??? Arent you scared the contract something and pass it on to the Discus

 

Again Marco and Slagter are spot on with their advice. If you have a large enough tank, AND IF YOU FEED YOUR DISCUS PROPERLY, then you can consider cardinals, but neons definitely not. As Slagter indicated, cichlids will eat other fishes if they are hungry. I think that you are not feeding your discus properly and that is one of the reasons why they are wanting to eat your neons, but in principle, as Marco indicates, you should simply not be keeping these fishes together.

I keep angels (both scalare and altum) with my discus, but you would find loads of information advising against this, and I would actually also advise the inexperienced aquarist against keeping angels with discus. Angels can carry flagellate organisms. These organisms occur in the gut and can cause an infection there both to angels and to discus and then you will get stringy faeces (drolletjies, boet) and the fishes can die from this. Discus can get hole in the head disease from these organisms and are much more sensitive for these organisms than angels are. This is also why the general advice is not to keep them together. With the experience that I have gained over the years, I feel confident that I have this problem under control, but I hardly ever introduce new angels from sources that I do not know, and because of this I do not have problems. For someone that is not experienced keeping angels with discus can be a disaster though.

I have also kept Rams with discus just as Marco advises. Rams come from the Orinoco river system in South America in which the water conditions are even better than the Amazon River. As a result they are super sensitive to bad water conditions (as you indicate Fishwisperer) but they make excellent tankmates for discus, because they also want soft acidic well filtered water and they also need high temperatures.

Other than these fishes I keep some catfishes with my discus. I do not keep Corydoras with them as they require lower temps. Some Ancistrus are excellent, but not all can cope with the high temps. Plecostomus are particularly bad mates for discus as they hog the food, and they learn how to frighten the discus, by suckering onto their sides when food is offered. If you want to see a discus freak out then watch one when a plec tries to sucker onto its side.

There are not many fishes that can be kept with discus because they require such special conditions, but then such a special fish does not really need any mates in any case.

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

We might be hijacking this thread. I hope Prof Dirk comes on and clarifies what goes with Discus and what not. Fishwhisperer, yes, you are right. Rams are EXTREMELY sensitive, especially to ICH. But at the temperature Discus are kept Ich is hardly ever a problem. I find that on the good diet and extreme care my Discus are kept, the Rams do great! I will however NEVER buy any and just put them straight into the tank, the risk of them carrying something is too great. Also, Rams thrive in Soft acidic water, and though 30C might be a tad warm for them, mine have lived past there 3 year life expectancy so I doubt the heat has an impact on them. Like I said though, they tend to storm for the food so one should be carefull not to overstock on them. It could make 'eating' for Discus a little difficult.

 

Thanks for the tip, bet they look great with the discuss

 

They do. I find they also tend to 'relax' skittish discus because they are way less carefull and will storm to the glass when you approach. Its just become hectically difficult to get nice colourful ones, most 'nice' looking ones you get are hormone induced.

 

hmm,the ick protozan or something, is still in my tank and the discus have not gotten any diseases or viruses ,
and due to my mix of fishies and their disease carring nature.
discus are picky eaters ,but patiance and tetra will help
IF YOU WANT THE DISCUS TO EAT WITHIN THE FIRST 3 DAYS FEED THEM LIVE BRINE
!!!!SHRIMP TRIED TESTED PROVEN!!!! ,
my pleco is such a skrickjack his hide out is with the discus under an large amazoinan leave he only eats algae and hydra on my bog/?drift and occasionaly tabimin [sinking food in tablet form] they tolerate each other but the discus occasionaly cause a fight with my pleco,one day he will show him what a bad sucker he is !
i am definately gettng an ram bolivian /german? those things are pretty and will put away any the discus strains for its price +-

 

check out BOO!!! 's pics in photo copitition 3 he got noens with his heckel discus

 

Haha Lmao.

 

Heckel discus

Hi there Prof Dirk, hope you are well. I hope I will not bore you/everyone as this will be a long post. I read an interesting piece today, written by a USA breeder Mr Larry Waybright. Waybright base his claims on his experience and Bleher's findings and refers continuously to 'Bleher's Discus Vol.1' Since neither you or I have read Bleher's book, can we for discussion's sake presume that what Waybright claims to appear in Bleher's book actually does. Firstly, Waybright states that according to Bleher ALL 'domestic' colour strains are from Blue/Brown Crosses, and that Heckels and Greens played no role in their development. I find this strange as I was under the impression that Red spotted greens contributed to the Leopard varieties found today? Furthermore Bleher apparantly claims tgat Heckels have proven almost impossible to breed in captivity, except when crossed with Blue/Brown varieties, which then result in infertility? According to Waybright all crosses between Heckel(S.discus) or Greens (S.auqi) and Blue/Brown (S.haraldi) end up with fertility problems,and that this alone is proof that they are indeed different 'species'. Now, a while back I read a report on research done by the University of Singapore into Discus Genetics. The report stated that Blue/Brown discus show the least genetic 'versatility' and Heckels the most, and they concluded that if/when Heckels are bred in the same selective manner as Domestics have been, that 'strain' creation will be endless in that gene pool. This made me wonder today that if the research is indeed correct,surely Breeders would be jumping at breeding Heckels, unless they are trying but are as unsuccessful as Waybright/Bleher claims due to the complexity involved with Heckel breeding? I then searched the internet and found that more tham 85% of ALL wild caught Heckel/Green Discus gets shipped to Japan, and then from there to the rest of the east. Sounds "fishy" doesnt it? If then Heckels are so difficult, would that not mean 2nd generation tank bred Heckels would be, well PRICELESS? Thanks for your time Prof. Regards, Marco

 

Hi Marco,

You have again come up with some interesting things here.

Larry Waybright also comments on the Angelfish forum to which I also contribute, so I know of his fishes that he posts there, including discus, and I also know of his opinions. He is an experienced aquarist and I respect his point of view.

To disprove the statements that Heckel discus have not contributed to modern hybrids, there are pictures that were taken by Dr Schmidt-Focke, the German father of discus keeping and breeding in which you see a wildcaught blue and a Heckel pair. These gave offspring to brightly coloured discus which were then used to form the so-called brilliant turquoise strain in early discus breeding. Since then this strain has been bred into solid turquoise and blue diamond strains as well as quite a few others. So as far as documented literature goes Heckel's did contribute to hybrids as far as I know.

I also agree with you that greens contributed to red-spotted green selections and then to leopards, so this in my opinion is also not correct.

Wild-caught discus in general are difficult to induce to breed and Heckels are the most difficult of the lot as a result of which I am not surprised that they are so few breeding reports, even in Japan where there are really excellent discus keepers. You must also remember that it is cheaper to import wild-caught discus than what it is to breed them, so this would also play a role here.

Finally I would like to add that the most recent scientific phylogenetic studies indicate that all discus are closely related and that the genetic data makes it difficult to distinguish clearly between the so-called species. The differences in morphology are also not clear cut. By this I mean that they are not clearly different as needs to be the case to be able to distinguish between true species and there are overlaps between the descriptions of different species. Both Waybright and Bleher are not phylogeneticists (I do research in this field myself) and therefore cannot be expected to be able to interpret this data. For this reason, my personal opinion on the matter is that they are not correct.

Interesting topic this, but you can argue it up and down, but even the species as presently described, blue, brown, green and Heckel are not correct, strictly speaking. To me this is not important as man always wants to pack biological organisms into these boxes called species, but evolution does not work in this way, what about new species that are in the process of splitting. In 1 million years (that is if man does not mess up the Amazon) discus may have evolved into 4 clear species, but at this stage they have not diverged enough to be able to clearly assign them to different species.

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

Thank you for that answer Prof. I have long dreamt, that one day, when I am as accomplished as you are at breeding Discus, to cross a Heckel with a Snow white in an attempt to get a pure white fish with the 3 prominent stress bars. Would that then theoretically be possible? And then another question, so as not to bug you constantly, where would I be able to find info on genetics as related to Discus fish? The internet is obviously a no go, and though a few published books cover this, they all seem quite different in their opinions, and bring me no closer to knowing the true impact. Thanks for your time Prof Dirk. Regards, Marco

 

Hi Marco,

The genetics of discus are quite complex, about that there is no doubt. Your planned cross sounds interesting, but I do not know if it is going to be feasible. If I have comprehended this properly, then Snow Whites possess the gene for no stress bars, which the ghost discus and many blue diamonds also have. They can show the dark ring on the fins, but they cannot show the stress bars any longer. In other words what this means is that the snow white in principle cannot show bars and therefore it should not be able to show the Heckel bars either. However, I am speculating here, because I do not even know the genetics of snow whites properly.

I stopped buying the glossy style discus books about 15 years ago after I started realizing that this was in most instances a money making racket. What I have found is that between all these books the facts about anything are very difficult to find, one book may have a few words about the genetics of snakeskins say and another about ghosts and so on. Nowhere have I seen anyone writing a comprehensive overview of the genetics of discus. I also think that this could be very valuable in any breeding program as a result of which I am not sure that persons that know about discus genetics may be prepared to publish this information. Where have you read about anything regarding discus genetics? I would be interested to know.

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

Hi Prof.I found some info, but like I said I would not be able to distinguish fact from fiction. These are the sites- www.discusnews.com/genetics-1.shtml. This was a very elementary article touching on basic inheritance and Mendelian principle. A bit better article I found at www.sciencedirect.com The article is titled 'Genetic diversity among wild forms and cultivated varieties of Discus' There is apparantly also a book titled 'Singapore Discus' which elaborates on this. Yet I am afraid, as you have also indicated, that it will just be another 'seller' with little info. Interestingly, I saw 2 Discus yesterday that express, in my opinion, something which you posted on recently. These 2 fish are sold as 'Blue Snakeskins', and they do have the multiple finer stress bars associated with Snakeskins, yet they are so irregular that I couldn't count them, but they have more than 11 at least. The part I found interesting was they have exact Red Turq colouring, with the Mahogany background colour, and the turq striations in typical Fine Snakeskin pattern. I will get photographs of them and try post it here. Could this be a 'new' Snakeskin line, or is this as I suspect, a Cross which now resembles not a single strain, but a mix-match which cannot really be classed as pure? You have done studies into this, and you say you still find it 'confusing'. . . I feel 100 times more! It remains incredibly interesting though!