Yellow heckel ??

[dpt8]

I just bought some awesome heckles @ LFS.. Great color and condition. Blue heckles, 3.5" colored correctly but one is yellow ?? Anyone know if its a cross or will color up differently as an adult.. These are definitely wild heckles..

[Larry Bugg]

Not a heckle. Looks like a blue to me.

[Second Hand Pat]

Not a heckle. Looks like a blue to me.

Or a heckel cross. Can you provide a better picture.

[dpt8]

I'm trying to find how to post another pic that shows the solid darker middle stripe. It does have a solid middle stripe like the others. Maybe a cross ??

[XAnhLe]

I know some wild fish have a darker middle bar like this one:
http://www.tropicalfishkeeping.com/fish-pictures/heckel-discus-1282686125-800.jpg

[Second Hand Pat]

Yes which is why I asked for a better picture. Many wild blues can have a center bar like this fish.
Pat

http://i925.photobucket.com/albums/ad95/Second_Hand_Pat/DSC_4191_zps39d06d89.jpg (http://s925.photobucket.com/user/Second_Hand_Pat/media/DSC_4191_zps39d06d89.jpg.html)

[dpt8]

84994Thanks for your input everyone..

[dpt8]

Try this one..

[Second Hand Pat]

I still think this fish is a cross. It's bar does not appear to be as thick as the bar on the heckels. Also it's base body color is not "heckel like". If that rock is limestone based I would suggest removing it from the tank. It will raise your ph.
Pat

[John_Nicholson]

Time will tell but I lean towards a heckel cross.

-john

[pcsb23]

Time will tell but I lean towards a heckel cross.

-john
It might be, but I'm going with Larry and that is a blue ...

[plecocicho]

Heckels and heckel cross have thick central bar (that is considerably thicker than other bars); later have different base colour and markings than true heckel, you can see that easily on the anal fin pattern and body markings (heckels always have horizontal stripes). Since the cnetral bar of this speciemne doessnt seem considerably thicker plus anal fin pattern i would go with a blue discus also.

[John_Nicholson]

Well I have some F2 heckel X penang eruptions that look exactly like it......

-john

[yogi]

It looks like a female blue to me. This fish got mixed in at the exporter in South America. They probably had buckets or trays of recently caught stressed out discus being separated by size and strain to export. Because of the slightly thicker bar it got thrown in with the small heckles by mistake. Once it hit the wholesaler in the USA it was kept with the small heckles because that is the box it was in. Then it went to your lfs labeled as a small heckle and you bought it. I'm charging the batteries to my crappy camera and I'll take pictures later to show the difference.

Do you have any problems reading your thermometer in that position?

[dpt8]

haha Hey Yogi, Yes, the thermometer did fall :0) Thanks to everyone for their input and more is welcome.. I really appreciate this discussion and am learning even more about wild discus.. I love em all :0)

[yogi]

These two pictures are adult female blues with a prominent center bar.

[yogi]

These are heckle crosses and you will see how much thicker the center bar is. The fish in the first picture is watching her eggs. The fish in the last picture will eat her eggs within one hour of laying them.

[yogi]

This is also a heckle cross. If it was a true heckle the thick center bar would extend better into the dorsal and anal fins.

[YSS]

Whatever it may be, it looks like a very nice fish. Good luck with all of them.

[pastry]

Totally not an ichthyologist and definitely have had wilds (blues) with emphasized middle bar but what gets me is how the bar appears to further expand at top of body to dorsal fin rather than start to taper. Raises an eyebrow. Natural cross??? Or just randomness? At the same time Yogi's third pic shows expanding middle bar as body meets dorsal fin so that kind of dampers my point. Love the speculating though. I once had a "brown" (wild caught, drab, not many markings, sort of had a "high body" shape, where there was red it was VERY red) with thick and distinct middle bar that always made me curious as to whether or not it was a natural cross. Picked out from a tank full of about 20 fish where the majority were the same as described. That was about 20 years ago from a guy I know who only brought in wild discus (and seeing that sight forced me to buy at least one of those specimens! Saw a similar discus in B. Dergen's (Sp?) wild caught discus book toward beginning of book)

[JamesP]

Well I have some F2 heckel X penang eruptions that look exactly like it......

-john

I wonder where they came from. Lol... It does look very similar.
F3 Heckel Penang cross
http://i1115.photobucket.com/albums/k552/jimgallagher1/HeckelCross2_zps12e7af16.jpg (http://s1115.photobucket.com/user/jimgallagher1/media/HeckelCross2_zps12e7af16.jpg.html)
http://i1115.photobucket.com/albums/k552/jimgallagher1/PB290194_zps60f78788.jpg (http://s1115.photobucket.com/user/jimgallagher1/media/PB290194_zps60f78788.jpg.html)
F2 Male Heckel Cross
http://i1115.photobucket.com/albums/k552/jimgallagher1/P1030662-1.jpg (http://s1115.photobucket.com/user/jimgallagher1/media/P1030662-1.jpg.html)