Heckel

[jn4u]

Hello

I'm looking for some report about "true" heckel breeding. Not a cross between
a vild heckel male and captiv normal discus etc.

I have tried to get in contact with this breeder. Is there someone that are
good friend with him?

http://www.tecnet.or.jp/~ikeda/page3-breed.html

Well from time to time I have read some article. Well but what use are the
information; LOL;I breed them in low pH with my breeding heckel food formula.

Or

Before breeding the wild heckel it's important to conditioning the
fish. Yea! PXT.

Some print in a mag. or...

TAFN
JN

[jim_shedden]

There is someone on the board that has bred heckles. I will try to find out who.

jim

[Jason]

I've spawned males but not females, dont think I've ever owned a female.

Its a long process of simulating the dry/wet season.....or pure luck

[wildthing]

The problem with breeding heckels is that you get more heckels.....& it is cheaper, easier & quicker to buy then from Brazil than it is to breed them.
good luck

david


http://wilddiscus.com

[Tristanyyz]

LOL

I liked that response..."you get more heckels"

If you got a couple of Curipera out of it, that would really upset the apple cart! Or in this case the Amazon...

[jn4u]

I understand LOL

But still

My goal as a hobby breeder is to breed fish. I don't breed to sell, I breed
for fun of breeding fish. When i have breed a fish a few time i try
something new.

8) , And to win the contest of most breed fish in Sweden between
association. Heckels give high points... :)

KNIM... But why keep discus!, why not rent a aquarium
and the fish, and get a d00d to fix the things. ;)

[yogi]

I've bred male heckels to wild madeira females, but never had a female heckel breed. In this amazon section of simply I have a thread with the heckel x madeira breeding. I also have pictures of the fry.

I'm nothing more than a hobbyist. I do believe in keeping fish close to there natural habitat. For the most part I keep wild discus. I filter all my tap water through a peat bomb. I keep my ph around 5.0 to 5.5, temp around 83 to 84f., gh3, kh 1. My conductivity is a little on the high side around 200.

To condidtion discus in my opinion. They need to be cleaned out of parasites and disease free. Different people use different methods. I have no special formula. Clean water, I change atleast 25 percent everyday. I also keep my filters clean. I will use metro or di metro for hex and I will use formalin or prazi for flukes. They say prazi also works on tapeworms.

I also feed my fish with quality foods. I use an assortment. I use Omega one flakes, an assortment of Hikari frozen foods and live blackworms.

I do keep my wilds in 100 gallon plus tanks and give them about 10 gallons of water each. I do not try and breed them they just do it and must like the conditions I provide. So far I've had two heckel cross madeira pairs, one heckel cross domestic rsg, one gypsy blue cross domestic rsg and one wild rsg cross leopard ss.

I have two diferent theories to get heckel cross heckel. One is take about 150 gallon tank and place about 14 adult heckels in it. Once your sure everyone is healthy add a confirmed domestic female who likes to breed. This should help stir things up. My other theory is to buy about 15 to 20 3 inch heckels and raise them up. This might take 2 or 3 years. But I think it might provide a breeding pair.

I will move my other threads with pictures up so you can see some of my pictures.

[jn4u]

Thanks for the supplied information. I will se if I can borrow a video camera and make a movie, I don't own any, then you will se a very interesting behavior, if that is not breeding behavior then I'm crazy. Will but first I will get some video for you to look at.

I only use my tap water, it have a softness of 180ms and gh of 2. pH is between 7.2 to 7.4,They are to young to breed in my opinion just 1 year.

I change the tank water volume 80% every 3 day.

[Paulio]

The problem with breeding heckels is that you get more heckels.....& it is cheaper, easier & quicker to buy then from Brazil than it is to breed them.
good luck

david



Exactly.

[Rod]

Wouldn't it be better to breed and develop beautiful heckel strains than have to rely on collecting them? An aquarium bred fish is always an easier proposition for a hobbiest compared to a wild imo. Once the secret to breeding heckels is unraveled the development potential from them is huge. Imagine the heckel shape and the 5th bar being used on all sorts of body colors and patterns.....beautiful imo.

I hope i have encouraged you jn, good luck with your breeding program.

Rod

[daninthesand]

The problem with breeding heckels is you get more heckels...........????? If Wattley and some of the pioneers of discus keeping/breeding felt the same way, we'd still be in the dark ages of discus husbandry.

I undestand the point of course, but the challenge to do it is what is the attraction.

Ever hear of anyone of taking Heckels to f5 or f6 or maybe even f12? ( I have heard of it.) Who knows what it might bring.

Its not always about "cheaper" and "easier". Might as well raise pet rocks then.... ;D

Daniel

[Juan C. Nieto]

Johan, three years ago, i got to breed heckel discus (almost, the young ones died 1 month and half later :'( :'( :'().
The ph was aprox. 5, kh 0.
I bought them big ones, very thin. Difficult aclimatation.
Aprox. five years later they spawning.

My english is very bad, sorry.

[Juan C. Nieto]

next

[Juan C. Nieto]

the last one

[Tonyintx]

All I can say is WOW!!!!!!!!

[ping]

wow .. beautiful :)

[gang_mary]

5 years~
You are great man

[Juan C. Nieto]

FIVE YEARS (LIKE THE BOWIE SONG), ALTHOUGHT I DONT KNOW THE HECKEL AGE AT THAT MOMENT, I BOUGHT THEM BIG.
SOME PICS (FROM DIFFERENT SPAWNING) , ENJOY:

[fishfarm]

WOW, that's amazing. Heckels are considered the hardest type of discus to spawn. I believe Dennis H. is the only American who has successfully done it. David W. Yes it's easier to get them from Brazil, But I just can imagine the domestic color strains that could be developed with captive breeding!

[Juan C. Nieto]

HECKEL AQUARIUM (WET DRY FILTER WAS OUT OF VIEW)

PAIR ON LEFT, THE OTHER HECKELS ON RIGHT.

sORRY MY ENGLISH, I CAN REED IT BUT I DON´T BE ABLE WRITE. i ONLY SPEAK SPANISH. BUT THIS FORUM ABOUT DISCUS IS FANTASTIC.

[Juan C. Nieto]

MALE

[Juan C. Nieto]

MALE, (SORRY PREVIEW PIC WAS THE FEMALE)

[Juan C. Nieto]

7 DAYS FREE SWIMMING FRY ON MALE (9-MAY-2001)

[Juan C. Nieto]

tHE LAST PIC, 16 DAYS FREE SWIMMING FRY ON HECKEL PAIR.
(18-MAY-2001)

[Jason]

WOW!

JUAN YOU DA'MAN!

BLUE FACE TOO!!!

UNREAL! :)

[JPW]

Juan :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

Man I wish I could shake you hand!

fantastisc!

thanks for sharing the pic's

Jim

[tony1313]

Juan those are some great looking heckel's and to breed them! Only one thing I can say. WOW!
:o
Tony

[petedaniels]

Wonderful pictures :o fantastic.

pete

:o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o

Awesome!! Congratulations to your success! They're gorgeous!

:thumbsup:

**angie**

[Tomsky]

Hi Juan,

excellent pics and good job you've done, congratulations!

fotografias increibeles y bien trabajo en este cinco anos. De que pais eres tu?


Tomsky

[Rod]

WOW, well done Juan. Absolutely stunning.

[jim_shedden]

all i can say is wow

jim

[Tad]

Juan,
I have to concur with so many who have replied "WOW!!"....I would love to hear about the Water Parameters, foods, and specific approaches that you used to get your beautiful Heckels to spawn. I would also love to see the offspring if pictures are available. Have you had success with the F1s etc breeding?

Thank you for sharing your admirable achievement,
Tad :thumbsup:

[Juan C. Nieto]

I am not a discus breeder. Simply I like aquarium fishes and I try to raise them.
When the heckel discus spawned I already had lost the interest in them. The rest of my aquariums contained cichlids of the lake tanganica. My success with heckel discus is PARTIAL as already I said in reply number 11 of this topic, the offspring died one month and half after spawning (aprox). (Still today I ask me why) .The female made ill of Dropsy later too, and although I treated it with cloranfenicol and another antibiotics, and did not improve, I had sacrificing it. I remember that in that moment i was very sad and disappointed and I gave the remaining heckel discus to a friend of mine. At least it could use another aquarium for my African cichlids. And my friend was very happy.

Today, I would have tried with my ill heckel female, first, epsom salts.

Now i´m working with altum angel. I saw this forum while i was looking for pics about altum and it´s fantastic. Beautiful pics about wilds (Nanay, Curipera, RSG). Perhaps some day .... i am only interested in wilds or f1 (No hibrids)

Summarizing, i had a lucky strike. And finally bad luck.

Regards and thanks.

I live in paradise, GRAN CANARIA (CANARY ISLANDS) SPAIN.

[Martin_HONGKONG]

Thanks for sharing!
:'( :'( :'(

Hope you will get over this oneday.

Martin

[Juan C. Nieto]

Thank you for your tears, Martin. I try to translate from the Spanish to English the water conditions, the behavior of the fish, etc. Perhaps someone in the forum is interested in them. I will put them in this topic in a couple of days. I think that someone will surprise.

I hope to breed altums in a future with which I begin now. 5 years, also? I wait for this not.

Your wild discus are extraordinary. I LIKE your pics. Regardsssssss. :D

[Martin_HONGKONG]

Juan,

We all know how you felt. After all these years in this habbit. We had cross path with bad fish experiences, such as bad fish, ill advise, and lack of knowledges. forunately we are now all linked with a click!

Informations can be assemled or disseminated quickly. Your experiences in breeding these lovely heckel will help us a lot. Just looking at the pictures, you should have see the smile on my face! :o :o

Martin

[jn4u]

Thanks for this information, feedings are most instressting to learn more about, don´t the the problem is the water, it's some thing in the feeding we don´t know. Is it possble for me to use your photos ony my homepage? It´s was a long time since i last was one this forum have been very occupied with work and allt that... Than you!!!

[dalelad]

excellent photos and definitely more than excellent work!

thanks for sharing!!

[INSU]

:o :o :o , Very very nice!!

Good work¡¡ , congratulations¡¡

!!vivan las ISlas Canarias¡¡ ;D

[Juan C. Nieto]

Excuse me the late of this answer, but I could not write in English language this text until. Please I hope that the discus breeders do not critic me a lot. Please remember you too that I am not a discus breeder, so …I´ll only tell you my experience with heckel discus in spring of 2001 when I was fortunate in breeding these beautiful fishes.

In the moment of receive them (five years ago of spawning) we had to medicated them with nitrofurantoine and neomycin sulphate, so later they ate live mosquito larvae and later other foods. We lost several of them in those moments. Later we divided the fishes and my discus were 2 years in the same aquarium; since that time they don´t show any interest in breeding (only territorial fights ).
After a change of house my fishes have continuously been in another aquarium during others three years. This new aquarium was of the same size that first one (aprox) .

The size of aquarium was 120 cms (long), 41 cms (width) and 50 cms (high) (more or less 240 liters). Its base was located to a height of 160 cms on the ground (if you want you can look a picture of the aquarium in the other reply). The filtration was composed by an EHEIM internal filter (600 litres/hour) that after taking the water from the aquarium made pass (already externally) through a perlon prefilter and finally on a PVC tube full of bioballs that was on the aquarium, the water, finally, fell by gravity.

WATER: I have always used tap water although PH 8, conductivity 1600 us/cm, but carbonate hardness 0-1 (the first drop of KH measurer Tetra already returned the water to a yellow colour) or 2 too in other times. The water, indeed very unstable in acidity, tended to went down quickly in its PH. Every 3 weeks I made a change of water without conditioning it (more or less 30%) but very slowly 6 or 7 hours in the process (almost drop to drop). The Ph of the aquarium after these changes raise from “ acidity hell” (Don’t ask me What ph ? , The minimum Sera Ph kit mark 4,5 and I think the water ph was below that minimum but the fishes looked well) to 5,5 aprox. In one of these slopes of Ph , I remember that two pretty l-81 catfishes that I had bought in a trip to Germany, died. The temperature of the water was usually between 31- 32º C. When I made changes of water the new water was already hot.

I think the key to get spawning in my case was (I THINK ¿?) don´t touch the filter material during several months (please don´t critic me) and then to realize a great cleanness in the filter and a big change of water raising ph from Hell to 5,5 (50% in this time). Yes, it´s like to walk on a thin line but it works to me. This method have worked to me in breeding others fishes of the same waters (by example Uarus in summer of 1993).

[Juan C. Nieto]

Although I was fortunate in breeding Uarus with conductivity of 1500-1600 us/cm in 1993, in the the first spawn of heckel discus, I did sincerely think that the eggs didn´t hatch . But they did in a big percentage. I was surprise, just like Uarus, the heckel eggs hatched. I remember to have red something about this in a Dale Jordan´s article “Back in the wild again” where he says that the water kh, in capture zones of discus, is always 0 ; while the hardness varies (of course, no 1600 us of conductivity, but ??). I proved the HANNA tester, first with destilated water (tester marked 0) and second with different testers and aquarium waters of my friends. (My tester was ok).

In the last year I fed them with only 1 blister of frozen Discusfood (based in beef hearth) to 5 fishes once a day. I did not give them any food in Sundays . When I saw that the couple was formed complemented this feeding with frozen glass worms to which I added two drops of TetraVital, I thus feeding then twice a day.

BEHAVIOR OF FISHES and SPAWNING: The fishes always have had a territorial behaviour in the aquarium; each zone belonged to a certain fish. The best zone of the aquarium (always the zone of the bottom where blister of food finished) was occupied by the greatest fish, for that reason in its corner I put a vertical driftwood. The one that finally was its female it had her zone in the other end of the aquarium. All this happened almost invariably during the three years that were in this aquarium. I didn´t observe any of the typical behavior of discus couple, swimming crossing in parallel. So far, I hadn´t observed them cleaning a supposed spawning place either (although they had a cone in the centre of the aquarium until those moments and plenty of driftwoods). I remember that a friend of mine who had succeed in breeding a male of heckel with hybrid female told me that heckles discus don´t spawn and that can have some problem with the females during the time which they are without eating after its capture (¿?) Curiously, the next month of his commentary my heckel discus spawned. I remember that the female moved to the male zone and began to clean a vertical driftwood. The male accompanied it in the work. When they wanted to spawn they cleaned the place and after 2 o 3 days they laid theirs eggs. The inductive one used to be the female, when he was the male, this one stood in front of the spawning place waiting for the female to decide to clean the place. When this happened the male also began to collaborate. I remember the smallest heckel in the aquarium also turned out to be female because when the couple cleaned the driftwood this one tried to steal the male to the other female taking to its zone with its very prominent ovipositor tube.

[Juan C. Nieto]

In the first spawning almost 90 % eggs eclosionated (although the conductivity was around 1500 us/cm, PLEASE BELIEVE ME), but the parents didn´t secrete any mucosa or alevins were disoriented or the couple was still inexpert. I introduced some RO water from a friend and the conductivity of the water went down to 900-1000 us/cm. After the second spawning, (and although a minor number of eggs hatched) the alevins eat the mucosa of their parents. But the offspring disoriented in the night (although I put a small light) and some of them finished in the other side of aquarium where the other heckles stayed and they disappeared. When I covered the bottom of the aquarium finished that problem. Finally only around 50 alevins survived this phase.


When the fry was 17 days free swimming, I put flubenol into aquarium water to avoid further problems to the young ones with flukes (my initial idea was to keep the offspring with their parents for a month). The next day when I returned to home from working I found the male with all offspring and the female stayed in a corner struck by the male and almost absent. I had to move the female to the other side with the other heckels.
The young fishes (50 more or less)stayed with the male 6 days more until this one had its skin rather badly by the bites of offspring although these one ate spiruline dust (few), frozen Cyclops(more), live brine shrimps baby, some rest of frozen discusfood and they began to eat Sera O´nip tips that I put in glass.
When the fry was 23 days free swimming I put the offspring in a 100 litres aquarium and added flubenol 5%. The fishes continued eating very well, I gave all the previous food to them except discusfood to avoid pollution and I added frozen glassworms chopped. One week later, I put metronidazol in Cyclops food (as preventive,perhaps it´s not very recommendable but some friends told me that it´s positive ¿?). I did 20% water change daily. Except five alevins, the development of offspring was spectacular (I remember I was waiting that theirs 5 bar showed more intense to make some pictures). I began to add some discusfood to them and the problem began too. They didn´t eat like before, staying near superficies , all together (the typical problem of flukes seemed). I added formalin to them apart, but they didn´t finish recovering. I remember that I dealt with many medications but nothing. They were tiny beasts without eating more during 1 week, at the last, they displayed like hiphes of fungi in the gills, and although I treated, I wasn´t fortunate (probably it was a secondary symptom). In that state I already had to sacrifice them humanly. My mistake probably was the lack of cleanness, but I don´t known still exactly that happened, the young fishes with 1 month and half free swimming were very strong and growing extraordinarily fast. So, I don´t known.

Please, remember I was´t discus breeder. I had at that moment only 1 aquarium with discus, the majority of my aquariums contained fishes of the Tanganyika lake
, and I didn´t need RO water therefore.

Like you can observe my English is very bad, I need a traductor permanently so excuse me by this. I can read but I cannot write. But perhaps you can use my many failures and my few successes with them.
I was lucky in raising my beautiful blue head heckel discus in this season of the year, for that reason I wish you are lucky with them too.

[Juan C. Nieto]

I ´d like share these pics. The pics were make with F90-nikon, some pics with flash and others without flash, but all of them without Photoshop work only to redimensione.

[Juan C. Nieto]

next

[Juan C. Nieto]

Other

[Juan C. Nieto]

At last, I hope you wish me good luck with my altum angelfish pair. They are working hard.

Thank you all.

[Steve_Warner]

Hi all,
Juan, Those are ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL pics of the Heckels spawning! It is extremely interesting about the general hardness being so high, BUT the alkalinty being non-existent........You could be on to something. It is interesting, when I have researched the subject of Amazonian waters that the dominant major Cation in some areas is Sodium, not Calcium or Magnesium. The latter two are just about ALWAYS greater in amount in waters all over the world than the former one. I will think some more and post later. Thanks for stimulating my thoughts on this.......I have a few wild Heckels and I'm hoping to do what you did!

Steve

[Northwestcoastdisc]

The Blue face heckels care of the fry are so SWEET!!!

The Wild Altums angels are so awesome. I hope you will successful spawn.

If you will have babies altums angels. PLEASE send me 50 ALTUMS !

Good luck for the pair of Altums.

All of your fish are so beauitful and sweet. They are true natural wild fish!

Keep good job and update both fish.

Duncan

NWCD

[Juan C. Nieto]

Northwestcoastdiscus,


The Wild Altums angels are so awesome. I hope you will successful spawn.



Excuse me, the altums aren´t wild ones. I bought 15 of them in last september to a wholesaler in czhequia, but they were born in Germany. But Absolutly Orinoco Altums to me. Very beautiful fishes and expensive!!!. In my new house, tap water gives a kh of 5 (too much for me). Therefore, i´ll buy a RO unit.

Yes, Heckel discus are wilds.

Thank you.

[jn4u]

Hello

Breeder or not, you are a hobbiest (or more?) like me, still this type information is needed.

THANK YOU!

Johan Nilsson