Heckel Spawn!!

[aquatechnics]

Hi guys,

My heckel pair from Rio Abacaxis gave me a hell of a surprise! :)
This is a momentum for me and I believe, for any wild discus lover! The babies went free swimming last Monday!!!

Here are some pics:

http://www.aquatechnics.net/images/brhk.jpg
Mom with eggs


http://www.aquatechnics.net/images/brhk2.jpg
Mom moved eggs to the side glass (72 hours)


http://www.aquatechnics.net/images/brhk3.jpg
Proud parents with babies


http://www.aquatechnics.net/images/brhk4.jpg
Dad with babies


http://www.aquatechnics.net/images/brhk6.jpg
Babies with a full orange stomach after their first meal (taken yesterday).

:D
Alberto

[raglanroad]

Terrific, Alberto! Can you say a few words about what you do for the fish, with water, lights, food, temp? Age of the fish?
Dave

[wild_heckel]

Congrats Alberto :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: . It's so rare to see pictures of Heckels spawning :drummer: :drummer: :drummer: . As you know, only a few breeders have done it.

[oodi]

Congrats Alberto!! Awesome sight!

Judi
:)

[NatakuTseng]

Very big congrats to you!

[RyanH]

Wow!! :shocked: :shocked: :shocked: That is indeed a magical sight! Congratulations Alberto. My hat is off to you! :)

[Sindhu]

Far out dude! Congrats! feather in your hat! do pls share what were the conditions for your sucess.

[GulfCoastDiscus]

Awesome Alberto. Congrats.

Parameters....

[CARY_GLdiscus]

WELL DONE MY MAN IN THE SUN!


CARY GLD

[ShinShin]

Congratulations on a job well done.

Mat

[Carol_Roberts]

Congratulations Alberto - that is quite an accomplishment!

[yogi]

Way to go Alberto. Now I can say I was at your house and saw this. You told me to keep it quiet until you posted pictures, they look great. NADA has asked me to do an interview on you for our first news letter coming out in August.

[ping]

congrats :) .. Please keep us update with the fry :)

Regards,
Ronny

[Spices]

:sun: :sun: :sun:

Beautiful job done, Alberto!! :thumbsup:

*Angie

[nanik]

Congratulations Alberto, this is what Discus lovers all over the world will dream of achieving. Do you mind sharing what are the things you did to prepare them ?

Thanks

[dalelad]

congratulations! well done! looks just so beautiful!

[tony1313]

WOW! Great job!:D

[aquatechnics]

Hi guys,
First I want say thank you to everyone for the kind words. This event became very exciting for me and mi camera..LOL :D

I will keep posting pictures of them weekly.............

Some of you were asking about the water parameters , ok here they are:

The water parameters at the time of the spawning were pH 6.7, 84ºF and 22µS. Everything started after a 50% water change. My water comes from a well at 900µS, pH 8.5, hardness 12º

This water is processed by my RO system (900GPD) and the result is 22µS with a pH 6.5 and 0.5 Kh and Gh.

Regards,
Alberto

[Tad]

Alberto,
Congratulations on the "Holy Grail" of discus breeding ;) ...Ive been waiting patiently for your pics since you shared your success with me awhile back...
Great looking Wild Heckel pair and pics

Are you still using any types of salts reconstituting your RO water?

with the highest regards,
Tad

[aquatechnics]

Alberto,
Congratulations on the "Holy Grail" of discus breeding ;) ...Ive been waiting patiently for your pics since you shared your success with me awhile back...
Great looking Wild Heckel pair and pics

Are you still using any types of salts reconstituting your RO water?

with the highest regards,
Tad

Hi Tad,

I have been waiting for this moment too. Since my Heckels started spawning (first my Blue Face Heckels, twice and then these Rio Abacaxis), I have been keeping an eye on them with my fingers crossed. :) I am still working with my Nanay RSGs but they keep eating their eggs.... however, I won't give up.

The water comes out of my RO at 22µS so I use it "PURE".

Regards,
Alberto

[Lee C]

Way to Go Alberto!

[Elcid]

Wow, super job :)....Nice to see this kinda success in the USofA......Please let us know how long uve had the fish, any treatments you did on them and what u have been feeding them and any other secrets that you don't mind giving away!

thanks,
Sandeep

[nanik]

This water is processed by my RO system (900GPD) and the result is 22µS with a pH 6.5 and 0.5 Kh and Gh.


How often do you change your water Alberto ?

[wild_heckel]

Hi Alberto, I hope the fry are growing well and healthy. From the pictures the tank looks quite small. How big is the tank? Can you tell us how long you have them and did you get them adult size?

[aquatechnics]

How often do you change your water Alberto ?

I do water change once a week




Hi Alberto, I hope the fry are growing well and healthy. From the pictures the tank looks quite small. How big is the tank? Can you tell us how long you have them and did you get them adult size?


Wild heckel,
The baby heckels are doing fine.. :D :D :D
The tank is 24x12x20 and I got the fish last November adult size ( 6 inches).

Alberto

[jim_shedden]

wow this is great............i am surprised at how high the ph is.......more pics

jim

[cspengler]

What percent of water is changed?

Great pictures.

[Howie_W]

Congratulations Alberto! The parents look gorgeous! :thumbsup:

Please keep us updated...with pics of course...on the development of the fry!



Howie

[wild_heckel]

Wow Alberto not only you managed to breed them but also did it in such a short time (5 months). :thumbsup:

[brewmaster15]

Hi Alberto!!!

Thats an awesome accomplishment!!!! I am very happy for you my friend! :) Good luck with those fry..I hope they turn out as nice as the parents!

-al

[jabas]

Even here in Holland we like to see this pictures.

[jimmyhat]

son of a ........

[billeagan]

Outsanding.... I love those stripes. Keep us updated, I'm interested in knowing if the fry hold the dominant stripe.

I have heard that the stripe gets lost/diminishes if breed in captivity.

[Ronald]

"Awesome"

Just wish I could have been there .

Ronald

[aquatechnics]

Hi guys,
Again I want say thank you to everyone for the kind words.
here is a new picture....14 days free swimming today.... :D :D


http://www.aquatechnics.net/images/brhk8.jpg


Regards,
Alberto

[jn4u]

Very nice!!!!

[Ramon Anastacio]

Alberto,
Congratulations!
Ramon

[aquatechnics]

Ramon and Jn4u thanks!!!

Here is picture I took today...............They are growing fast!!! :D :D


http://www.aquatechnics.net/images/brhk9.jpg

Regards,
Alberto

[wild_heckel]

Alberto, do you know roughlty how old the parents are? I hope you they spawn frequently for you. It's fantastic. Do the fry grow faster than others from non wild parents?

[Spices]

Time sure flies and those frybabies are growing very lovely. You're doing wonderful, Alberto. :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

*A*

[Kersten]

Hi Alberto,

you wrote:



The water parameters at the time of the spawning were pH 6.7, 84ºF and 22µS. Everything started after a 50% water change.

Following reports about Heckel breeding in the past here in Europe, the most people have succeed to breed Heckel on a much lower pH around 4.0 - 4,5 !
How often and what you give your fishes to eat?

Thanks and best regards from Prague, CZ

Kersten

[raglanroad]

Outsanding.... I love those stripes. Keep us updated, I'm interested in knowing if the fry hold the dominant stripe.

I have heard that the stripe gets lost/diminishes if breed in captivity.I'm interested in the answer to your question, too ! I have heard that broken barring happens, but I don't know why it should. The genetics are as wilds, so if broken barring does happen, it could be as for angels, where they can have alterations in pattern from differences in photoperiod. However, once it happened, you would know next time to put them in 12 hr. photoperiod, with no interuptions of the dark time. Since the most famous Altum breeder ( Linke) has been producing the broken barring proceeding from f1 to f4, I don't think that mistake could have been repeated over and over by him ! Also, none of the other breeders have had this happen, so I think there must be some chemical explanation .

[Northwestcoastdisc]

very nice wild heckel and good job!

give me some nice babies for me please?

Duncan

[Bobar57]

WOW, Alberto, excellent job. Congratullations :D :balloon:

[Jason]

looking good my friend!

[Wahter]

Alberto - congratulations and keep us informed of the progress. :D

[Dave C]

Are these fry still alive? I tell ya, if I had a spawning pair of wild Heckels you'd see pictures daily of their growth. You remember the time someone had a pair of wild Curiperas spawn? Beautiful pics until the fry were about 1/2" and then nothing. No idea what happened to those fish either.

[nanobe]

wow!
please tell me how on earth you managed to keep the ph from crashing with your water that low in conductivity and buffers? and I thought that discus when they're spawning and slime feeding would turn very dark?
I don;t understand. How do the babies look now at nearly 2 months?
thanks
:)

[nanobe]

some things are conspicuous by their absence

[Jdawgg]

Perhaps they have grown so large....that they ate Alberto....or his computer.

[KIWI13]

Well getting a pair life this to spawn is an achievement in itself, whatever the final outcome is. In any case when alberto has pics, I am sure he will share em with us. So I call for a little patience. Theres an ol New zealand Cheese ad on tv that used to state " good things take time" , you know what ?? they sure do. alberto great job on the fish

[DavidWong]

What happened to all the fries now ?

[Spices]

A breeder need the time away from the forum to maintain the correct equilibrium of his tanks. It's not easy going in maintenance scheduling and keeping family and a job and frybabies at the same time. Give or take I bet Alberto will surprise us all in the long run.

*A*

[kaceyo]

You've made quite an impact allready with this spawn. Accomplished what most will only dream of. Please let us know what the situation is now. I'm also very interested in how stable your pH is with such a low KH and if you have to do anything to stabilize it.
Congrats,

Kacey

[joenaustin04]

Al;

Congratulations. I have tried to breed these beauties in the past with no luck. I tried keeping them in the ph 4.0-5.0 range like we read in many books which makes it extremely difficult. Your sucess in the more stable 6.4 ph range is a truly groundbreaking event that can create another branch in an already beautiful tree of discus hybrids available today (if we can replicate). Please try to document all the activities you engaged in leading up to, during and through the rearing process of this breeding pair. I would love nothing more than to sit down and hear every detail if and when you have the time. It was the Heckel discus that got me interested in discus as a young boy 20+ years ago. I have yet to discover if I have any relation to the Heckel who discovered these specimens but I thought it was cool as a child.

Joseph Heckel

[daninthesand]

Alberto!

I see you have been busy. If there is anyone that deserves success at his passion, it is you my friend.

Daniel

[Mountain Man]

eh! maybe Alberto had to sell his computer to buy new tanks for the frys ! ............:)

[fishman]

congrats alberto. wish i could see some more fry pics, where'd ya go?

[joenaustin04]

Look forward to seeing some of those fish for sale soon....maybe the next batch as there are plenty in this chatroom that are as excited as I am for you.

Keep the details coming when you have time,

Joseph

[Heiko Bleher]

Dear Alberto, and dear Simplydiscus readers and contributors,

my name is Heiko Bleher and I am very happy and want also to congratulate Alberto for the achivement of spawning Symphysodon discus - the Heckel discus - from the Rio Abacaxís.

But besides this I wanted to tell Alberto and you all, a few things about those Heckels, which you might not know or not be aware of (as they are not written/published anywhere else than in my new book).

Heckels from the Abacaxís were orginally discribed as Symphysodon discus willischwartzi Bugess, 1981, but later synonomized, as it is the same species as the S. discus from elsewhere. But these Heckels (and one can see an almost identical specimen as the ones from Alberto, on my page 340, photo on the top) live in a water which is slightly higher in pH (up to 5.7 in nature, but avergage is less) and and also the electric measured conductivity which rised to 10µS/cm microsimens than those from the Rio Negro, Rio Nhamundá, etc.
Besides, the time Alberto got the his Heckels, was shortly before the time they nomally spawn in nature (and discus spawn in nature only when the water rises and only during the first couple of month, or less, and not again for the rest of the year). So the time was just right, and believe me, it is in the gene of the wild fish specially, to spawn when their inner clock tells them (and not only with discus). This experiance Dr. Schmidt-Focke and my self had (realized) during several decades of experiment...
In addition Alberto did something very good (and I am sure it was the additional postive incenitive for them to spawn), to give them the extreme low conductivity value, and 22 µS/cm comes close to the one in nature. And believe me also, I am preaching this for years, the low conductivity is the important factor (probably more than anything), together with the time, healthy and good fish (which I can see Alberto has received/bought, Heckels which were well kept by the exporter and importer) and not to excessive temperature (which some discus breeders like to do, although only tank breed varieties are used to such an excess high temerature...).

Now kept those fishes up well, leave them with the parents, change the water as you did, start slowly to feed them after a few weeks and watch them closely. And I am sure you will have healthy youngs growing up with the same base colour and pattern as those of its parents.

All the best and
always
Heiko

PS. And if you want to know everything you always wanted to know, and much more, about wild discus, than please read my book... this is not an advert, but an advice to continously keep up good work with wilds.

[Apistomaster]

I am so pleased to see this thread. I joined last year but as many of you know I am trying to breed my Heckels or I should say, I'm wating for them to grow up and hope they will spawn in my care.

I just received a copy of your book Mr. Bleher and I must say it is very good.
I began breeding wild discus in 1969 and operated my fish shop then and through the early 70's and looking at your photos was like a walk down memory lane only now I can relate some of the discus I had then to the typical variations' ranges.

I am already looking forward to the publication of Vol. 2.

Larry Waybright

[David Urban]

Hola Alberto felicidades, aca en Mexico ya estamos cumpliendo los requisitos para traer peces de ustedes, te mantendre informado
Nuevamente felicidades

[standoyo]

Is it me or are the dates of the posts 2 years apart???
The spawn occured in 2005?

[ShinShin]

Yes, in 2005.

Mat

[Apistomaster]

Raises some questions does it not?
Larry W.

[puertoayacucho]

Hi Alberto, just coming in to Simply Discus and saw your post, how are your heckel F1 fairing along?

[NanDiscus]

Another two years gone. Where are we now? F3? :)

Nandi

[Tito]

I wonder what happened?

Would hate to think the worst......

flukes.

[gerbill]

Hello ,
This must have been a wonderful achievement ,just to get them to spawn in an aquarium let alone raise the fry to swimming stage,
Just an observation I have had Heckels showing signs of " courting " and the barring becomes really dark,and looking at Podden's thread his male Heckel is showing similar markings.The Heckels in this thread have no such barring.
But I have not ever got Heckels to this stage so cannot judge:)

[poddan]

thats what we aming at :)
( never seet this thread before, very impressive)
Hope everything gone good ( quite a while without update)

The fifth bar ( when going over my fish) could change in a couple of sec.
With fry it seems a little darker , as any other fish will try to make som color to attach fry.

I have fish from rio negro, marimari, nhamunda and I think the display the bar different in community tank.

[Apistomaster]

Alberto seemed to drop off the radar a couple years ago.
His web site was still accessible but I have had no responses from him to any e-mails including my responses a couple years ago when he contacted me on simplydiscus via pm offering to sell me various F1 juveniles from Red Spotted greens and Royal Blues.
A mutual friend told me that Alberto scaled back his operations to home and that is all the more info I was ever to receive.
I often wondered if Alberto remains involved with breeding and importing wild Discus since he used to get such lovely specimens.