PDA

View Full Version : Need help with discus names please.



bs6749
04-23-2008, 08:08 AM
Hello, I'm relatively new when it comes to knowing much about discus, unlike most of you on here I'm sure, so I come to you with some questions that maybe you guys and gals can help me with. Hopefully, maybe you will be able to show me the difference with pictures of higher quality fish.

1. What is the difference between a blue diamond and a cobalt blue? I have seen fish labeled as a cobalt blue but they looked differently than I thought they were...they had stripes or stress bars showing for the most part...is this the difference?

2. Marlboro reds, red melons, red covers, red alenquer, fire red, red carnation, carnation snakeskin (snakeskin just means generally smaller and tighter patterning of the spots correct?)...what's the difference between these or are some names "interchangeable" and refer to the same hybrid so to speak.

3. White diamonds, snow whites, millenium golds...can you help me out here too? The white diamonds I have seen look pure white and snow whites look like they have a tinge of yellow in them and the golds appear to be far more yellow/gold....is this the only difference and how is the distinction made between a snow white and a millenium gold?

4. Do discus generally "breed true"? If I had a pair of blue diamonds for instance would they throw all blue diamond fry or would I get possibly something oddball once in a while? I know this may not be the case for pairs that aren't the same hybrid, but are there ones that are "known" to produce a certain type of fry time and time again?

5. Is there an easy naming system that I don't know about LOL? Maybe one of you could kindly direct me to a source that clearly shows the difference between different hybrids of discus.

Thank you all so very much for your help!

Diamond Discus
04-23-2008, 10:23 AM
http://www.aquariumhobbyist.com/discus/strains/index.html

This helped me a few years back. It's a place to start. You can do a search here too. Different breeders name their version of the same strains a bit differently.

RickMay1
04-23-2008, 11:28 AM
Oh boy it’s the name game again…

This question comes up again and again, and their really isn’t a straight forward answer. The responses you get are only going to be personal opinions. In my opinion 95% of the names are bogus, because there isn’t a standard set. IMO the reason behind not having a standard is domestic discus do not breed true, even wilds will some times throw off some strange fish. The problem comes when your are selling fish and you breed two identically appearing fish and you end up only 10% of the fish that look like mom and dad. What do you do with the other 90%? Cull them? That’s a lot of dead fish. What a lot of breeders do is just name them something fancy and sell them, or if they look like something on the market they may call them the same. I don’t really know of any strains that “breed true” IE 100% come back looking like mom and dad There are some that have a higher percentage that look like mom and dad. . Red/blue turquoise had been doing pretty well but there are a lot of snakeskin somethings X snakeskin something throws that don’t show the snake skin 14 bars and are sold as red/blue turquoise.

When I buy discus I ignore the names given, what I try to do is classify them into types of fish, based on the bars the fish has. IE 14bar fish are of a snake skin type, no bars, pigeon blood or standard bared discus. then I look at what colors I want. I can assume that if I breed two fish that are snakeskin discus a percentage of the fry will be snakeskin, coloring is a crap shoot, some will look like mom and dad, the remainder who knows.

Hope this was helpful, the real problem that discus is that domestic Discus are really the result of cross breeding of three separate subspecies, S. aequifasciatus aequifasciatus, S. aequifascatus axelrodi and S. aequifasciatus haraldi. AKA the Greens, browns and Blues, and discus haven’t been bred in captivity as long as Angles(that do have more standard lines) hopefully given enough time and documentation of breeding maybe we can have standard names someday.

bs6749
04-23-2008, 06:05 PM
Thanks for the link Diamond Discus, I am going to check it out now.

And thank you RickMay1, there was an incredible amount of information in there as well. I've heard that before about breeders making their own names up for stuff so I guess it does get really confusing.

14 bars = snakeskin discus....a "normal" discus has 12? And Heckels always have a solid bar showing? Maybe I'll have to start making a list of all of the crosses and the percentage of the fry that looked like the parents and publish the book!!!! LOL

RickMay1
04-23-2008, 07:24 PM
9 bars is what discus normaly have, Heckels have a large 5th bar and normaly it will show.

bs6749
04-24-2008, 10:59 AM
From the link that Diamond Discus provided me with I found that out....it was very informative and it's now under my favorites. Thanks for reaffirming that though....I have a LOT to learn.........