Some picture

[tatore]

I really was missing my first international forum..
Just some picture of my actual major and unique fresh water tank...of course almost dedicated to the heckel discus sp.
Have a great time you all, and a special thanks to Heiko, Brewmaster, Apistomaster for sharing their time in the past with their experience-

[Ed13]

Hey, Salvo welcome back! We've missed pics of your discus;)

Do you have a full tank shot, BTW?

[Kevin22]

awesome Heckels. great setup. so half of tank covered in sand?
mind share more info such as water parameter, food and maintainese?

[tatore]

Hello,
thank you all for the nice words.
Basically nothing has changed since my last visit here.
My heckels are still the same..(4/5 years approax) just a bit older (like me).
About params: they've never been my nightmare, always a very acid water (pH about 3,8 and 4,2) low light, 30,40 µs/cm even if it's hard to maintain this parameter, and 26/28°C . That's it.
Sometime it's more difficult to hold the plants green, but my beloved fishes are always lovely and they forgive me often some silly mistake I make.
Mainly I'm lucky..or it's because I've got them when they were like a 50 cents coin. But the more you respect their nature the great is the opportunity to feel (me and them ) like in a small piece of paradise.
I had til the past year about 5 tanks, but living in Italy became a hurricane of money picked up from taxes, university and (when I find the time) private life.
And now I have only two tanks: the heckel tank and a reef tank.
I will try later to get some more picture, if you're interested by.
Thanks again and forgive my bad and silly english.

[Darren's Discus]

Longtime no hear,nice to have you back on board fish look fantastic !


cheers

[Kevin22]

thanks, man.
wild discus are my only choice of fish. I have Brown/Blue.
your Heckel is in great condition. it's not luck, man. it's your telant.
more photos will be great

[Gajowa]

Simply stunning. I love it

[AADiscus]

Love em', love em', love em'. :D

[Apistomaster]

Salvo,
How good it is for you to visit and share your beautiful Discus and their world with us.

You are being so modest. Your understanding of the needs of the Heckel discus is deep and having the opportunity to have begun with such young Heckels was a rare opportunity. Having lived most of their life in captivity and in ideal conditions, They have obviously prospered.
I don't remember you ever mentioning to me that you had so many. That is so perfect. They are such a social species of fish, distinctly more so than the other discus species. They normally live in large groups, much larger than most aquariums could support and their high price makes it hard to afford enough to form a complete society.
Your display shows why it is always best to only keep Heckels with Heckels.
I feel blessed because I have 10 in their own tank but their tank is too small. Another Discus would fight for more territory of their own if they were as crowded but the Heckels seem to work together and make the best of their circumstances without conflict.

Their "herd" instincts are one of the things that make me think much of the reason why so few Heckels have bred successfully in captivity. I think hey need to be part of a large group and be given far more room to spread out when it comes time to spawn. It is only a hypothesis of mine, but simply keeping them well hasn't been enough to induce breeding. There must be something else missing that they need before they will spawn.

The Scalare are a nice addition to their community. I wish I could mix my wild Scalare with my Heckels but there just isn't enough room for both. I did add a school of Paracheirodon simulans, Green Neons, since we last corresponded with my Heckels and they have done well together.
Visit with us again whenever you can.

[tatore]

Hello, Larry.
You're here the real star, and I enjoy a lot reading your topics, answers and all about your experience with heckels. Eventually "The heckel project" is something that came from few of us, to make people clear about the substantial difference between S. discus and..the other discus.
Eventually I gave up the idea to plan for an heckel spawning for many reasons, and the first was the ...ehm..luck I had with other discus' that made home filled of tanks with babies (about 350/400)and so on...
You know, it isn't easy to get always a lot of money for a hobby, nor I'm able to sell discus, that's what I am: I gave all I had (except some superb fish) to my forum's friends, in Italy, and I've prayed God to stop discus spawn :angel:
Back to the heckel, I'm absolutely sure that, as you've stated in some post (do not remember where) the trouble comes from the female, and not from the male that is, for a good portion of the year, able to inseminate the eggs, nor it's difficult to detect a pair. But how to stimulate the female gonads? Params? Black water (indended as colour)? Food? Competition (nobody speaks about this) between a couple of pseudo-alpha male?An emulation of high and low water like in Amazon enviroment?
Read well, there's a thin line that join as a chain all those factors and...from where shall we start? From a ton of luck, first off, and then let read better our fishes, our heckels, since they're the beginning and the end of our conjectures, the evidence of our rises and falls.
We may continue, now it's 2:46 am here, in Rome, and I would like to show some of my past (Thank You GOD) children ( ;) now swimming and spawning all over my Italy) results, and how some of my heckel were some year ago.

The order is:
1 and 2 some of my nephews, born here (NOT from heckel but from alenquer X S. haraldi
3 and 4 some of the heckel above (can you recognize them?)
5 one outdated picture of my heckel tank...now is darker and covered naturally from/with plants and woods.

Hope you all will have a great time, meanwhile.

P.s. I don't like the F1 Heckel, really different from the wild pattern :D

Yours

[Apistomaster]

Hi Salvo,
The more I have learned about them, especially from much of what Heiko has observed in the wild and the years of trying to extrapolate perhaps too much, from observing the behavior of too few Heckels, the more important I have come to believe the group dynamics is to breeding. I think it is too difficult to constitute a true social unit from a minimum number of Heckels one can keep in a normal but still seemingly large aquarium compared with how they live in the wild. I think they seamlessly divide the labor with some standing guard for the majority while they forage but the individuals exchange this role in a fluid ever changing way so all get plenty of time to forage and also perform pair bonding rituals as well as behaviors that reinforce the cohesion of the larger group. I think cooperation for the benefit of the whole is much more important among Heckels than it is for haraldi or aeqifasciata.
I believe the remarkably consistent color pattern that is characteristic of Heckels is a further clue to the lack of importance of the individual and the greater the importance of the groups' well being. None stand out that much compared to the just as remarkable diversity of coloration found among the other two species.
I think this cooperation extends to the breeding season as well and provides much of the security each ripe and bonded pair must have in order to set in motion the synchronization of the readiness of the breeding pairs which at some point is perceived as a safe and proper time and conditions for the breeding fish to spawn. I think the bonding of pairs begins long before the rules of Heckel society allow that pair to spawn. They probably work their way into the role of primary breeders only after a couple years longer than other discus must be before they become breeders. Other discus species are probably are more independent of a group when they breed than Heckels.
It is very difficult to describe what for now is only a hypothesis I have been forming over the years. What I would not give to be able to study the behavior of Heckels groups over a period of a few years. I think for a fish, this Discus species has evolved a very rich society.
I think the confines of most home aquariums are far too small and lack the seasonal changes, which includes the changes in diet with the season and the water chemistry, water depth/pressure and availability of small life forms their fry must have at the right times that are all a part of what controls the times and places a Heckel group finds necessary to be met before they will spawn. The relatively barren and extreme conditions where only Heckel Discus live make them necessarily very sensitive to when the conditions are such that the fry will have the right foods in sufficient quantity. More than any other species of Discus, Heckels found that it takes a community of cooperating fish to ensure their survival and exclusive ability to thrive in the extreme conditions in which they do.
Only field observations and studies could help answer enough of the questions as to why Heckels do not so easily find our substitute and imperfect imitations of their world in an aquarium so wanting that they cannot be easily induced to reproduce.
I think the other two species are not so specialized as to be that difficult to present a satisfactory imitation of their world before they will breed in captivity.
Despite all that Heiko Bleher has written about discus in general and Heckel Discus' environment in particular, few things say more to me than the front, inside cover painting by Natasha Khardina in Bleher's Discus, Vol 1. combined with what I have observed over the years in a Heckel only aquarium.