New Heckels from SNOOKN21

[samuelkl]

John sent me 8 heckels which arrived on 1/20/2010. These pics were taken 3 days after...enjoy


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http://i1000.photobucket.com/albums/af124/samuelkl/Heckels-%20Day%203/IMG_8277.jpg

[philip69285]

Gorgeous Heckels... Im hoping to get some myself :). What PH do you have them in?

[samuelkl]

i keep them in pH 6.3 (still kinda high for them) and i use r/o water
temp around 85.5

[Scribbles]

Those are beautiful Heckels!

Chris

[MostlyDiscus]

Very nice indeed. well done

Ed

[Apistomaster]

Snook has these lovely Heckels and some very, very nice wild Royal Blues. I sold all my 10 adult Heckels admitting defeat that my chances of breeding them successfully were virtually nil.

I would normally be jumping on the Blues if I wasn't already committed to buying 12 F1 Royal Blues, Once my F1 Royal Blues mature, I do intend to buy a few more wild Royal Blues to breed with some of the tank raised F1's. Despite coming from a picture perfect pair of wild Royal Blues I think it is unlikely any of the fry will be as fully blue striated as their parents so it will take several years of inbreeding and line breeding to establish true breeding tank raised wild type Royal Blues. This sort of project takes years and oodles of patience and not to mention some luck. Ideally, if I owned the pair, I would breed back a daughter to her sire to concentrate the wild Royal Blues' color traits.
I have given up on all domestic Discus breeding in favor of working on breeding wild type Discus. I hope to add Red Spotted greens next. I have been greatly encouraged by the results others have had in getting tank raised Red Spotted greens as colorful as the original wild fish. I was planning to get Red Spotted green stock last summer but the chance to buy 10 wild hypancistrus zebra plecos came up and it was too great an opportunity to pass up but it did take most of the $1500 budget I had set for the acquistion of the Greens. I don't regret it but it did delay my beginning my wild Red Spotted green breeding plans by a year. It's hard to go wrong breeding Zebra Plecos.

[samuelkl]

John aka snookn21 has very nice discus as Larry has described. Hopefully he will get more wilds, specifically rsgs, soon. For now these heckels are keeping me content. They are in a bb tank now while I complete their bigger sand bottom tank. 8 haraldschultzii cories and 1 LDA-01 (L-169) pleco will be their tankmates. Looking forward to it.

Thanks to everyone who left compliments by the way

[darbex]

Nice Heckels. I just got 2 Wild Greens about 2 weeks ago and they are huge and a very good price too. John is such a nice guy and very helpful. I hope they get some RSG I really want some more for my tank.

[samuelkl]

day 12
update...

http://i1000.photobucket.com/albums/af124/samuelkl/heckels%20day%2012/IMG_8306.jpg

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[samuelkl]

thanks darbex, chris, ed for the compliments

the heckels are really starting to color up, showing the 5th bar very prominently, now with a more yellowish background. the white blue and red is coming out more as well

they are starting to eat more spirulina/brine shrimp as i wean them off the bloodworms. next i will incorporate both NLS thera and ON F1 into the mix. im guessing i will most likely have to starve em for a bit for them to take it

hopefully im doing this right. any input from some of you veterans out there?

[William Palumbo]

Great looking Heckels. You will find that the Heckels color will and can, change quite dramatically and quite fast, depending on mood. From a maroon background, to a yellow. Even the bars change color as you will soon see. Sometimes black...then to a silver grey...and sometimes not there at all. That is one of the things that I like about Heckels. They change colors liken to the Cuttlefish. Seems like you're doing a fine job with them, as they seem to be eating well. All the best with them...Bill

[samuelkl]

thanks Bill, this is my first group of wilds so im treating them with extra care. youre right about them changing colors suddenly. i see em turning more dark when they realize im not there to feed but clean. haha

i have them in 100% r/o water, temp 86, and a tank covered in floating riccia (to reduce nitrates down to ~10-15 even with 20% water changes every 3 days). i currently go to graduate school so i feed them in the morning, usually brine shrimp/spirulina, then at night with a combo of bs and bloodworms. they dont eat the brine shrimp with as must interest as they do the bloodworms, but im hoping that changes.

[darbex]

+1 on the color changing. My greens will go from a brown when they are pissed or scared to a deep red when they are indifferent to a super bright orange when they are happy and know I am about to drop in food. Keep up the good work they look good. Kudos goes out to Snookn21 for having some good wilds.

[philip69285]

I cant wait to get my blue faced heckels... those ones look gorgeous :). Congrats.

[samuelkl]

thanks philip. im guessing youre getting some from John (aka snookn21)? definitely agree with darbex, cant go wrong with John. a couple of my discus have a little more blue on their face and ventral finnage than the others, but probably not as much blue on the gill plate as the ones John are selling as blue faced heckels. nevertheless, i really like the horizontal white striations on my heckels as well as the red showing up on the dorsal and ventral fins. post pics when you get ur heckels philip. im sure they will turn out lovely. you will be impressed with the way John packages each one of his discus for shipment

[philip69285]

Yeah mine are the blue faced heckels from John :). I will def post pics once i get them and they settle in :). These blue ones have lots of blue in them and If im right will get a lot more blue when they mature :). I think I might have a male and 2 females from the extra pictures I got of them but not sure until I get them and can sex them with my own eye LOL.

[samuelkl]

day 24...currently they're on a diet of mysis, sprirulina/brine shrimp, and bloodworms. trying to introduce dry foods mixed in with the bloodworms, ie tetra bits, NLS thera, ON prime reef, but still to no avail. will keep trying though.

http://i1000.photobucket.com/albums/af124/samuelkl/heckels%20day%2024/IMG_8329.jpg

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[samuelkl]

Finally got em into their new tank...heckels all from John at snookn21, little ones are 4", the big one 6+"

this is my first planted wild discus tank so experimenting a bit and tried to keep the spending budget on heckels relatively low, going well thus far...

http://i1000.photobucket.com/albums/af124/samuelkl/IMG_8396.jpg (http://s1000.photobucket.com/albums/af124/samuelkl/?action=view&current=IMG_8396.jpg)

http://i1000.photobucket.com/albums/af124/samuelkl/IMG_8392.jpg (http://s1000.photobucket.com/albums/af124/samuelkl/?action=view&current=IMG_8392.jpg)

[Darren's Discus]

Beautiful fish,beautiful tank,all the best with them and thank's for sharing.


cheers

[Alok]

Beautiful!!!:)

[samuelkl]

thank you darren and jollyguy for the kind comments