2011Discus Collection Trip of a Lifetime in the Amazon with the Legendary Marc Weiss.

One of the highlights of my trip to Dallas last summer was the time I spent listening to Marc as he was telling his Discus Tales long into the night. However these were not tales as he has lived Discus for the last 50 years.

I value Marc's friendship and wish I could afford to make this trip he is offering to all.
Please contact him if you are interested in going.


Below is a little information he sent me.



Discus Secrets Lectures and Expedition to Alenquer and the Rio Trombetas!



25 October 2011 - 6 November departing and returning to Santarem, Para Brazil with Marc and Hugo of Santarem Discus!



Discus · Stingrays · Plecos · Cichlids · Killies and more!... and a search for new fishes!



25 Oct. - meet in Santarem, Para Brazil.



26 Oct. - visit Hugo's Santarem Discus Farm.



27 Oct. to 3 Nov. - ON THE RIVER!

Visit and fish the famous "Lake Saloman" as well as explore new collecting sites for discus and other fishes!



TV, DVD player, food and drink on board as well as a computer. Internet as available on the river.



Lectures as convenient for you throughout our journey.



3 Nov. - Return to Santarem. Choose wild discus and other fishes from expedition as well as buy species we haven't found on our trip. Hugo will prepare fishes and documents for export of your fishes. Explore Santarem and adjacent areas. Discussion, learning and sharing discus stories!



6 Nov. - Depart Santarem with you fishes!

(You must arrange for legal import in your own country.)



Cost: US$2500.00 plus airfare, hotels, liquor on boat and meals on shore. Plus costs of shipping and obtaining fishes.







Use tigerfish@marcweissexotics.com to contact MARC.


[/SIZE]























The area around Santarem in the Amazon basin finds the "King of the Aquarium" in yet another "Darwin's Dream Pond". A place of convergence and divergence of morphs, where one can see what makes this fish what it is, and what makes it do what we want it to do - and do it well.





An astute student of discus history will recognize the area from the older literature. Innes and Barrett being graphic examples of what can be found there. The area was not unknown to early-on collectors of discus. Indeed, the type locality of the "brown" discus was from this locality - Santarem/Obidos. The first "royal blues" came from there as well. Perhaps they are all the same? Here's your chance to find the truth.





"Heckels" can be found too. You'll be surprised to learn what they really are...and how to breed them.





Air transport and collecting in other areas eventually centered around Manaus, had made collecting the Santarem area less attractive for commercialization.





It wasn't until the eighties when Arthur Werner of L46 pleco fame, sent out the "Alenquer Reds", from the Santarem area. This gave the area considerable attention due to the red discus found there. Dr.Eduard Schmidt - Focke was so taken in by them that they were nicknamed "red Eddies" and the Alenquer craze had begun. I can personally tell you though, that many "Alenquers" and "Ica Heckel bar" discus didn't ultimately come from the Alenquer area. I know that as I shipped many of Alenquer and Ica style discus from other areas far away from Alenquer and Ica and the importers all re-named them "Alenquer" and "Ica"! On this trip perhaps you'll get to find some real Alenquer discus and take them home! Let's not forget the black stingrays, rare plecos, and other uncommon fishes we will likely encounter. If our crew doesn't catch something you want, chances are they can be had locally from others.







It is with of great benefit to discus fanciers and Amazonian fish lovers that Vitor "Hugo" Quaresma recognized the unique discus of the Santarem area. In 2008 , Hugo left his native Portugal to establish "Santarem Discus" in the home of what may be the most spectacular discus the rivers Amazon have yielded to the hobby.





I am happy to announce that Hugo will be hosting my next international discus lecture series in this place of magical discus. Here is a chance to spend a few days in discus paradise with Hugo and myself, fishing, collecting, learning, and above all, seeing what it is all truly about.





Export permits and transport of your fishes to your home airport will be expertly arranged after Hugo receives your personal reservation and details.





Hugo 's blog and website can be found below. You can also find us both on Facebook.





Santarem Discus Lda



www.amazonfishtrade.com.br



www.santaremdiscus.blogspot.com



Rua Tancredo Neves nº 172



Santarem do Pára - Amazonia



Skype : discusworld2005



Msn ; vitordiscus@hotmail.com






















ABOUT ME...


I've been involved with discus fish for over fifty years. In my "retirement" I still find fish stuff exciting and I guess I've failed at the retirement part of life, returning to the aquarium and aquaculture businesses, freshwater and marine.













It was when lines of communications opened up in the late seventies that the discus world started to explode. I could pursue my theories on discus disease and treatment, as well as other impediments to discus survival and breeding, with others around the world. Suddenly there was the British Discus Association which published a journal and advertised that fact in the hobby magazines. Soon afterwards, in the US, John Benn formed the original Discus Study Group. Its existence was soon heavily publicized by myself and due to Asian participation in our interest here, the DSG flourished . I soon became editor of the DSG journal "DISCUSsions"© and an officer the DSG. Word got out about DISCUSsions and the BDA Journal and people started communicating around the world. Through the BDA Journal I found a letter by a gentleman in Hong Kong named Lo Wing Yat (Sunny Lo) with similar interests. We started writing each other and that act was to define my life with discus for many years as Sunny was about to define the designer discus with the establishment of World Wide Fish Farm in Hong Kong.





I was to become representative for World Wide Fish Farm in the western world. World Wide Fish Farm was established around 1978 originally Hong Kong. The main hatchery (Chinese translation of "hatchery" is "farm") relocated in Taichung, Taiwan ten years later.





As we were always looking for new genes to create new strains I also got the job of running back and forth to the Amazon basin to find discus with specific characteristics needed for breeding, as well as otherwise exceptional discus to send back to the farm or to resell. I was familiar with the territory as I'd been going there since 1974 to study water, disease, and nutrition; the critical factors in being successful with discus. I established facilities in the USA to condition and consolidate wild fish and distribute World Wide's fish outside of Asia. I came up with new medications for the time, and products for discus and other fish. Some I licensed to others, some I manufactured myself.





For the past ten years I've concentrated mostly on the marine side, having long ago sold my original company, though my name did go along with the sale. I have no association with those products. Currently (July 2011) I personally manufacture only three reef aquarium biologicals. I will be doing more marine work along with some unique discus products as well.





I've written on discus, mostly for FAMA, some in TFH, in the now defunct DISCUSSions© as well as in foreign publications. I've lectured in the U.S., South America, and Asia and just talked a lot in Europe and listened even more! I've judged discus, ate discus, bred them, collected them and killed plenty of them over the years. I'm still in touch and good friends with my colleagues from the past. Very few of us keep discus anymore . The physiology of the discus hasn't changed and there really isn't anything new about the fish itself or the techniques. The truth about it all, can be new to many.





I remain a discus curmudgeon in that in my experience, most of what is written and spoken about discus just doesn't hold water when measured against the statistical evidence, and scientific literature I had and have available to me. I hope to enlighten others of what they don't know about discus and how what they think they know may hurt their efforts!





Now that it has been ten years since the original World Wide Fish Farm (both Asia and USA) has found its original retired from the live discus business, I am permitted to share the secrets of World Wide, the most successful and influential discus organization that has ever existed.





Most of what I see and read in aquarium books, magazines and on the internet about discus - simply isn't true. At best it's a sub-standard approach to discus husbandry that doesn't fit my definition of success...because it doesn't fit the discus' concept of it either!





My approach is to maximize - exploit, if you will - production, pleasure, and profit from discus fish.





I am only concerned with methodology that statistically realizes maximum results and can be backed up with fact. What one can get away with, or how much money can be made doing things with less-than-optimal results are not within my mindset. Just go buy a book or go on the internet and follow who, or what you wish. I've already done that, been there and got the T shirt. I know what works to yield maximum results.





What I will be revealing will be in part experiential. However it is all backed up by in-house statistical data and those in the scientific literature.





There aren't many out there that had the successes we at World Wide Fish Farm had. When was the last time a new discus came out of the western world?





By 2002 all concerned retired from discus breeding and wild discus import and export. The "Blue Diamond", "Red Diamond", "Red Spotted Green", "Leopard Skin RSG" and "Tangerine Dream" are just of the few strains developed at World Wide by Sunny Lo (Lo Wing Yat) and Rocky Ng (Ng Ching Yung). It was World Wide's fish that started the discus designer discus craze which was fueled by our associate, Masao Kitano of Japan who conceived the "Discus Pro Shop" concept and promoted discus fish as "living jewels". Other notable participants in the whole project were the late Dr. Eduard Schmidt - Focke and Manfred Göbel, both of Germany. There are few if any, hybrid," fancy" discus today that don't carry World Wide blood.





I have the option of writing a book or a series of articles, both easily sold. However, I want to make my knowledge personally valuable to a select few - that place value on it themselves. So bring a notebook. It isn't going to be in your best interest to make what you'll learn public knowledge! Pictures are fine but no recording!





Please contact me, Marc Weiss for further information of topics to be covered or topics you'd like discuss.

You can click here to email me.








A









ABOUT THE LECTURES...these topics can be covered. Further suggestions are welcome!

The choice is yours!





THE COLLECTOR OF LIVING THINGS, IS BY DEFINITION, A COLLECTOR OF DEAD THINGS! LEARN WHAT I'VE LEARNED FROM THE DISCUS I HAVE LOST!





FIRST THINGS FIRST: DEFINING "SUCCESS" WITH DISCUS.





DISEASE -If fish aren't healthy, the rest doesn't matter!





HOMEOSTASIS - what it is and why and how to maintain it. If fish are diseased and/or physiologically stressed by improper environment it chips away at success.



·Stress is cumulative. Stressors such as light, temperature, water changes, spawning, tank size and position, chemical parameters, shipping, handling.



·Why natural conditions in captivity can help create a new strain.



·Selection for unnatural conditions decreases chances of something new.



·Hard water, high pH. Recipe for disaster.



· Proper quarantine.



· Avoiding selecting for and breeding for stronger pathogens.



·Quarantine. Usually useless as applied by hobbyists. Putting canaries in the coal mine,



·Sick fish shed parasites. Avoid breeding pathogens.



·Paste foods as vehicles for medicaments. Oral medication vs immersion.



· Prophylaxis



· Anorexia



·Worming



· Hexamita and hole-in-the-head disease. Metronidazole. Real vs imagined HITH.



·Activated carbon burn.



· Head standing, pop - eyes, kidney, liver failure and TB.



·Flubendazole, Levamisole, etc.



·Drug contraindications and interreactions.



·Using the right drug for the wrong disease.



·Teratogens, mutagens, toxins. Hoses, sponges, sources of toxins.



· Contraindications, incompatible drugs.



·Garlic, botanicals.





ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS



· Toxicities, induced voltage, plastics, hoses, and foam/sponge.



· Shy discus.



·Position of tank.



·Temperature



·Light, nature, quality, duration, cycle.



· Spatial consideration, pheromones and growth inhibition.





WATER



· Discus do not adapt to unnatural waters. They tolerate it - at a price.



· The nitrogen cycle in dystrophic, acidic waters.



· Conditioning water. The living component. Plant colloids, "new" and "used".



·RO vs DI and using what's out of the tap.



· pH - what makes the pH what it is, is important as what the pH is.



· Water changes. Fact and fiction.



· Water for breeding, for health, for growth.



· "Discus grow faster in hard water" fallacy.



·Oxygen vs carbon dioxide. Gas exchange, nitrogen stripping.



·Filters - dirt relocation vs removal. Protein skimming, UV, carbon, resins.



·Tanks size, filtration, dirt relocation, prefiltration.



·Make friends with peat moss.



· Water conditioners. Putting things in water to take out things in water.





NUTRITION



·Paste foods. Value in disease control.



· Home made foods.



· Risks of feeding worms, shrimp, fish meats, live foods.



· Atemia, the good and the bad. How to keep it all good.



·If you're going to feed your fish, feed the most nutritious food each time.



·It's not what they eat. It's how and what they utilize. Stomach content can be what fish didn't digest.



·They're carnivores. Get over it! If you feel your fish need vitamin A, give it vitamin A, not carrots.



·Spirulina fallacies.



·Protein sparing.



·Vegetable matter fallacies. Excysting of parasites in the gut due to diet.



·Beef heart follies. The original controlled study.



·More, not less fats. Nature of fats.



·Carbohydrates -veggies and Hexamita . Chitin and helminths.



·Fasting makes a sick fish sicker.



· Acidifying foods.



· Probiotics



· Carotenoids, astaxanthin.





REPRODUCTION



·Nature knows best. "Adapting" and "acclimating" to unnatural environments...and the price you'll pay for it.



· Spawning impediments are your fault.



·How many species are there? Why you should care. Snakeskin, Heckel genes.



·Breeding strategies of different populations.



·The Heckel mystery solved.



·Evolution is a continuum. Compartmentalism is the road to failure.



· Most (all?) "strains" can be found in nature. The fish hasn't changed and there's nothing new out there.



·Populations not in the hobby or literature. Chances for something new?



·Determining sex. Matching the correct fish .



·Age and size of broodstock.



·Spawning triggers.



·Impediments. Divergence of morphs. Convergence leading to "domestication".



·Select for best babies.



· In breeding, line breeding in wild and mutant morphs.



·Hormone induction.



·Other uses of hormones. Sorting, deceit.



·Artificial and natural colorants. Why some are natural and needed.



·Color and pattern manipulation via drugs and environment. Red, blue and in between.



·Environmental manipulation in captivity...and in the wild.



·Artificial raising. The egg yolk joke.



· Sex- linked coloration.





MISCELLANEOUS TOPICS -



Whatever the participants want to discuss.



Shipping discus. The best way to tranquilize with the best sedative.



The business of discus



The people of discus



Perpetuating profitable myths



Books to read and own. Where NOT to get the truth and how to find the truth.



Microscopes.





UPDATES....as they come! Get on my email list! and also see below....





Additional topics that have been suggested:





· Discus/angelfish "plague"





· "Acute skin fluffing syndrome" , a common and commonly, misdiagnosed disease.





· Epibiont microbial communities.





· pH stability issues. Misreading of pH.





·How breeders sterilize discus so you can't breed them...and how they tell you do things that help them and not you!





SUGGESTIONS ACCEPTED! SUBMIT YOURS!




























MARC WEISS ENTERPRISES INC.

3325 Griffin Road #207

Ft. Lauderdale · FL 33312 · USA

Tel: 954 980 0263

Click here for Marc
























Forward email











This email was sent to tigerfish@marcweissexotics.com by tigerfish@marcweissexotics.com |

Update Profile/Email Address | Instant removal with SafeUnsubscribe™ |Privacy Policy.


Marc Weiss Enterprises Inc. | 3325 Griffin Road #207 | Fort Lauderdale | FL | 33312

Trip of a lifetime and the ladies can not go :(

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Second Hand Pat

Trip of a lifetime and the ladies can not go :(

---

Why can't they Pat?
I must be missing something.

I recall a trip like this earlier on FB and the guy from Santarem Discus, Victor is his name I believe mentioned the ladies could not come when one commented to wanting to go. I could be wrong. Perhaps a email to Marc would clear that up.

A trip like this would be a dream come true. Hopefully someday :(

I don't think its that ladies 'can't go', its more that privacy and essentials to female grooming/habits will not be available on a small ship in the middle of Amazon jungle :)

I’d like to take a moment to thank Kraig for posting about the trip to the group and letting me know that he did so.

Please understand that Hugo is running the trip. He is in charge of the logistics. I am there to “lecture” and likely provide some entertainment due to my clumsiness and propensity for getting bitten by exotic creatures!

As to the ladies…

Each cabin sleeps three.
Three ladies can share a cabin.
Should there be two, I will discuss the situation with Hugo.

If any ladies would want to come if privacy was available to you - please contact me personally as soon as possible.

Women have been significant in the discus hobby since early on. I hope they aren’t discouraged. The “Amazon” is not oppressively hot or uncomfortable at all. If one gets wet - it will be voluntary! Mosquitos and other bugs avoid black water habitats. Women will have no disadvantage compared to the men. I get to sleep in a hammock on the deck!


To all…

All potential and present attendees should note that a Brazilian visa is required. It takes almost a month to get, unless you are close to a consulate. Even then it takes a week. Of course a passport is also required to obtain a visa. Google “Brazil visa” and your nearest Brazilian consulate will come up in the results along with the requirements and instructions.

The best airline is TAM. Routing is Miami, Manaus, Santarem.

Please let me know if any of you have further questions and considerations.

Marc

Wish I could go, but setting up the 240gal this year blew up the funds that I would otherwise have had for this trip :( Hopefully I'll be able to attend the next one organized!

Marc

I am interested in Red Spotted Green Discus. Is this a fish I might be able to get on this expedition? Thank you in advance for your response.

babs954

Dear Babs954,
I am sorry but the green discus, with and without red spots, is found only far to the west of the Trombetas.
In Brazil it would be the Tefe, Coari, Japura region. In Peru in the Nanay and Putumayo. The are other places than but are more difficult to get to.
I am planning trips to those areas for next year. I'll let everyone know.
If anyone wants to be on my mailing list, contact me at Tigerfish at MarcWeissExotics dot com.
thanks for asking,
Marc
Marc

would be a wonderful life experience but from the uk would be prohibitively expensive and very difficult to get any "catches" back home:(