King Cobra Discus

[Ryan]

They are snakeskin discus. "King Cobra" is a fancy marketing name. You'll find that a lot of breeders have their own names for essentially the same fish. Usually on stocklists they'll have "snake" or "snakeskin" in the name. It's any fish with a very fine striated pattern on the gills, face, and body, as opposed to the thicker markings on turquoise/red turquoise discus. A lot of them also have 14 vertical bars as opposed to the normal 9 on other discus, but now they've been crossed with so many things that you get them with 9 bars, 14 bars, etc. They can look mostly red or mostly blue, so it depends on which you prefer.

[RichardL]

I have yet to learn how to use taptalk and Photobucket so I can't add pics yet or I would add one.

You can attach pictures from your computer to the thread. Photobucket is not needed.

[Ryan]

I can tell you that the photos on the site in question are stock photos, not the actual fish. I know this because I know a few of the breeders whose photos are being used, and Mac is not importing from said breeders. I would contact him and ask for actual pictures of the stock he's got currently.

I would recommend searching the Feedback section here for reviews of sellers, sponsors or non-sponsors.

[navarro1950]

Thank you Ryan and RichardL I'll try to add a photo for you but understand I'm new at adding photos from other places. The picture they have on mac's discus sure reeled me in, I fell in love with that discus and have been watching the site for a long time. When I found Simply Discus I was blessed. I've had discus before a long time ago without success and I really don't want to mess them up any more.

[navarro1950]

RichardL I think you mean this. http://www.macsdiscus.com/king-cobra...ish-2-25-inch/

[Mgus]

If you haven't gotten any discus yet the red snakeskin and tiger carnation snakes kin in Kenny's new shipment look very similar.

[DISCUS STU]

RichardL I think you mean this. http://www.macsdiscus.com/king-cobra...ish-2-25-inch/

This is a strange picture. The body looks fine while the head area looks black and darkened. Could it be the lighting or the exposure?

This is also a full grown fish, not an adolescent.

[Rudustin]

It's the lighting and the exposure.

[navarro1950]

Thanks y'all for all the help. If anyone even stumbles across another discus that looks like the king cobra if you remember I am looking for that fish please pm me and let me know where you saw it. Thanks again

[CrazyAngels]

Carnation snakeskins when in breeding colors look like the king cobra you are looking at, I know it cause that is exactly what mine looked like. normally they look just like the ones Kenny posted in his last shipment coming in here is the link to them. http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showth...=1#post1156484

[JohnniG]

Very similar to a female breeder Snakeskin I bought a long time ago as a juvenile at a lfs by chance. She was beautiful, a great mother and produced beautiful offspring. RIP.

By the way you can insert an image directly by using the third button from the right, "Insert Image". Attachment 86589

Beautiful fish! Wish I had one just like it.

[DISCUS STU]

Beautiful fish! Wish I had one just like it.

As do I. She passed from natural causes. She was a really great breeder female with very strong instincts and drives.

[SortSay2003]

Hello Navarro,

I believe the name King Cobra is now commonly known as Blue Scorpion. It is a cross between Snakeskin/Blue Diamond (all you experts can correct me if I'm wrong). One of the SD sponsor, Kenny, brings these in quite often. Check out Kenny's May listing. There are some larger Blue Scorpion on that list, see if it resembles what you're searching for.

Good luck

[navarro1950]

Thank you SortSay2003 I will go through Kenny's new shopping list for all us SD members. What you say about the Snakeskin and Blue Diamond makes since and believe me I am No expert. I just look at what discus is pleasing to the brain and heart and I add it to my bucket list of wants.

[Ryan]

Hello Navarro,

I believe the name King Cobra is now commonly known as Blue Scorpion. It is a cross between Snakeskin/Blue Diamond (all you experts can correct me if I'm wrong). One of the SD sponsor, Kenny, brings these in quite often. Check out Kenny's May listing. There are some larger Blue Scorpion on that list, see if it resembles what you're searching for.

Good luck

The fish in the original photo from Mac's is not a Blue Scorpion. It's got a brown base color and does not contain any Blue Diamond.

As has been said many times in the thread, it's just a fancy name for a typical snakeskin discus. There are snakes that are more red/brown based and snakes that are more blue based. The photo in question has had the contrast heavily adjusted, making the dark areas very dark and the striations very bright. Snakeskins and other striated discus have red eyes. This fish has black eyes. That tells me the photo's saturation/contrast has been heavily adjusted. I would bet money that the actual fish looked nothing like that in person.

Discus keepers should not get too hung up on one photo of a fish. A lot goes into play. Lighting, background color, the kind of foods fed, the angle you catch them at, whether they're in spawning/defensive/aggressive mode or not, the post-processing that's done to the pictures, your monitor color settings, your screen type, etc. No single picture can capture what a discus really looks like in person because they are constantly moving, constantly changing their color based on mood and surroundings. You'd get a better idea by looking at videos of the actual fish if they're available, and if the videos haven't been heavily color-adjusted to make the fish look better on purpose (which is what a lot of photos do). Then remember the fact that out of a group of snakeskins, or red turquoise, or any other type of straited discus, each fish will have its own individual pattern and color. They all vary. So pointing at a single photo and saying, "I need THAT fish" is basically impossible.

I'm going to show you an example. I took an unedited photo of a Scarlet Snake from Ricky Lim directly off of a camera. Here it is:



Then I took 30 seconds in Photoshop to adjust the contrast and the color balance of the photo to turn it into this:



Now it looks almost identical to the King Cobra picture (dark body color, deep blue markings, dark orange in the fins, dark face/eye):



Here is the same fish of Ricky's, also from an unedited file on my camera. This time it's in a tank with a darker background. You can see that it looks like a totally different fish:



All photo tricks, some just because of natural influences (tank lights, tank background color, flash vs. no flash) and some because of post processing in the pictures using software.