Visit To Wattley's

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Here is my photo visit to Jack Wattley's Discus Hatchery run by Gabriel Posada.  The one thing I DIDN'T remember to do was to take a pic of Gabe with the digital camera...  We do have some hard photos of him and of him with me and Jerry Baer and Bill, my father in law, however.  Here is the first pic, of my wife and her parents before we set out...

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Here is a group of very young Blue Diamonds (or the Wattley equivalent).  If I get any breed names wrong, it's up to Gabe to correct me!

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Here is a pic of one of the larger discus, I would estimate 6" that had not paired off and that Gabe was saving for possible future breeding.  I'm not sure what he is, but he was looking good!  I wish the pic looked as good as the fish.  It was incredibly hot in the hatchery and I estimate I took 10 pics for every one I saved.  Fortunately some came out better than this one.

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Here is one of the pairs that was actually breeding due to the temperature.  I was really impressed by the blazing red eyes on the two of them - the reddest I have seen.  It the pic it looks like the male's eye isn't so red, but in person it was like blood.

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Here are some pretty all white discus - I think they call them snowflakes in the mag ads.  They were good sized and robust.  Very nice in person.

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Here is where I started to get a few good pics as my camera had reached room temp - about 150 degress - or so it seemed!  These were gorgeous fish.  There was one "Superfish" in this batch, but I couldn't get a good shot of just him.

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Here are some more really nice leopard looking fish.  They all had such great color and were nicely shaped.  If I could have taken some, put them in my in-laws bathtub for a few days and manage to get them on the plane with me, I would have!!  They were my favorites, and, coincidentally, my best pics were of them!

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Here is some kind of pigeon blood strain.  Red Pandas, if I remember what Gabe said.  They were very pretty and, again, robust.  Al will be happy to know that Gabe had philodendron in most of the tanks for nutrient removal.  He also had some huge plecos which did a great job on the algae, but sometimes got after the discus, too...

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I think these were the sunsets.  They also were great looking fish.  Most impressive.  

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Here is a group of young fish.  They were just starting to color up and were showing nice body shape and looked really alert and impressive.  I liked them a lot.

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And that's it!  My thanks to Gabe Posada for allowing the walk through tour.  I strongly recommend it to anyone in the area, though be warned, it is VERY hot!  Also my thanks to Jerry Baer who made the trip that much more fun and helped cool us down with Italian ices after the "Wattley Sauna Experience" - great fish and great people!

John

[Willie]

Gabe is one of the nicest guys in the hobby.  He has some absolutely incredible sunshine X snakeskins.

Willie

[April]

thanks John.....nice to see. sounds like it was a great trip.  ;D

[taybelZ]

John, looks like you had a great time, i bet its one of those things you never forget. Boy those Blue Diamonds stomachs look mighty full :P
hehe did he feed them when you were over ther?

[daninthesand]

Hi John.

Cool pix. Gotta love those wattely discus. gabe is indeed a fine fellow and always most helpful. I have a few of his RSG and Marloborough sunshine cross. And also a few sunshines.

John, and anyone else who might be interested, I have quite a few pix of the Wattley hatchery myself. Lots of fish of course, but also of the hatchery itself. Gabe said it would be OK for me to post them so if there is anybody intersted I'll post a few to add to this Wattley thread... Let me know.

Dan