DECEMBER SPOTLIGHT - JIMMY L

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Here is the interview I recently conducted with Jimmy. I have to say, it was a pleasure. I am really looking forward to seeing how his new experiments turn out in breeding - the white fish crossed with some solids sounds pretty interesting to me! Thanks again Jimmy for the great interview and pics!

John

Q - Please tell us all a little about yourself, what makes Jimmy tick? Single, married, attached? What do you do for a living? Other hobbies? Any significant non-discus achievements you want to brag about?

A - Fry attachment makes me tick. It is the most amazing behavior in nature. I grew up in Hong Kong. My parents saw no future for me being a nature lover who played with wild animals, birds and fish. They made the decision to send me away to Canada to stay away from the animals. Im presently working in Cardio-Respiratory and Anesthesia field in a hospital and also studying to be a Respirologist. I will be in-charge of our new Asthma and COPD Rehab. Center next April. I married my high school sweet heart from Hong Kong and we have a lovely daughter named Penny. Thats how I started in a new country with only pennies in my pocket. Christmas is a special time for me. I have Christmas gifts from patients recovered from life and death situation thanking me for saving their lives. Most of them came to the hospital by ambulance either had a Cardiac Arrest or Respiratory failure, unable to breathe and lifeless. I put a tube into the lungs, with a little massage on the heart and brought them back to life. I looked after them in the Intensive Care Unit on the Breathing machine and saw them walking out of the hospital are my significant achievements and Im really proud of myself able to bring happiness to their families.

Q - How did you get into discus? Where was the first discus you saw? How long had you been into fish first?

A - I hated city life in Hong Kong. I chose to stay with my grandfather who was a Herbalist in a village near the perimeter of the city where we found mountains, rivers, beaches and trees. I caught everything that can move, fry and swim. We had a river running beside the house with all kinds of fish can be found. I caught guppies, green swordtails and gouramis from the river. I started keeping them and sold them to other kids. One day, I found a stray German Shepard and brought him home. It was a guard dog belonging to a British Sargent from the expensive homes up on the mountain. He came and pick up the dog and saw some green swordtails I caught from the river, he gave me 5 brown discus and a tank as a reward. I didnt know what they were. All I knew they were rare and expensive and paid no attention to them. I left them on the balcony on the upper floor. They ate the insects that dropped in the tank at night. The daily afternoon downpour did all the water change. Didnt even know how they had babies in the tank cause the algae made it impossible to see inside the tank. Took them to the fish vendor. They were jumping for joy. Didnt even know why. It was 1965. Thats how I start keeping Discus, They were called 7 color Angels in Hong Kong.

Q - How did you decide to take the plunge into breeding as a significant part of your fishkeeping?

A - I bought my first Discus in Canada in 1969. They were wild discus and it was a disaster. Information was almost impossible to get. Everybody treated it as top secret. I didnt even know the difference between hard and soft water. No heater and no water change. They were wiped out in a few months. It was so easy when I had them back home. It was the challenge to keep them alive drove me into discus. I kept killing them day after day for several years until I met Jack Wattley in Florida where I bought 6 Turquoise discus and that made a big difference in my fish keeping until today. Its just a hobby for me. I have no intention to breed professionally. Maybe when the government and my Professional College decide that Im too old and take away my license to practice, then, I may breed professionally.

Q - What were the major obstacles involved in setting up as a breeder? Any advice for aspiring breeders?

A - Cost is a major obstacle in setting up as a breeder. Discus being a high maintenance fish that requires massive water changes and heating. Its quite hard to make a living out of it. I dont call myself a breeder. Im just a fellow hobbyist who happens to know how to breed them. From my experience of having too many fish and dont know where to put them. My advice for the aspiring breeders are dont try to breed professionally unless you have perfect water like Aprils and warm temperature that requires no heaters. Otherwise, forget it. Youre lucky if you can break even. The pet store knows you have to sell them and they will only offer you a few dollars each. It doesnt even enough to cover the hydro bills. Its not economical. I’ve seen quite a few hobbyists that turn breeder going bankrupt form it.

Q - How many pairs do you currently have producing? How many tanks? I know from previous posts that you have downscaled a great deal. What was your maximum quantity of fish?

A - I just finished re-building all the stands in my fish room. It wasnt built properly in the first place. They were sagging as much as 2 inches in the middle and eventually cracked 2 tanks. I had to sell off most of the fish and dismantled the whole drip system to repair all the stands. I dont have too many at the present time. I kept some sub-adults and theyre pairing up and soon will be spawning. Ill say maybe 5 pairs are productive at the present. When I had a series of disasters and flooding from glass cracking and leaking all over the place 3 months ago. At the same time, the cost of electricity was double due to deregulation by the government. They went up from $300 to over $600 for 3 months. That was the time I decided to sell all the breeding adults and scaled down to just a few tanks. Now I only have 20 tanks with about 800-gal capacity. But Im only using 5 tanks and the rest of them are empty. I feel lonely without them…

Q - What strains are you the most happy with? Which do you think need some work? Are you working on anything new and exciting now? What strain/s do you like best, personally?

A - I like the Blue Diamond the best. The distinctive sky blue color are so pleasing to the eye and makes you feel soothed and comfortable looking at them. They are graceful and beautiful. They can cross with any strain of discus and the offspring will be nice and acceptable by most hobbyists. They turn navy blue when rearing fry and there is no problem with attachment. They are so versatile. I am not happy with the newer strain like the Snow White and San -Merah. They are so beautiful and yet so small. I have been looking for a sizable San-Merah for the last two years and still unable to find a large one that doesnt spawn at 3-4 inches.

Q - Actually one of the questions I have wanted to get a LOT of information from you on is genetics. Your Pigeon Blood (or was it Marlboro Red) x Blue Diamond threw some awesome crosses. Can you give us any other interesting crosses that have come out good or interesting? Any crossing information would be of great interest to me, and to a lot of others, I bet!

A - I like to cross most of my discus. The imported fish we get have been in-bred for so many generations to fix the line. Most of them had already shown signs of genetic defects. Quite a number of Pigeon Blood stain miss their food targets. We have no choice but to cross-breed them to improve the line. I was working on a dirty Red Spotted SS X MR for the last 2 years to produce a clean MR with red fins. We call them Red Melon. I was able to produce a solid yellow fish which we called Canary and then I use her to cross with a Golden and now I think I have a finished product. They are solid Tangerines. If I color enhance them with red color, they turn bright red. I kept 10 of them and they will be my next batch of breeders.

I also crossed a Wild green and a Blue Diamond and produced a bronze colored barless fish with green fins. They are beautiful as far as I am concerned. But when I posted the picture on the forum. People said it was a cull. She had been producing a lot of perfectly round Angel Diamonds for me. She is not a cull. To me she is priceless.

Q - Any tips on breeding or raising discus? Tricks or methods you use to encourage pairs to breed?

A - Preparation for breeding is the most important factor in breeding discus. You must de-fluke the parents and make sure they are free of external parasites and gill worms. That will save a lot of future problems that may cause frustration and heart breaking incidents down the road. I found out the easiest trick to induce spawning is to simply drop the pH and W/C with colder water at room temperature and the most effective way is to dump the siphoned water from your breeding tanks and put it in the potential breeders. They will immediately flash their fins and looking for a mate.

Q – Sounds like a neat trick! What do you feed your discus?

A - Mainly Beefheart mix, red wigglers and tetrabits. I also have Azoo and Krills on the minor scale. Discus can get by with just one meal a day with 100% BH plus tetrabits. That's what I fed them when I was in College. I didnt have enough time to sleep so mixing beefheart was out of a question. I let the fish tell me what they like best and feed them that on their last meal. In that way, they will clean up the left over from previous meals. It is important to have a balanced diet with lots of protein like red wrigglers. I drop the whole worm in the tank, let them have a tug of war and they also get their daily exercise with it. Each fish has their own preference. Forcing them to eat what you what them to is not a good idea. You end up having an unhappy and a sick fish.

Q - What is your most exhilarating moment with discus?

A - The most exhilarating moment when I found out how to stop a pair from eating eggs. I had a pair of CEESOB (I borrowed this term from a member of the forum, and it stands for Chronic Egg Eating SOB.) Blue Diamonds which had been eating the eggs as soon as the female finished spawning. This went on for over a year. One day, I found a white spot on the tail of the male in the breeding tank. I took him out and PP him for a 30 minutes in a cooler with an air hose inside. I had an emergency call from the hospital and had to leave right away. I came back after 4 hours and found the airhose on the floor and the Blue Diamond had turned green and was lying on his side barely moving his gills. He was breathing only 5 breath per minutes. I put him back with the female in the breeding tank and went back to the hospital. He survived the ordeal and righted himself the next day. When I came down to the fish room the following day, I didnt find him bagging for food which was his normal reaction when he saw me. I actually expected that he would be floating on the surface, so that wasn’t so bad! What I found was amazing. He was guarding a batch of eggs. The near death experience had turned him into the best breeder Ive ever had. From that day on. I disinfect and de-worm all the breeders before adjusting the water parameters. I had many graduates from the School of CEESOB for my friends discus just by simply doing the same thing.

Q – Wow. That is a great tip! What is your most frustrating moment with discus?

A - I had my share of disaster. I had one visitor accidentally knock over a jug of Muriatic Acid which had been sitting on top of the show tank with over 50 adults in it. He left without telling me about it. It was too late when I found out the cause of this catastrophe when I test the pH of the water. Not one single discus survived the incident. Thats frustrating, because I had no idea of what had caused the problem and when I finally figured it out, I was not happy! What we can learn from this incident is that you DON’T place any chemical or medication on top of the aquarium!

Q - Do you have any future discus plans that you would like to share with us?

A - I am planning to get my hands wet on the wilds once again. I failed miserably many times on the wilds in the early years of discus keeping. I must have wiped out my stock completely at least 5 times and swore each time that I would not have discus for the rest of my life again. It must be the bug… After a cool off period for a year or two, I started buying them again. Information was not readily available in the early years. I had to find out the answers by trial and error with thousands of dollars down the drains. When I saw Dennis Hs Alenquer Curipera, I knew that some day I would have them in my tanks. Maybe as early as next year after I am done with Carys White Diamonds I won last New Years Day. They will be ready to spawn in the next few months. I will cross them with my solid yellow and solid red and see how they turn out.

Q – Sounds like an interesting project, please keep us up to date on it! How do those in your life feel about discus?

A - My wife is very supportive and understanding. She kept telling me to buy more discus so that she didnt feel guilty about spending all her money on useless things like designer apparel, jewelry and by matching a new painting in the living room by changing the furniture every year. As long as I stay in my fish room and dont bother her gossiping with her friends. She is OK with that.

Q - Do you have any funny, amusing or interesting discus stories to share with us?

A - Once in a while. I have some discus that swim upside down and sideways with ease. They have no problem negotiating bends and turns. I found them very acrobatic. I usually save them and try to breed them as a Chinese Acrobatic Discus Team. So far, all have died before they reached adulthood. Im working on one now. She spins around in circle for about a minute when the light turn-on in the morning. Then she swims upside down for a while before righting herself, then she is fine for the rest of the day. You cant tell the difference. She only does her acrobatic moves during feeding time. She has trouble eating Tetrabits on the surface when shes upside down. She may be a cull but I find her interesting. Wouldnt it be funny have a tank full of her babies swimming upside down and doing spins and turns all over the tank?

Q - Do you have any thanks or credit to give for your success with discus? Any mentors or colleagues who you think deserve some applause?

A - I have learned a lot form a group of retired Asian Breeders who showed me the best way to keep discus and are willing to share their trade secrets with me over a few bottle of beer as bait. They choose to be anonymous and stay behind the discus spotlight. Their trade secrets are being passed on to the new generation of hobbyists unintentionally by some of their followers. We have meetings every Saturday morning over morning tea to talk about discus. That makes life more enjoyable for me. Discus keeping is very therapeutic for our heavy daily schedule.

Q - What do you see as the future of discuskeeping? More/less people? Any cool ideas for strains?

A - I can see the standard of discus in North America will be a lot different in the next few years. Quality discus pictures keep showing up on our forum. It is no doubt the result of some unselfish hobbyists and breeders and the internet. They spend their precious time answering questions through forums, PM and e-mail. I can see our future of discus keeping will at least equal to the rest of the world.

Q - Can you think of anything I left out you would like to bring up - either personally or discus related?

A - Keeping discus is an art. There is no absolute. Care and treatments are so variable with each individual fish depending on factors like locations and water conditions. Getting into argument over a fish is not worth it. Life is so short. I see life and death every day just separated by a split second. We should enjoy every minute of our life fully. Instead of fighting over some silly thing like who is right. I had PM and e-mail telling me I am full of it. That is fine with me. As long as my fish stay healthy and keep breeding . That is what counts. Thank you for wasting your time reading this and Have a Happy Xmas and Merry New Year!

Q: Thank you, Jimmy, for all of your insight and information! Not to mention your valuable time!

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Here's a really nice fish with a great metallic sheen.

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A nice snakeskin

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Here's a nice pair with fry.

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Some nice blue diamonds that are in the grow out phase.

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Some really pretty adult BD with great red eyes.

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Here is an assortment of aftican cichlids... How'd they get in here?

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Here is an impressive looking specimen. Nice orange spotted fish.

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This cat is apparently the boss/overlord of Jimmy's fishroom... He keeps the fish in line.

[RichieE]

I knew Jimmys interview would be outstanding. Im glad you guys nabbed him. Great tips Jimmy. We want more. Rich

[EthanCote.com]

Thanks John for the great questions and taking the time to do this interview!!

And thanks Jimmy for giving us some insight into your experience and your life!!

Great interview and great pics!!


Cheers,

Chi.


PS: Congrats on the new position as: COPD Rehab. Center next April!

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Nice cross here!

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I think that last one was one of Jimmy's BDxMR cross. I LOVE that fish!

This one is very golden and also impressive.

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Nice pattern on this discus.

[fcdiscus]

Fascinating! Great Interview! Thanks, Frank