Big Eyes Mean Stunted?

[hexed]

I have a question seeing people always say that a discus is stunted because of it's eyes. Most say that a discus is stunted because of the size of his eye to the body. So I know have a question in reguards to that. I have a blue diamond, I took her out of the tank and measured her. She is just over 6 inches from tip of mouth to tip of tail. Is this considered a large discus? She has large eyes compared to her body though. I would not consider her stunted being that long. Is it normal for blue diamonds to have large eyes? I attached a pic of her.
I also have a male blue ghost who is huge (he is bigger then the blue diamond) and his eye is very large as well. Carol had said that to create a blue ghost, they crossed a blue diamond with something else I can't remember. I will post a pic of him as well.
Frank

[hexed]

Sorry but the above pic was the best I could get LOL! Below is the blue ghost, he keeps backing up just when I snapped the picture.

[April]

bds eyes seem to look bigger..especially as youngsters. i believe the guideline is..you should have 3 eye measurements above the eye.
if you look at a young runted discus...the eye seems to be very close to the front of the head looking from sideview also.
your fish are fine. especially if big....not runted if they are 6 inches...
actually..if you look at a wild fishes eyes..they have big eyes. not sure why...different environment..grow slower ..in the wild..maybe expend more energy..and most their food goes to energy instead of growth? and not power fed..of course they do get lots of wcs..as the amazon is a huge body of water..and continuous flow.

[pcsb23]

Frank, I can't answer this authoratively but cannot see how a 6" fish could be deemed stunted. It looks to have decent shape again untypical of a stunted fish.

Paul.

[JMArtist]

My personnel feeling is that Discus have large eyes naturally.
Which makes complete sense if you think about the environment these fish developed in.
The Amazon is not the clearest body of water around, in fact it's very murky with dim lighting, so the fish needs to have larger eyes to see predators approaching.
The reason we judge discus with large eyes as being stunted is simple.
We power feed the fish to grow as quickly as possible but it's eyes still only grow at a certain rate, probably with age, much like with what happens with short gill plates.
So some where along the line, the features of a distorted power fed fish was deemed to be the standard by which the fish is judged.
But don't take that from me, I do not set the standards for discus.
In my opinion, your fish looks fine.
As long as your fish are healthy and happy, it's great.

[fishfarm]

I have to agree, Wild fish almost always have larger eyes than domestic as we push domestics to grow faster with multiple feedings of high protien food. Older fish also have very large eyes, if you have a fish over 5 years old it will have much laregr eyes than a year old fish with the same body size.

[John_Nicholson]

A discus with 6 inches of body is a big fish. A discus with a total length of 6 inches only has a body af about 4 1/2 inches and would not be considered large. I would describe it like a man being about 5' 6". Not a midget but not considered tall by any means. ( I don't mean that bad.....I am only 5' 6" myself...LOL). LIke has been said wild fish often have a larger eye. Many od the older type blue fish also carry a larger eye so you have to be a little careful in using the eye size to determine if a fish is stunted. It is an indicator but needs to be conbined with other factors to be correct. I think it is interesting to compare todays domestics to wild fish. You can see mans influnence all over the place, but if you think about it it makes some sense. First go back in time. You got a tank of F1 young discus, you grow them out and they start to pair off. What do you do? You take the first few pairs that get going and start to work on the F2 generation and sale the other F1'a that you don't need any longer. You keep a tank of the F2's and grow them out. They start to pair up and you again take the first few pairs out to work on the F3's and sale the others. Now after years of doing this we have discus that grow fast and spawn young. We kept pulling the individuals that spawned younger then normal. After 40 years it has become the norm. Same thing has happened with eyes. People like small eyed fish, so after 40 years of selective breeding many domestic fish so an eye smaller then their wild counter parts. I have seem stunted full grown 3 inch fish that could have been (and some were) passed off as really nice 4 to 5 month old discus. Their eyes were the correct size for thier bodies.

-john

[CAGE-RATTLER]

Ive wondered about this myself as far as eye size goes.

I believe it should be determined more with the age of the discus.

If you have a 2+ year old discus ...... obviously the eyes are going to be bigger. But if the body size is only 4 inches with big eyes then yeah i guess it is stunted ........ but if the body size is at 6+ inches and still has big eyes ....... i would assume its just an older discus.

The size of the eyes have to catch up to the growth eventually right??

[hexed]

John,
I took her out again LOL! I measured from tip of mouth to base of tail (where the clear part of the fin starts) and it is almost 5 inches. It is hard to measure her with a Stanley tape measure. I think I should invest in one of those cloth ones LOL! I held her flat in both hands and Jimmy measured. I don't think she was happy because she almost flipped away from me, so I will leave her in the tank from now on Boy she is mad at me LOL!
In the above pic she is turning away from me so she is actually curved
What about him? I feed colorbits and he is turning orange? Lots of orange!
Carol or anyone, what is used to cross to make a blue ghost? I am trying to find out where the orange is from?
Frank

[Carol_Roberts]

Blue ghost is a mutation. It arose independently. I think some blue discus (like cobalts) were crossed with ghost to get rid of striations

[hexed]

Carol,
I believe my diamond is a female as she is pecking the breeding cone and she chose the blue ghost as her other half. He is always chasing the other 3 discus away from the cone. I hope he does his job with her because you wanted to see what the young would look like
Frank

[Alan]

What about him? I feed colorbits and he is turning orange? Lots of orange!
Carol or anyone, what is used to cross to make a blue ghost? I am trying to find out where the orange is from?
Frank

The orange is from the ColorBits that you feed it. ColorBits has beta-carotene and red 3.

[Kindredspirit]

I have seem stunted full grown 3 inch fish that could have been (and some were) passed off as really nice 4 to 5 month old discus. Their eyes were the correct size for thier bodies.-john

Okay....dumb question, John~



How.........did you know they were stunted, if their eyes were the correct size for their bodies? Because you knew they were not really 4-5 months old?

Forgive me, I am tired and this so interests me~



Marie~

[John_Nicholson]

In one case I bought the fish. They started laying eggs less then a month after buying them. They did have wigglers so both the male and female were mature enough to be fertile. They also never grew. In other cases I new the sellers and/or the buyers. There are lots of crooks in the fish world. Of course you really can't say much about it or you look like an ***. I use to try and educate the world but as I get older I just let everyone figure it out on their own.

-john

[Kindredspirit]

Of course you really can't say much about it or you look like an ***. I use to try and educate the world but as I get older I just let everyone figure it out on their own.
-john

Hey John~

I do not think you could ever come off as an ***~ And you are correct, you can not educate the whole world, no matter what you say, but then, there are some that want to learn and no one talks...

Go figure~


Marie~