Food For Thought..... Deformities

[White Worm]

I choose YELLOW! Oh... I already have those............. I choose RED! LMAO! Who cares, its a stale mate / cats game, whatever you want to call it, lol. Kenny said it, everyone has a right to like what they like and have what they enjoy swimming in their tanks. You can hate em or love em, theyre here, have been for a while and probably will be for a while longer. Peace, Mike

[Elcid]

Gosh, it's kinda sad to end this thread like this. All this Freedom to choose reminds me of another choice made by our leader!

Where's my eggs?

http://forum.simplydiscus.com//showthread.php?t=45980

take care,
Sandeep

[ronman]

Maybe someone could start a (fillet the BD) fund raising , use the money raised to buy a BD and cut it up to measure/count the spine so the matter can be laid to rest till the next blue moon.LOL.

ron

[Kindredspirit]

[Beth]

Well.........
it looks like I'm back where I was when I started this thread ........ I haven't learned anything more about how or what a True Bulldog really is

Beth

[Carol_Roberts]

Hi Beth:
Let me start by saying I haven't read thru every post on this thread. . . .

I do know that JimmyL has was working on the bulldog before any of us had heard the term. With any new form there is a wide variation in the beginning (before the type is set). Intermediates by definition are what comes between the beginning and the final product. Jimmy's base stock may well have a compressed body, but the ones he's posted photos of do not look deformed to me. Rather he has defined the bulldog as having five stress bars, high body and well developed lower jaw/face.

I would bet the Bulldog Discus spawns produce a wide variety of shapes. I would guess breeders are selecting those with the strongest bulldog traits. It is sometimes hard to guess which of the youngsters posess the best genes to pass on. I think given time we will see improvements in dish/beaky face and overall shape. Remember how much pepper the pigeons used to have?

[LuckyYou]

These originate from a wild variety dubbed "giant discus" by the germans that were "supposedly" caught in the Rio Maderia in the mid 80's. They were crossed into current strains to try and help develop the high body that was coveted with discus breeders at the time. They had the high body, 5 stress bars and the dreaded dented forehead that exaggerates the weird look. They were also very large fish.. 9 or 10 inches fully grown. Some of you who have been in this hobby a long time might remember the rash of weird looking discus with round or even football shaped bodies with the dented foreheads. These were all too common in the german bloodlines. They looked horrible to say the least and there were a lot of them around at the time (around the early 90's)... apparently the early efforts to cross these with established strains? At least the asians cleaned up the efforts and produced some beautiful fish out of them. I do agree however that some of them have gone overboard and the really tall fish look kind of weird... shaped like the head of an axe in a sense. You also should keep in mind that all of the funky color varieties these days are the result of severe inbreeding (manipulated by mankind) by us over many years. The side effects (deformities, immune deficiencies) of such inbreeding are just as bad as breeding to "enhance" body shape. The only true "natural" breeding of discus would be to only utilize wild caught parents.

[kaceyo]

Hi LuckyYou,
If what you say is true, it would kind of turn the tables on many of the denouncers of the Bulldog as an unatural mutant created by unethical (non-euro non-amero?) breeders. I like this possibility.

Kacey

[LuckyYou]

Here's an article on some of the early years of discus breeding. Anyone remember "Sunny" Lo Wing Yat? He was the big name in discus in the late 80's. Anyway, there's a little info in there about the german giants. Back then the holy grail was developing a completely solid blue or green discus, and browns and reds were worthless. Actually, there was a lot of debate back then whether there was any such thing as a truly red discus. Funny how things have changed since then.

http://www.aic-kumamoto.co.jp/wwff/sb_01.htm

[kaceyo]

When I first became interested in discus in the 80's my first fish came from Jack Wattley in Florida. I didn't know much about discus at that time but it didn' take long to realize that Jack was the man you wanted your fish to come from in the US (and elsewhere). Later, as I learned a bit more, I was able to talk a friend and fellow discus enthusiast, who happened to own a pet store, into ordering some of the new "solid blue" Cobalts from Aquarium Rio in Germany (Hieko Bleher) that were bred by Dr Schmidt-Foke. They were stunning, like no fish I'd ever seen before. I'd just stare at them and marvel at what I called the "tin foil blue" colors of those fish. I do enjoy hearing the histories of the various strains.
Thanks,

Kacey

[Imperialdiscus]

Interesting article.

Funny because I dealt almost exclusively with fish produced by Lo Wing Yat through the 90's.

Since his main importer in the US retired from the business, I have kind of wondered what happened to him.

FYI, an odd thing in the article though as no mention is made of any relationship between the Lo Wing Yat Super Brilliant WB12 and the Blue Diamond WB22, when in fact they were closely related, and WB12 produced small quantities of Blue Diamonds.

Here's an article on some of the early years of discus breeding. Anyone remember "Sunny" Lo Wing Yat? He was the big name in discus in the late 80's. Anyway, there's a little info in there about the german giants. Back then the holy grail was developing a completely solid blue or green discus, and browns and reds were worthless. Actually, there was a lot of debate back then whether there was any such thing as a truly red discus. Funny how things have changed since then.

http://www.aic-kumamoto.co.jp/wwff/sb_01.htm

[ShinShin]

Good posts Ryan and Snooze. I agree with you both. As far as the tadpole reference, we're not creating a new form of creature in the animal kingdom, or even just a new species.

I still haven't gotten a response regarding the NADA's and ACA's stance.

Mat