Want to Breed Heckels?

[CliffsDiscus]

I bought them in Mid May of this year so the have grown well and very evenly. Still, I don't expect much from them for about one more year.[/QUOTE]

Larry,
Yes, I think it was around May when I first spotted the Heckels at the
wholesalers. The small sizes appear tank bred, they were very uniform
in body shape, color, eye color and size, almost carbon copies. The adults
still looked like the normal, each of them were different.

Cliff

[Apistomaster]

I sure did not get the impression they were tank raised but I suppose it's possible they are being farmed down there although I have never heard of anything to that effect except the story about the ill fated project in the Rio Nanay and the green discus. My group aren't that uniform in color. Several are close to being the blue form Heckel depending on how tight your criteria are. They came in as ragged as most wild fish and it took me two months to get them into good condition. Actually I bought 6 from one place and 6 from another. One group of 6 were in bad shape at first, 2 were too far gone to salvage. So I ended up with ten good fish. They were all sold as wild Rio Negro Heckels. That is all I have to go by. I have no idea of exactly what locale they were caught from beyond the main river.
They all required deworming and all the usual stuff I do with my wild caught discus. Some had the typical bites out of their fins which is common in wild fish. The advent of deworming drugs has been a big help compared to the old days before those meds were available. Also been a big help with newly imported Hypancistrus and Peckoltia species.
Seems to me that even farm raised would be made known to us as a merchandising aid by the importers. I would think they would be able to capitalize on that rather than keep quiet about it. Unless you catch your own there isn't really much information provided by the sellers.
I think what is most likely is that collectors are becoming far more knowledgeable about where the different discus can be found at a particular stage in the fishes life cycle but that is just my hypothesis.
Larry

[Chinaman]

Chinaman, your post reminds me of my foray this year into collecting a variety of Hypancicistrus species for breeding groups. I blew through an awful lot of money on them until I finally have what I wanted. They kept dying soon after I got them. I finally found a better source and stopped loosing them.
I don't know what affected your Heckels. They do usually need to be debugged of worms and so on but after that they aren't too much trouble
The symptoms sound very similar to the whirling disease that is spreading across the wild trout rivers of NA and especially in trout hatcheries. Travelng fishermen or water birds seem to be the main vectors among the wild trout. It is viral so not much progress has been made in controlling it. I have not read about it crossing into tropical fish yet but that doesn't mean it hasn't. There will be serious consequences if that disease ever sucessfully crosses over.
This topic has really brought out a lot of information new to me. More breeders have been successful with Heckel breeding and cross breeding than I thought before now. It's both good news bad news. Good to know that Heckels have been bred a fair number of times but disappointing that purebred Heckels have not made there way into the hobby in general yet.
The crosses are of course interesting but they don't help with making tank raised pure Heckels available. RSG X Heckel ought to be interesting but it is perhaps the royal blue X Heckel that has the best potential for producing a fancy fish. I think that it was that cross that Dr Schmidt-Focke made that caused our jaws drop when the first photos were published. I'd take a dozen of those!
Coaxing wild female discus into spawning conditions has always been the most difficult phase of breeding wild discus for me, I have done it, of course, but it has always been easier to cross a wild male with a tank raised female. Furthermore in the days before we had many useful medications the females often did not repeat their spawns. It was as if the spawning took too much away from their immune response. Most Heckel crosses have been arrived at in that way as well. I know of no case where a wild female Heckel has crossed with a different strain of discus.
It looks like there is a lot a of good talent gathering around this project. It may not take us too long before we have some F1 Heckels that can be shared among us so that this time we don't lose them as a distinct tank raised strain. I also encourage the maintenance of all the distinct wild type in their pure stains not just Heckels. The establishment of a good red spotted green seems to be a fairly elusive goal. One that retains the essence of the beauiful Coari RSG would, to my mind, be a wonderful contribution. The slower development of the final adult colors of the adults seems to frustrate many breeders when there are so many domestic stains that color up very early. This is also a problem because few of us have the room to raise entire spawns to maturity from which we can select the fish that have the most potential, guppies they ain't.

larry,
the heckels that i had were or looked in very good condition... maybe like you mention, i might need to change supplier but heckels are hard to come by in UK. Unless I can find a wholesaler or supplier in brazil that can ship to me, but that will be another mission as I have been searching for a while.

I have attached the small leopard X heckel that I got from germany. the other one were in the show tank or competition.

cheers

[Apistomaster]

Both fish are very beautiful and they certainly show their Heckel ancestory.
There are those Rio Madeira fish that frequently show a strong central bar and they may procuce some domectic crosses that resemble Heckels, too. Have you seen the Aqualog book, Cichlids of SA IV, Discus and Scalare?There are many Rio Madeira fish that are shown that would be Heckels were they not identified as the peculiar browns that seem relatively common in the Rio Madeira. Their red eyes are about the only distinguishing feature that sets them apart fom a Rio Negro Heckel. You have to wonder if some of these were bred as Heckels at times. The Madeira fish, if they are really brown discus of exraordinary color would have been much easier to breed.
You might try a pm to Alec McFarlane, www.finarama.com. Alec probably knows where you can get some good quality Heckels in the UK.He is working with wild angels but he seems to have his fingers on the discus pulse over there.