Want to Breed Heckels?

[brewmaster15]

Thanks for the info Cliff! I am glad to hear that Herman is still around... I hope to someday meet him.

-al

[White Worm]

Been there and met Herman. Very nice gentleman and very good with the discus. One of Kenny's mentors also. I went with Kenny on one of my many trips when discus hunting. Knows more about discus then anyone I have heard of. He was one of the first. Tanks full of discus everywhere.

[CliffsDiscus]

I can't believe this Herman Chan just called me after this posting, could
he be on the internet or maybe one of his childrens? Al, I will be seeing Herman tomorrow so if you would like me to ask him any questions let me know.

Cliff

[raglanroad]

Hi guys,

I also have this heckel bug i love them, I like to breed them as well. For the last 18 months I have lost two batch of heckels, and lost half of my third batch . All of them eat well and then they just drop off. The second batch were 3" ate like a pig. then they just start to spin round and round and then drop off. I must of spend about $2500 on them, can't really afford to spend anymore.

I did brought 6 RSG X heckle from the discus show in germany, two of them have paired off. But even if I can breed them, the fifth bar will most likely to disappear after a few generation.

Dave, you might want to pick G's brain as he has bred heckels...... Only if i knew he bred them about 8 years ago before I had a break from discus. It might have been a different story. As far as I know, from f1 onward it did not inherit the blue face from the parents. I think he also mentiion that the f3 still carry the fifth bar.

cheers

Hi Chinaman ! Indeed. Gran puts the I in IQ.
I didn't know about the Heckels.
thanks for mentioning it.
D

[Apistomaster]

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.

[Dillan]

As the first line of the first message in this thread explains, this is a topic for experienced discus breeders taking on a special challenge. But can I ask a newbie question?

Just last week I was at a big box pet store in the 'burbs and they had a tank full of 3" - 4" Heckels for $60 each. Beautiful and robust! These obviously aren't wild caught, ya? Someone somewhere is breeding commercial volumes of Heckels.

What is the difference between these and what you guys are going for?

And what is the "fifth bar"?!

Dillan

[Ryan]

Just last week I was at a big box pet store in the 'burbs and they had a tank full of 3" - 4" Heckels for $60 each. Beautiful and robust! These obviously aren't wild caught, ya? Someone somewhere is breeding commercial volumes of Heckels.

Wilds can be beautiful and robust once they've been conditioned after shipping. It's possible they were wilds.

And what is the "fifth bar"?!

It's the main distinguishable feature of a heckel. Wild discus have 9 black vertical bars. The middle bar (5th) that runs down the center of the fish is very strong and dark on heckels. True heckels cannot "turn off" this bar like most discus can. It may get light in color or even invert and turn almost white, looking like a negative image, but it's always present.

If the fish you saw did not have a thick black center bar, they were labeled wrong because they weren't heckels. Also, the Asians have crossed heckels with other domestic discus and sometimes the middle bar will appear in a few of the young. I had some at one point. Beautiful fish, but the bar was not nearly as bold as a true heckel.

If someone were tank-raising pure heckel discus in volume, we would have heard about it by now. People have been trying for decades to successfully spawn them and raise the fry with little to no success, very much like altum angelfish. So I highly doubt what you saw were tank-raised pure heckels.

[Rod]

A noble cause guys, the heckel 5th bar has always fascinated me.

I don't think heckel hybrid should be the goal. I worked with them for a long time and bred many with heightened bars but each generation the bars get less and less I actually still have the line (blood is incorperated in my rt's) but have not seen a 5th bar for many years.

Rod

[Darius]

Do you use UVC lamp, in breeding wild discus such as Hekel? do you think is important to lower the bacterical level?
Thanks

[Darren's Discus]

Rod,nice picture.how long ago was that ?

cheers

[Rod]

Hi Darren, Thanks mate, that pic is over 10 years old.

Check these guys out http://www.amazon-exotic-import.de/Stocklist%20int.htm
There are red heckels and blue face on the current list, not sure if they have imported to Oz yet but at least germany is allowed to export here. Maybe worth a try, although i shudder at the prices they are likely to be...lol.

[Darren's Discus]

How nice are all those wilds Rod,wouldn't mind a pair of each ! have sent an email to daniel let you know how i go.

cheers

[Apistomaster]

Hi Dillon,
You can rest assured you did not see a tank full of tank raised Heckels at that shop.
It will be a major discus news event when and if we have tank raised Heckels.
The wild fish have been in very good supply this season and the prices reflect this as several vndors are selling them for about $30 each which is quite abit lower than historical prices have been. $60 is not even a good deal under current circumstances but that does not detract from their desirablilty nor make them any easier to breed.
Larry

[CliffsDiscus]

I occationally stop by some of the local wholesalers in the Bay Area, and
on two occations there were Heckels in tanks with different sizes.
There were adults, 3 inchers and 4 inchers. 3 inch Heckels were in groups
of 100s, the 4 inchers were in group of probably under 75s and the adults were
in group of 24 to a small tank. Usually by the end of the week mostly all
of the Discus would be sold to stores, except for around dozen of adults.

Cliff

[Apistomaster]

The large numbers of 3 inch fish being imported is something new to me. I first started keeping and breeding discus in 1969. Back then Heckels only came in large and extra large sizes. My present group were all the little 3 inchers, the smallest I've ever owned. They all average very close to five inches across now. 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.