General discussion on the Heckel's Natural History

[tatore]

When I read "heckel" i read "life"...it's the total interest taking me all my free time.
Different language (I'm italian) inhibites me to be clear...
However, I have at home about 18 heckels, in an aquarium, at least totally dedicated to their life and study.
In other tanks I breed Green, alenquer (just one) and blu discus, and in another tank just fry from alenquerXsemi-royal, about 80 small discus.

Ok, the focus is "heckel".
By myself I've turned back and separated them just becouse I've observed how the most important game in heckel's life is played by pH, soft water, wood (peaty), peat, black water, low light, and feeding...a beat different (I assume totally) from other discus.

I've seen spawning them several times, but space and time don't allow me to follow the fry, and it becomes impossible to grow up fry in a tank with 16 other discus...but it isn't impossible.

Somewhere, here in simplydiscus I've posted in the past some spawning picture of a heckel while fecunding eggs..don't know where.

Unsuccesfull!!! I didn't like for 1st alenquerXheckel, and 2nd pH too low was becoming fatal for alenquer....so I broke the pair.

From the low of my experience I say that heckels aren't easy, but I find more difficult other fishes, requiring continous treatment against lots of deseases, while heckel is able to raise his life with a good quality of water and a low pH.

Several times I had for free heckel waiting for death from my favourite importer, and now I'm sure they are the best I have, how? Respecting a beat what goes on in nature.
Never less than 10 heckels in a tank, never temperature over 28°C, never pH over 5,6, never fresh water not-prefiltered on peat, never lots of changes in the tank, never chemical additions, only peat, few light, floating plants, and peace around tank.

I treat them really in a total different way, they can't live with other discus, and other tetras not always resist in a low pH, so any choice you make only the time and experience may suggest you if it is ok or not.

Water has to be black, they are scared from light (in wild the full moon too is an enemy for them), and the season make different water parameters and foods.

So I change, and for several months I don't change so much water, I don't care of No3, PO4, but I care for foods, that during this period has to be poor, may be some spiruline flake, some frozen krill, some dry food, and few times during the day (they have to need and look for food).

If water level goes down...that's better, I just care to watch the filter pump, has not to remain dry, and nothing else.

Afterward fresh r/o water, changes, lower temperature, 12 hours of light and proteinic live food (shrimps and grindal (aenchitreus albidus)), and you see fishes clening something, fighting, showing best colours and so on.

Heckel, as Larry said (Larry, it's a pleasure to read your posts, I'm a fan of you), isn't coloured, and who has heckels may understand that they show the best coluours in 2 cases: for spawning, and if there's an alpha individual.

In other cases, they remain "prune", even defending their piece of aquarium: in wild it's the best way to to camouflage themselves from predators.

Another and last observation (that Larry did): they could be ready to spawn after 2,5 years old, not before.

that's why I suggest always to take small individuals, not adults.
It's more difficult to convince an adult that his life will finish in our tanks, better to start with small baby heckels, and satisfactions in long time will arrive.


I've spoken about parameters...and feeding heckels.
Let speak about heckel wild habitat:
for 6 months they do not have particular foods to find, they just take what they find on ground, like some kind of algae, (not usually but)sometime a sort of shrimps with a slim scheleton (esoscheletro in italian)poor of chitin, and detritus, this last for more than 50% of their diet. Water is low, in low water period, temperature (during all the year however) different from day to night, from ground to surface (top), and...after 6 months rainy season: What does it change?
Everything!
Fruits, insects larvae, water parameters (nobody may assume if pH becomes lower or lightly higher)different, softer, diluited by rain, lots of foods and so on...
Here's the miracle: some hormonal recall bring them to spawn, and usually succesfull spawns are 3 or 4 at least, no more.
Let analyse what does it changes, and difference between wild habitat and our tanks.

We use to feed them all the time with proteinic foods, all the year, always same water level, same pH, same temperature, nothing changes, nothing for a hormonal recall to spawn!

When I speak about a low pH, this last parameter is useful (or necessary) for wilds (and S. discus especially)to defend themselves from external attacks, to re-create the protective mucus fast, for bacteria (poor however in acid water) and fungus, but I'm sure (anyway not scientifically), that parameter changes are the fondamental ingredient to let them feel like in wild, different water level higher and lower), differend foods during seasons, and weather too...during winter it's easier to assist to a spawinig.

Heckel is the ancestral discus, is the one that isn't easy to hold just because their adaptability needs lot of time, and breeding even more low.
And even more low if we start with adults subjects.

[brewmaster15]

Hello Salvo,
You raised some interesting and valid points just now.. I have thought on the same lines when I think about the amazon conditions..

In Botany theres a train of thought that if you want a plant to flower... stress it the point of death... then bring it back to life.... you do this by a period of dry conditions or dormancy...which simulate a seasonal change..... give it water and nutrients following the dry spell and many plants will put forth flowers... Its done all the time in green houses and hobbys...

It makes good sense here as a possible factor.... There are seasonal variations in the availibility of food as you say... and that may be one reason why heckels do not spawn in captivity well... Theres no trigger caused by the poor food availibility, then rich abundance and diversity
of food.

Another possible difference... dissolved oxygen... during the dry spells... the water levels drop, the frequency and volume of water into the Amazon decreases and the dissolved oxygen may drastically decrease as well.. I have noted my wilds are particularly adapted to low oxygen water as opposed to domestics..... that may mean something..
When the rains come... The water may be enriched with oxygen.



JMO,
al

[tatore]

Sure!!
Forgot this point too: O2
In a habitat without plants and without water flow....where's the high concentation of oxygen?
And light? Are we sure that they love 17.000 kelvin of light???
Could it be more logical to use only the room-light and nothing on surface of tank (or just floating plant to cover part of fluorescent light)?

Have you never seen a wild discus immediately after catching fat??? I didn't.
But I use to see people that I've visited for articles and so on breeding green with so many foods, and the poor fishes became so fat....no words, but for human eyes they look healthy...

[brewmaster15]

There is another factor that I have wondered on.

During the dry seasons rivers like the Rio Negro are still relatively large bodies of water with many tributaries flowing in.. but in the rainy season it floods its bank by as much 20 miles and does so for a hundreds of miles. Many tributaries must temporarily cease to exist when this happen.. and what you in effect have is a slow moving sheet of water with a tremendous area...

Thats got to open up a huge amount of foods as we discussed but it also creates some puzzles.. For instance How Do heckels (and other wilds) find each over such a wide dispersal area? We can tell the pH and water parameters of the negro proper...but what micro-parameters are created by the flooded area around the negro?

-al

[tatore]

Good reflections, and I mean colours and patterns make difference in wilds, as we do with different languages and specific physical peculiarities.
A good friend of mine, ichthyologist and bewitched by heckel coming back from Amazon area told me that nothing remains the same, from day to night, from a small pond on left to a bigger pond on right. What that water contains, or where is stocked water in that area.

It's difficult sometime think about the original discus habitats and then, turn back with the mind and think to see them spawning, without first take care of all the other needs-

I hope this topic will become big, starting with all experiences of us, succesful and not, pictures, opinions and reflections.

[tatore]

...just to show some picture..
Unfortunately peat colour hides colours and sharpness..

[brewmaster15]

Bellissimo!!!

[Apistomaster]

These factors discussed above are along the very same lines of thinking about the problems associated with breeding Altum angels.
Simulating a period of benign neglect followed by increased freshets of acidic RO water, increase in varity and quality of foods in the winter ( SA rainey season) is a very reasonable proposition to me. Unchanging monotonous feeding and water parameters may work fine for domestics but wild discus are still keeping to their internal instictual calendar and environmental expectations. I believe that Heckel are especially well adapted to low light levels because the Rio Negro has such dark water and where discus are found heavy growth of floating plants. I have considered that that may be why they seem more socialable and tolerant of each other because they may be takening advantage of other senses than sight compared to the other wild discus with big eyes. Some things subtle are involved with maintainng connections within their groups.
Al,
I may have accidentally erased some of my photos so I'll get busy taking some new ones, I am so inept when it comes to using my computer. I did learn what not to click on the next time. I'll send them to you if you PM me the address you want me to send them to.
Tratore,
Your Heckels are much larger than mine and have that full grown adult thickness. They are gorgeous examples of prime Heckels.
These are exactly the kinds of discussions we need to have.Everyone please jump in if you have some ideas.
Larry

[tatore]

I brought lots of them when they were really small...and nobody would buy them.
Except some of them a beat bigger...(like the clear one that you see somewhere).
Feeding or understanding what's better for them was easier, and the things that I always avoided are beef heart and at least tubifex too (I need to speak about this after a meeting I'll have on 18th feb in Rome, for "whirling disease")...
Reading you and Al is fantastic and magic, cause the only person that helped me until now, to breed better heckel was (and is ) Heiko Bleher, first with his book, then meeting him and by phone many times.
I'll speak about this thread and I hope he'll find the time to answer with few words.
I had a present from Heiko for my 40th birthday two days ago, a VHS "A life for discus", an interview with Dr. Eduard Schmidt-Focke showing his amazing pairs, discus, and I guess...we have to take a step back, thinking about this man, that bred everything, heckels, green, brown, blue, bettas...with unfinished semplicity of stuffs (peats, charcoal and r/o water)and wisdom-

[Apistomaster]

Salvo,
I think we often overlook the amazing work of the old masters like Scmhidt-Focke. Where would we be without his enormous contributions?
Larry

[tatore]

Some Apistomaster picture...

[tatore]

and more...

[Apistomaster]

Hi Salvo and All.
Slavo helped again by posting more of my Heclels and their aquarium. These were just taken a few days ago and all the PVC tubes are pleco caves. This is enough documentation of my fish for now. Let's move on to more thoughts, discussions and photos of your Heckels. Mine are still teenagers and about 9 more months needs to pass before I believe my Heckels become mature enough for possibly breeding by my estimation. I started just as Salvo has, with the smallest Heckels we could find. It was my hope that will help them become better adapted to life in captivity than had I bought large adults. Although for the record, I did have a couple of large adults that reached the stage of cleaning a possible spawning site many years ago but nothing ever came of it.
The keys to breeding Heckels most likely lie within their natural history and actual progress made by aquarists so lets try to figure out all we can.
Larry

[tatore]

They are in good shape!!
Thank You for your loriicaridae list, because I have none of them with heckels, for pH and temperature and succesfully all I hold in the same tank are tetras "axelrodi", some badis, and corydoras, but it might be useful to know more for having always the ground clean.

No dwarf ciclids, only some angel and just one altum ( ), but they live well with same parameters.

Good news are that since we've started this discussion a couple of heckels show the caudal fin not light but darker...it means that some prayer is going up in the sky ( the evident symptom that something is happening), and they are taking a strong position in aquaria.

Turning back to your tank:
I see a pump that create movement on left back: why do you use it?
No dark back screen and I'm sure that if you observe them attemptly they use to move more toward the ground(brown) than for the upper side of the tank, neither for left and right side of tank, totally exposed to the light.

Seldom heckels do not feel secure if they don't find a dark black side to use as a shelter( I use a dark blue plastic sheet, one dollar per meter, and high roots).

You also have a plant that seems to be a "Ceratophillum demersum"..have you never tried to use it as a floating plant.

In my next project I'll have plants to put along the back of tank, like "Philondendron"(but only the roots, of course) and, if God assist me in my project, "Cyperus sp." as natural filtrator for exceeeding nitrates-

What do all you think about this?

[Moon]

I just got my Heckels last Friday. They are small about 3in (7cm) and are in a bb QT tank. They appear to be quite shy and will come out to feed but quickly get back to a corner and huddle. The back of the tank is covered but not the sides. Salvo makes a good point about covering the sides. I will try it. It may make them feel more secure.
I am really excited about my little guys and this project.
Joe