Crazy swimming heckel

[Apistomaster]

Barbara,
I think your fish look like they are doing much better.

I suspected they had been severely chilled. How I knew is difficult to convey; suffice it to say I have received a lot of Discus over the years. I do think they experienced much colder temperatures than 20*C you measured and no discus will go through a severe chilling without some serious problems developing.

I keep mine at 28*C except during the first week or so after immediately receiving them. That is when I elevate it to about 32*C for about seven days.

[Apistomaster]

Hi Barbara,
You mentioned one of the Heckels you have is different enough to raise a question about whether it is a cross with a Blue. Could you show a photo of that fish? All those I seen appear to be normal and beautiful Heckels.

[Göran Ekholm]

Check this link and you will se that it can not be an heckelcross it most be a pure heckel. The heckel gene is not a strong gene. Almost none off F1 heckelcross gets the 5 strong stressbar.

I serios dovt that it is more blue in that heckel than it is heckel in Alenqer even dowe they got a stronger 5 Bar.

http://www.aquaworldaquarium.com/Art...lue_Discus.htm

[Gajowa]

This is the link to all winners of that competition. At the botom of that page you will see photos to all fish shown. Our heckel is on photo nr 5.

http://www.mondodiscus.com/discus/it...taly-2007.html

German judge disqualify all heckels, because they had red eyes. In his opinion true heckels must have a black eyes. As far as I know, he mooved all that fish to a Wild blue class, except our. Our fish wasn't judged at all.

We have this heckels for over a year now. This speeding really worries me.
New greens and blues are better now as well. I hope it will stop forever.

Goran, if you will be in Poland one day, please come and visit us in Cracow.
This year PKMD will hold a II-nd Discus Championship Show in June.
Heiko most probably will be in Cracow as well, so we well have a lot to talk about

Barbara

[plecocicho]

Barbara, it is nice to see that Poland discus have won so many prizes, althouht only for second or third place. My congratulations to our Slavic brothers !
You can see in Bleher Discus, that not all Heckels have black eyes. I do not understand judges opinion
And your heckels are beauties!
lp

[Apistomaster]

Using eye colors as an important feature in wild discus class at shows always struck me as stupid. Since when does Nature design her fish for a judge to evaluate its worth? It is the way it is on purpose. It is especially ignorant to apply this rule to Heckels. Their eye colors is often very dark but it is also changeable depending on moods and lighting. Sometimes mine have very dark red eyes and sometimes nearly black.
I'll get off my soap box for now.

[brewmaster15]

German judge disqualify all heckels, because they had red eyes. In his opinion true heckels must have a black eyes. As far as I know, he mooved all that fish to a Wild blue class, except our. Our fish wasn't judged at all.

That makes absolutely no sense to me..If thats how people are determining if a fish is a heckel or not...no wonder theres confusion in this hobby. Judging is by nature subjective..but I find that to be extreme..

Beautiful Heckels you have there!

-al

[Gajowa]

http://www.discuspassion.net/index.p...=181&Itemid=68

Hi
You can read what Heiko thought about that judging!!!.
We were little worried about our fish to be send over there (stress of the long travel, strong lighting) but our PKMD members took care of everything. Form their relation at first we got furious that we send that discus unneseserly. But it was worthed, because many people thought, it was the best heckel there.
And yes, heckels eye color depend on fish's mood, background and lightning, but this judge didn't take this under consideration.

We are glad you like our heckels

[Heiko Bleher]

Hi Barabara, Larry and all the others,

first of all, I hope the speeding has stopped. I agree that it can also be something which came into the the water, which made the Heckel discus nuts(crazy), that is possible, as well as what I mentioned, sudden reflections and or noise, or slapping door(s), Heckels are very easy to get stressed. As a matter of a fact, shortly before Christmas I visited Hustinx in Belgium and he had received some beautiful Heckel discus from the Rio Nhamunda (were I discovered S. discus for the first time, some of those which the German ex-breeder, Mr. Goebel, dis-classified in Lecce, Italy, see below). As we walked up to the tank, he opened up the light and just put his hand on top, and some of those went like crazy speeding around, only when I told him to take the hand away, lowering the light and stepping back, they calmed down. Terrible but that is the effect of reflections and sudden moves towards Heckel discus – very typical (and he has them in only glass tanks).

Now with regards to the red eyes in Heckel discus or not: some of you already noticed well in my book, and Larry also said it, that is totally ridiculous to judge a discus species by its eye colour. Total none-sense. Mr. Goebel probably did this crazy judging (and influenced all other judges in souther Italy in September) by purpose, because I was there and he hates me. But I do not know why. I made him popular, although he was just a very small breeder (and never anything else). I put his name as junior author on my book DISCUS (1992), the ring-binder, although he did help very little on that book (and only in the first part, as all additions, from 1993 through today, he never ever helped again). I made a series of videos (The World of Discus Parts I to IV), and in one of them (Part III), I filmed him and named it The modern discus breeding (after I did the conventional with Dr. Schmidt-Focke). Those videos were sold more than 44,000 copies in 5 languages worldwide. And only after that, Mr. Goebel has become "famous" and be was invited in may places, but about wild discus he actually never learned very much (as one could see in Lecce). He must (is) jealous, and tries to talk bad (and wrong things) about me, everywhere he can. I feel sorry for him. And I feel sorry for the brave Italians from the Salento Aquarium association who have put up a great show in a beautiful building (see also my page: www.aquapress-bleher.com under Latest news), but had invited the worst person to head the judging and it was a total disaster. The most unprofessional judging in history of discus championships worldwide... And I am sorry for the public (over 50,000), who was unable to see which fishes have been judged, and for the great People coming all the way from Poland, and Lorenzo from Milan, to haul discus all the way to be dis-classified by an ignorant judge...

So much for that.

Have a nice day and I will do everything possible to come to the hopefully even greater show and judging in Cracow in June, and hopefully we have time to talk, about Heckel discus and much, much more. And maybe one of my presentations their should be about Heckel discus... What do you think Barbara?

Always

Heiko

[Göran Ekholm]

If you make a precentation of heckels in crakow i deffenitly will go there!

[Heiko Bleher]

Dear barabara,

first of all: Your Heckel discus now look very nice. And mind you: The judging in lecce was for sure the most ridiculous and unprofessional I have seen in all my live... Since judging discus began in 1986 (by me).Mr. Goebel and Mr Solano (responsable for it and no one else) should be banned from any judging for the rest of their life. It was so stupid, I have no words and all the guests who were there as well. You have S. discus, the real Heckel discus and nothing else. Don't let anyone else tell you anything else.

best regards

Heiko

PS o yes, I am sure your Heckel had stress from the cone, they do not know it ! (Nothing like this excit in their nature, and those are wild fish...). Also: 20 degrees Celcius is murder/killer for Heckel discus.

[Apistomaster]

I placed a classic Discus spawning cone with my Heckels and they acted as if I was crazy and avoided it.
As Heiko said, they have no idea what the heck that thing is and mine seem to regard it as an unwanted intrusion. I took it out after one month. The pairs went back to their favorite pieces of wood they had already chosen as theirs. The cone was scaring the dominant pair away from their favorite station. This caused a domino effect throughout the entire group as the dominant pair reintigrated themselves away from the cone and with the less dominant fish. Heckels seem to have quite complex social structures. The difference between them and other discus is subtle but definite.

[Gajowa]

PS o yes, I am sure your Heckel had stress from the cone, they do not know it ! (Nothing like this excit in their nature, and those are wild fish...). Also: 20 degrees Celcius is murder/killer for Heckel discus.

Heiko, you are talking about the alder cones?
We noticed that also, and we don't put that in the water any more

Barbara

[Heiko Bleher]

Hi,

yes Barbara I meant cones of any kind which are not natural. (Specially those clay ones often used for tank breed discus...).

Take them out and all the best

Heiko