Heckle crosses?

[blkrob]

The you for all the information and pictures! I feel they are the most beautiful of all the discus strains. So, now I need a small fortune and to move to asia.

I hope you guys will be offering off spring soon.

Robert

[dalejordan]

The you for all the information and pictures! I feel they are the most beautiful of all the discus strains. So, now I need a small fortune and to move to asia.

I hope you guys will be offering off spring soon.

Robert

Shouldnt have to move my friend. I managed to get the Lago Solomon fish and a few other members on the forum have as well. So if Eddie cant supply you, myself or others will have young VERY SOON !!!

[dalejordan]

Hi Dale,

thanks for the for the information and your input into this forum,

I greatly admire people like you who go to the amazon to collect these amazing fish and I am always an avid reader of "experienced info", it is realy so hard to find in the discus world. Your input is definetely priceless and I am gratefull for your willingness to share this knowledge.

I must admit that I have always been fascinated by any discus with a "fith" bar. For some strange reason it has always appealed to me more than the other discus types, that's why I have always kept Heckels when I have a fish tank.

This is good news indeed for teh Lago Solomons. My crosses did not retain only their "fith" bar, but from what you have advanced, it makes sense. It's true that Eddie's Salomon crosses are full of potential, all the more exciting with what you have just said.

Looking forward to seeing the fish that you will produce (you wouldn't ship to France by any chance ?), thanks again.

Thank you Erik for your kind words !! I will be producing what I can with the Crosses and Solomon fish I have.....I will keep you posted !!

I will extend an open invitation to offer "help and advice" to ANYONE on the forum that has questions about Discus !! No question is too small or insignificant....don't be embarrassed to ask !!!

[dalejordan]

Thank you Erik for your kind words !! I will be producing what I can with the Crosses and Solomon fish I have.....I will keep you posted !!

I will extend an open invitation to offer "help and advice" to ANYONE on the forum that has questions about Discus !! No question is too small or insignificant....don't be embarrassed to ask !!!

Sorry Erik...YES I WILL SHIP to France :-)

[ockyra215]

I have only been in to this site for a little bit but I am amazed at the comrodery ( I know I spelled it wrong) that everyone has.My hats are off to all of you.I have always loved the heckle I love the bar.I will say that I would to some of those fry when you might have some available Dale.

[erikc]

Sorry Erik...YES I WILL SHIP to France :-)

Yo smackdown ... as they say in your neck of the woods ! Thanks Dale. Looking forward to your updates

[darkknight87]

Okay. I have a dumb question.
I was having a debate with my bio teacher yesterday, because she said that based on the definition, two differant species can not yeild fertile offspring.
Heckles are seperate species, so can the crosses have fertile offspring or not?

I think the whole definition of species is way off..there are many animals that are so similar I wouldn't even consider seperating them out..yet most dog breeds are so distinctively differant but are not considered seperate? and the rule of thumb is suppose to be that differant species can not succesfully interbreed?
So where does that leave this heckle crosses and other Hybrids that I see?

[Rod]

Not a dumb question, in fact i think a very interesting question. Many of our discus are hybrids and have great fertility, but not all. My experience with green x blue eventually led to low fertility of the males after a few generations, though the females still have great fertility. Many of our best strains like leopard and leopard snakeskin (also blue x green) are perfectly fertile after many generations.
A good example to show your bio teacher would be the various Xiphophorus spp, most aquarium strains are hybrids between X. heleri and X. maculata and they have been bred for countless generations. And there are many other examples which disproves this theory.
What this all means i am not sure, perhaps our discus are mere subspecies and the taxonomists are just splitting hairs.....

[plecocicho]

What is your teacher refering too is so called biological definition of the species. It says that a prime driving force for the speciation is sexual selection by females. Females only choose mates, that show specific visual, pheromonic and behavior traits, so in nature females can find appropriate males, even tho they look the same to us. Hybridization is so very rare and complex mehanisms prevent viable or fertile hybrids.
But there can be excaptions to this rule. Some lizard species and poecilla formosa have only females and just the act of copulation (by the two femalesby first or copulation with the different species by later) triggers the embryo development, which is amazing. There are more hybrids in our aquarium because spatial, timing or different circumstances alow hybridization, espacially with closelly related species, like molliies, certain cihlids, catfish. The abonimable hybridization of totally different species as Asians do with so called flowerhorn is totaly different matter.
As discus go, most hybrids are from different local populations of the sam e species, S.haraldi, the blue/brown discus. Green discus have been used for hybridization also, but only in the first stages. All discus species are young species, eaning, that they formed only recentely (in geological times, of course). Natural hybridization occours only between heckels and haraldi in few places and only ocasionaly.Those hybridsare almost every time much smaller than the parents. As their fertility goes, they are less fertile than the parents species.

[ockyra215]

Well Grizzly bears have traveled way far North and breed with Polar Bears.Not that fish in the wild are traveling but with the tides and currents who can tell.Just to put a laymans term on it ha ha ha

[Eddie]

What is your teacher refering too is so called biological definition of the species. It says that a prime driving force for the speciation is sexual selection by females. Females only choose mates, that show specific visual, pheromonic and behavior traits, so in nature females can find appropriate males, even tho they look the same to us. Hybridization is so very rare and complex mehanisms prevent viable or fertile hybrids.
But there can be excaptions to this rule. Some lizard species and poecilla formosa have only females and just the act of copulation (by the two femalesby first or copulation with the different species by later) triggers the embryo development, which is amazing. There are more hybrids in our aquarium because spatial, timing or different circumstances alow hybridization, espacially with closelly related species, like molliies, certain cihlids, catfish. The abonimable hybridization of totally different species as Asians do with so called flowerhorn is totaly different matter.
As discus go, most hybrids are from different local populations of the sam e species, S.haraldi, the blue/brown discus. Green discus have been used for hybridization also, but only in the first stages. All discus species are young species, eaning, that they formed only recentely (in geological times, of course). Natural hybridization occours only between heckels and haraldi in few places and only ocasionaly.Those hybridsare almost every time much smaller than the parents. As their fertility goes, they are less fertile than the parents species.

Interesting read Pleco, great information!

Take care,

Eddie

[darkknight87]

Yep, thats the definition he gave us,.
I just didn't understand, because ive seen several hybrids, including Turtle Hybrids..crosses between Red Ear and Yellow Bellied sliders which are differant species..and then she talked about how there are Less Cichlid species then there used to be, because the females are less selective now and breed with other species.
What I dont understand, is if the definition of a species is that it doesn't breed with other species, then how can the cichlids do this.

[plecocicho]

If otherwise clear water habitats get permenentelly murky due to human activities (pollution, clearing og gallerian forests,..), then species sex recognition cues, which are more or less visual, are useless and hybridization becomes more common. Examples for this are hybrids between victorian cichlids and between mexican molli speices.

[Jhhnn]

Breeding heckels is apparently difficult, at best. From what I can tell, most of the crosses occur with male heckels & female haraldi.

I'm surprised that we haven't seen line-breeding to fix heckel characteristics into a given strain. First a cross, then a father- daughter pairing, then father to granddaughter...

My experience here is non-existent, but I'm sure that's how many varieties of domestic animals have been bred, and discus are apparently fertile for many years, which would allow for that... There would probably be a large % of culls, particularly at first...

Anybody know about those kinds of efforts?

[vss]

I heard there is some ongoing research on the inheritance of the heckel bar being conducted in Brazil right now. The preliminary result shows that the inheritance of the heckel bar does not only rely on the genetics of the parents, but also on the breeding environment. It's sth hard to find explantion based on the classic genetic laws. It's not the final conclusion yet.

-Xiaofei