wild fry

[nc0gnet0]

Is anybody aware of any links to story's/pictures of natural reproduction of Heckels in the wild? It would be nice to see perhaps pictures of wild heckels with fry in thier natural habitat. On that note, has anyone ever captured some wild heckel fry at a very young age and then tried to acclimate them and grow them out? If succesfull, it would seem that these could be more easily bred in captivity, while still retain the exact same genetic material as their older siblings. Or is the season that your allowed to capture these fish does not coincide with the breeding season of the fish?

Rick

[Discus Origins]

Breeding season coincides with the rainy season. No collecting takes place as fish are spread out in pairs or very small groups making it unfeasible to collect in volume. The mediums thats sometimes available are the last spawn of the prior rainy season caught at beginning of next dry season.

[nc0gnet0]

Has the selection of any number of very small (less that 1") fish ever taken place with the intention to grow them out and try to breed them?

[Discus Origins]

I have inquired in the past and the issue all comes down to financially would this type of collection be profitable. Exporters are not concerned with breeding or raising young, they are only concerned about turnover in large numbers to generate income as fast as possible. It's hard to catch adults already in the rainy season so it's not done, it would be more difficult to find juvies less than 1-2 in. Many adults are lost in transit just from collection to shipping station, i would assume even higher percentage would be lost with small young.

Remember, sometimes it's up to a month from fish actually being caught to being brought to exporters. No food, no TLC, just kept in nets or cartons that get freshwater periodically. If the same process happened to 1-2 in young, there wouldn't be many survivors and how stunted would the small % that did after no food for that long to actually become healthy adults?

The difficulty of collecting in rainy season and no financial gains for exporters will likely keep that from ever happening. It will happen if private individuals with disposable income try it first.

[nc0gnet0]

Yup,

I understand all the caveats of the process. However, if succesfull and even a few breeding pairs could eventually come from such an endeavor, it might be worth the high price such a venture would be.

Rick

[Discus Origins]

The price of such a venture could be up to $10k depending on living arrangements and duration of stay on river. It's also with no guarantee of finding Heckel fry and we aren't even talking about getting them back alive and growing them out to adults to pair off. Then raising the fry and selling them to recoup the investment.

I would love for someone to take the adventure who has the means, maybe you can be the first Rick!

[roclement]

I think Rick has a good enough idea to warrant looking into, if I understood it would entail bringing in juvenile heckels, growing them out in artificial set-ups so that by the time they reach maturity they would be fully adapted to the surrounding and be more willing to breed.

Other than the financial side of selling smaller fish thus lower prices/profit, I am not sure if there are any size/age regulation to collecting fish at a small size but why not ask and see what the reality of this could be? Know anyone that has an "in" with a good colector Mark?

Rodrigo

[Discus Origins]

Rod I think I can dig up a few contacts

But as stated before, Rick is speaking of collecting 1-2in fry for better chance at acclimating to domestic life. There are already young 3-4 in heckels available but we may have to go even younger as there has not been much success even at medium size. The problem is collecting in rainy season. As a native Brazilian I'm sure you know how much the river changes Rod. Therein lies the difficulty , the logistics of finding even adult fish at that time is extremely difficult. I'm not even sure how you locate 1in fry in 10-13 feet of water lol.

[roclement]

Right there with you but then again I don't do it for a living, if I did and there was a potential market, I would explore it!

Saltwater fish are being collected at the larval stages is reefs so a sustainable collection can be maintained, the idea is that natural selection would kill 90% of the larvae so removing them does not affect the balance as much as collecting the alphas that survived and made it to juveniles/adults, thus not affecting the natural balance. Larvae are then reared to a markeatable size and sold, low impact but more expensive.

I can't see why something similar can't be investigated with discus, it should be easier since they are egg layers and it is hypotetically easier to collect the eggs from a submersed branch than to filter larvae from sea water. Locate the fish, collect the eggs, rear them artificially, repeat...

This is a at-work-night thought so I am sure there will be 1000 reasons why this would not work...right now I can't think of any other than no one has tried yet.

Rodrigo

[plecocicho]

One option would be to tag (via microtag) and adult alpha discus and release it back. Then you could track his movement for some time maybe also to his/her breeding patch.

[nc0gnet0]

I was under the understanding that discus searched out small quiet pools for spawning, or do they spawn in the main river body itself?

Rick

[Brokenrack]

Perhaps this video will shed a little light on the difficulties discussed in this thread..

[Discus Origins]

I was under the understanding that discus searched out small quiet pools for spawning, or do they spawn in the main river body itself?

Rick

Discus search out quiet areas for spawning. During the rainy season the Amazon river floods several hundred miles over its original area.....so now instead of looking for fish just in dried out pools or lakes (dry season) the collector would literally be searching for fish in what used to be the rainforest except now the forest is under 10-12 ft of water.

[nc0gnet0]

If you can get a camera there, you can get a net

Rick

[Bosse]

Yes but this of the pair with their eggs and fry is not made in the wild. It´s very good but produced in a tank.
It´s impossible to follow a pair for so many days in the wild.