and now deep....thoughts.......

[Jason]

everybody go grab your oldest and latest discus books.

Flip too the wilds section and read up on the browns, now Its gonna say the brown discus is the easiest wild to spawn in captivity, well what the hecK, why would a brown be easier than a blue or green?

now go look at your fish, check out your non-pb reds and browns, you'll notice the females are always redder, or darker san merah, alenquer, rose red etc etc

now we do know that testosterone turns a fish blue and estrogen turns a fish red, so we can kinda assume that red colouring of the females is connected to estrogen in some way.

go look at some wild females of green and blue, there kinda drab and less striated than the males.

so here's my theory, our problem with the difficulty in spawning wilds starts with the fisherman on the amazon, he's chucking the females back into the water because they arent to colourful.

browns and reds are easier to spawn because there is more females for sale in the pet trade because they are more colourful than green or blue females, its simple the odds of pairs is stacked in our favour, hence more spawnings of browns in captivity.

think about it, ever see a female blue-face heckel?
if you know someone who is spawning wild female blues and greens ask them where they got them from, I'll bet 8 out of 10 times they'll say a lfs, low grade discus but more colourfull than the average wild female.

things that make yea go Hmmmmmmmmmmm ???

[henryD]

Wow.....Someone is taking his job seriously.

It makes sense applying laws of nature.

In fact I think I need some drabby color fish for the tank of wilds I have.


Does anyone have any not too colorful fish for sale?

[Jason]

LOL, I NEED TO GET A LIFE :P

[Rod]

Very good point Jason, i've never thought of it quite that way. Thinking back, i've been fortunate to breed a few wilds . In all cases they were male discus crossed with domestics except 1 brown female i managed to breed from a few times.

[henryD]

Jason,

I meant it as a compliment. I really enjoy reading it. It got me thinking which is a good thing. I am not breeding at the moment but at some point I want to.

So...what if I decided to be the keeper of not-so-colorful-discus? Would I corner the market on females?

I wonder if that would make me the den master of a burlesque house. :whip: :spank:

[EIHAB83]

Thanks Jason ..... very good information.... can we say that the rule in wild Discus bright in color are males and less coloful are females ... Thanks ;D

[Jason]

not a rule just a general observation,

Although we can look at S.A. cichlids as a guide, go check out the fish at your lfs severums, green terrors, jack dempseys, managuense, even geophagus and dwarfs.
you'll notice the males in each species are generally more colourfull, take a look at areas like gill-plates, you'll see more brightly coloured speckels, spangles, and stripes on the males.

[daninthesand]

Jason, this makes so much sense that it is probably quite likely to be true. Sometimes its the simplest observatons or ideas that are the most revealing and important.

The name of this board, after all, IS SIMPLYdiscus!

Daniel

[jim_shedden]

Great info Jason......................now I will go down to my wild tank and look at them a little differently.

Thanks : Jim

[Smokey]

Interesting ..... very interesting !!!

Smokey

[brewmaster15]

Interesting thoughts Jason.

In the wild...most of the female birds are drab colored also...The males being the colorful ones as they attract the females during courting.

Your theory makes alot of sense. I had a slightly different one on getting wilds to breed. I thought the time of year they were collected had something to do with there being less wild females collected. Behavior wise many animals change their habits during certains of the year...This usually involves the breeding cycle. males tend to color up more and become much more aggressive..(many birds show this big time). females tend to stay on the side lines... ex.. deer and moose in the rutt. This would put male Discus at much more a predisposition to be caught. Add to it they will start to show much more color. next add to it that male discus may seek out areas to breed...these may be the same trees and stumps they are often netted by.In my tanks have a wild Green male that will repeatedly strike the breeding cone, and try to get the female there.

I think your ideas and mine may go together well .


Does anyone know when the majority of spawning occurs. it would make sense if it started towards the start of the rainy season.Which means the behavior changes I referred to might take place in the dry season...when the waters are low and the fish are easily collected?

I think this as we mimic the onset of the rains when we use large waterchanges and cooler water to trigger spawning. It also makes sense because fry would have an abundance of food .


But I could be way off on my rationale.. would not be the first time.

-al

[Jason]

I like your theory too Al, very sound.

IMO discus will breed anytime conditions are favourable, thats how some people have hatched and raised discus in all kinds of tap water.

I deffinately agree the start of the rainy season is prime time.

The aproach I take to it is, dont be so concerned about low ph and conductivity, just do what good old mother nature does, make conditions very poor for spawning, then make conditions great for spawning.

its not all about ph and conductivity anymore thats too old-school, its about making conditions bad to good, and all the enviromental changes that go along with it!

[daninthesand]

Jason. That explains the ammonia!

[Smokey]

Ammonia --- stop feeding your discus Mexican refryed beans !!!

[Mattzilla]

VERY interesting stuff guys..... i particularly like the theory about making water conditions from bad to good to induce spawning

matt

[Smokey]

heh --- the simplest things seem to work.

Forget about all the packages products. use what works, best..

[Francisco_Borrero]

Very interesting ideas Jason and Al. On the behavioral differences which could be associated with differential capture probabilities of males and females, as a devil's advocate one could argue that such artifact would be stronger in species that exhibit less cooperative (female/male) brood care than discus. Discus pairs appear (of course, mostly from observation of doemestics) a species with a relative high degree of cooperation. However, the argument offered is attractive and may be partially true.

Regarding drab females and attractive males, there are here and there a few species that do exactly the opposite, although they are indeed the exeption to the overall pattern. Most well known are Jacana rails (birds), where the male is drab and does clutch duties and the female is good looking and doesn't bother after laying eggs. And of course, humans may be the ultimate example, where females are lovely and males suc.. I guess that just may be my bias.

Thanks and cheers, Francisco.

[Willie]

Wow, an original thought. Very impressive, Jason. I like to add a few more details because it dovetails with some of my observations.

A while ago, I read in Dick Au's Back to Nature book that female Goldens were more red than males. I thought about that for a while and went to check my own pairs. At that time, I had three sets of Golden Sunrise that had paired up. Sure enough, in each case, the female was redder than the male. Now I have a pair of Marlboro Golds and the female is also redder than the male. Part of this is that females are smaller than males. If they have any color, it would be a little more intense on the females. In all these cases, the fish had a light yellow background so the red color was more noticeable.

Now you're proposing that the red occurs because females have higher estrogen levels. That makes total sense. I'm also looking at my Alenquers and it seems that females are also redder than males. Does anyone have a real red male Alenquer?

Willie :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

[April]

I was told that the alencer females usually have the darker band in her dorsal fin also.