do heckels breed???

[yogi]

Some of you might remember these two from last summer. I moved them from the 115 to there own 29. For now there living happily ever after, and are off breeding. male heckel

[yogi]

female madeira

[yogi]

heckel again

[yogi]

This 115 is one strange tank. Is this next male a heckel? He was sold to me as one, and was with other heckels at the wholesaler.

[yogi]

This rsg from Joe sure seems to like him. What a pair.

[yogi]

She must really like him.

[yogi]

Where is his center stripe when he breeds?

[yogi]

Look at this other female madeira I have.

[yogi]

There must be magic in that 115, because she also found herself a heckel. He's with some real wiglers.

[yogi]

The pair hiding their wiglers, from my lousy camera work.

[yogi]

The pair with their wiglers. You have to look real close at the heater just under where it says 200.

[yogi]

Now this is much better. Mr. heckel decided to move them for us to get a better view.

[yogi]

This is from the morning of July 9th, before I left for work. I know the picture is poor. If you look closely you can see some free swimmers. When I got home from work on July 9th, they were all gone. There is 11 adult discus in this tank.

[yogi]

In case this helps anybody else. I carbon filter tap water. Then I peat filter it. The ms of my tanks is around 225, ph in the low 5's and temperature around 83 or 84. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with my pairs. The reason being the one pair I moved stopped breeding.

[Rod Coleman]

Inspiring work there Yogi! <Applause>



I'm not sure what I'm going to do with my pairs.
no probs - send 'em all to me! ;D ;D ;D

Regards
Rod

[brewmaster15]

Hey Jerry!
You wouldn't happen to have a complete water report on your tap water would you? and be willing to send out for another report on a sample of your filtered water? :)

I'll pay :)


-al
ps... what method are you using to filter it thru peat?

[Ardan]

8) 8)
Very Nice!

[daninthesand]

Good Job Jerry! That's quite an accomplishment you got here. I'm green with envy ;)

I've seen Jerry's fish in person and the pictures, although they are not bad at all, do not do his fish justice. He has some of the most spectacular discus I have ever seen. And he's one heck of a nice guy too.
:thumbsup:
Daniel

I've seen Jerry's fish in person and the pictures, although they are not bad at all, do not do his fish justice. He has some of the most spectacular discus I have ever seen. And he's one heck of a nice guy too.
:thumbsup:
Daniel




I back that up 100 %.

Wish you the best with them Jerry

Ronald

[yogi]

Well the pair from the last few pictures bred again yesterday. Rod that is really funny. If you were a lot, lot closer to me I would let you work with one of the pairs. Thanks Dan, Ronald and Arden. I guess Dan and Ronald are now at the front of the line if, I can manage to raise some up. Ronald those free swimmers are from the eggs you saw on July 4th.

Brew, getting you a read out of my tap water is easy. The problem is the peat water read out. It would not be consistant. I use peat bombs. I either fill refillable 10 inch canisters or I use a carbon tank about 20 inches tall and 6 inches in diameter. I fill it with peat instead of carbon. If you ever read some of Smokey's post about peat he is correct. It's strong in the beginning and I have to cut the peat water with tap water in the storage tank. Then as it weakens I use straight peat water in the storage tank. When it really weakens but is still showing lower conductivity exiting the peat than entering the peat. I will add a little muriactic acid to reduce the ph. Peat works differently with each persons water.

[brewmaster15]

Thanks for the info Jerry. I have used it in nylon stockings in ac 500s, but it didn't work out well... Think I might take a ride to a nursery and pick up a bale and give it a try again,, BOMBs Away! :)

-al

[Jason]

applied properly peat is definately magic,

I prefer to use straight di water when filling up the old storage barrel.

I try to force enough flow through it so product water is less than 30us, then either send it through a bombe before it hits the barrel or run a canister packed with peat on it.

when I hit my target parameters, I then drip the water from the barrel into a sump or the tank, that helps me hold the ph, if I dont do that the ph goes down like a teenagers first beer.

jerry I hope you get some viable fry because that blue-face is unreal! I can't beleive how vibrant he still is! good job! whats on the menu?

[richgrenfell]

I used to use peat with my wild apistos. Definately a good tool for getting wild fish to spawn! you can put me on the list for fry too!

Rich

[henryD]

WOW. That is awesome. Thanks for sharing Jerry.

[yogi]

Rich your on the list. Jason I wish I took pictures when I first bought those heckels. You would not believe how much blue they lost. Anyway I thought you were into yellow colored browns.

[yogi]

Picture of the same fish

[limige]

glad to see the update, i tried posting awhile back on your first pics of the heckels breeding but you never responded, i can see why!!!

you've been very busy, thanks for the tips, i think i'll try dropping the ph on my 190 with my rsg's, they haven't shown any interest yet but are full sized adults.

[jim_shedden]

Jerry............I think you have our attention.
FANTASTIC !!!!!!!!!!!!!



Jim

[Jason]

Thats it!

I can't stand it anymore! next year I'm comming to florida!

[yogi]

limige, I must of missed your post last time if I didn't respond. Jason just remember the golf clubs, they play 12 months a year in south Florida.

limige the rsg's are a bit of a sore subject for me. I have 11 full spotted wild rsg's in a 140. They come form three different sources. They have never showed any signs of breeding for me. It is the calmest most laid back tank I have ever seen. There doesn't even seem to be a pecking order. Anybody can swim anywhere in the tank. No one bothers anybody. I'm thinking of putting the rsg from Joe in the tank. Shes a real agressive female that causes disruption where ever I put her. She also forces fish to breed with her or she keeps attacking them. If that doesn't work she will lay eggs all by herself.

[limige]

lol, yeah i bought a wild pair of greens at an lfs with wrigglers, the dad jumped out on me so i put mom in my 190 with the rsg's and turks, well she hasn't laid eggs or paired up with any.

the lfs tank with 7.5ph, 225ppm and 78 degrees....go figure.

i pulled one pair of turks out that were spawning now the last two seemed to have paired as well....nothing with the rsgs' yet though.

many people have luck pairing with domestics but getting the wilds to pair can be tricky, i'm hoping to manage though.

good luck, keep us updated!

[Francisco_Borrero]

Beautiful fish Yogi. Good luck with future spawning and fry rearing. Thanks for the update.
Cheers, Francisco.

[Kersten]

Hi to all,

one question to all together, know you about somebody how breed heckel pairs (heckel males and females)?

I now here in CZ some breeders how bred with mixed pairs, heckel males with other discus variants, but they dont have success with heckel females. We think that the females waiting for some impuls like in the nature to fill with eggs and start to breed. Our wellknow aquaristic publisher Stanislav Frank (also published articles in the TFH) have a theory, that the femals waiting for some small living creatures which are the signal that the young fishes will have enough food to survive. Following this theory he personally breed years agou heckel pairs but we dont have success :(

will be interestin for me what is the situation with the heckel breeding in other parts of the world

[Smokey]

Ahhhh - the magic of peat moss. Incrediable stuff.

Al, get your butt in gear and try some -- btw it is ok to drink the water. It has a bit of an earthy taste; sure does clean out the insides lol. Good wholesome water.

Kersten - long time no see [ from DPH]. Glad to have you aboard simplydiscus.

Interesting theory ... Like alll wild animals - the survival of the off-spring is a powerful natural instinct. The advent of, plentiful food and security may just be what is needed to trigger the motherly instinct.
I have read some of Mr. Frank's articles - very informative and enlightening.

Time and patientce.

Smokey

[Jason]

Lol!

visiting Jerry would be my dream vacation, visit the wholesalers, check out yogi's heckels, maybe give wattley a visit, golf and free gelato!

BTW Jerry,

its not uncommon for pairs of wilds to go cold and forget what breeding is after you move them. dont know if its the stress from moving, pheremones, etc. guess the fish are the only ones that know.

I get past that problem by removing a sponge filter from the main tank to the breeding tank(have no clue why that works but it does), use water from the main tank when doing w/c's on the pair, section-off a section and dont remove the pair, and if all that fails build a big a$$ central filter.

[Kersten]

Hi Smokey,

nice to see a you again :) the world is small for crazy people how love discus
will be interesting if somebody here from the Dave Hardy Discus-L list

Franks theory is interresting and I have made some research in german discus forums and mailing list and find that only some people time agou have breededd a heckel pair and they used very low pH around 4 and live food.
The now offered "heckels" now on the market are Heckel Like discus from a combination od a heckel male and brown ore turquise female.

best regards from Prague
Kersten

[Pat_in_NC]

Hi Kersten,


So by this theory one would put small fry food (bbs, daphnia, microworms?) in the breeding tank to stimulate the female Heckel? That would be truly amazing if it turned out to be true! As a scientist it is hard to imagine exactly how this would work --both the "recognition" of the food for the future fry and how this would stimulate egg production are quite complex. An alternative possibility is the trigger turns out to be some change in conditions, (atmospheric pressure changes for example has been commonly observed to trigger spawning) or more commonly changes in water chemistry (pH, hardness) which, in nature, correlates with conditions or the time of year when food is plentiful. Fish in different areas would evolve to detect different triggers (i.e. different changes in the water chemistry) to start producing eggs depending on which trigger correlated best with food supply. This would involve simple selection for survival for those fish which responded to best trigger. The best trigger would simply be the changing parameter which was the best predictor of future food. With this theory the trick with heckels would be to simply find the missing trigger. Presumably it is not easy things to change like pH, hardness by themselves or this would have been solved. Perhaps it is a combination of several things or just one missing element (like maybe some chemical given off by decaying leaves from a tree that grows only in the Amazon at a certain time of year?).

Interesting idea Kersten!

Pat

Pat

[Kersten]

Hi Pat,

S. Framks theory is in principle very simple. How is yet known, the discus breed in the thime of the floods. In this time the water flood big areas of land. When the vegatation is flooded, he rotted and this is the best condition for a explosiv increase of some microorganismus. This organismus, microfood for the fry, bring to the water some chemicals that indicate the discus femals that the fry will have enaugth food and he can start with the reproduction. As a next argument for this theory Frank write the diferent of hunting technics between the heckel fry and the other discus fry. As argument he use the diferent mouth of the heckel fry, how is better prepared for hunt food from the first days.
But this is a theory, nobody has seen how wild discus spawn a nd breed the fry in the Amazonas and also nobody mesured the water parameters in which the discus breeds.

best regads from Prague
Kersten

[Jason]

IME heckel fry are deffinately different than non-heckel types, shape, size, and grwth rate.

the spawning rituals are noticeably different too

[yogi]

moved up for jn4u

[Smokey]

Does anyone else have any comments or input[?].
This is a very interesting post. Keep the interest alive.
Would like to read more on the subject.