Black Discus

[tdr1919]

Well, we've all read the thread on purple Discus, has anyone ever breed a fully peppered discus? or even come close to it?

-Tom

[greyhoundfan]

I don't think any breeders will spend any effort in devoloping fully peppered discuses. it is not a desired trait and they would most likely cull it.

[Ryan]

There were reports of a solid black discus years ago, but someone said they were weak and didn't grow well, so they were pretty much abandoned.

Rod, was it you that told us about this? Someone here remembers them. For a while there was also a "half-moon" discus that was half black, similar to halfblack angelfish... but I can never remember the full story on those, either. Al reminded me of those.

[Deepak]

There were reports of a solid black discus years ago, but someone said they were weak and didn't grow well, so they were pretty much abandoned.

Rod, was it you that told us about this? Someone here remembers them. For a while there was also a "half-moon" discus that was half black, similar to halfblack angelfish... but I can never remember the full story on those, either. Al reminded me of those.

It will just add to the vast variety of strains. Jet black might look good infact, can't say. But like angels this variety might turn out to be very fragile. It took years to stabilize the Jet Black Angels. Were my favourite though :) Somewhat difficult to breed than other Angels.

[Darren's Discus]

Black is the easiest strain to produce, simply just get a bunch of discus treat them bad,dont do wc or feed them then you will have black Discus, i once saw a good picture of a marble discus looked like someone had crossed it with a marble angel don't know if it was a doctored pic or not !


cheers

[Ryan]

i once saw a good picture of a marble discus looked like someone had crossed it with a marble angel don't know if it was a doctored pic or not !

If the discus was a bluish-green color, it was real. For a while they were being bred in Asia. I am not sure if people quit working with them or if the interest just wasn't there, but several people did produce them. I've seen various pictures of them.

I think black discus would look amazing with bright red eyes and blue hues in the cheeks and fins like the black angelfish, but like Deepak mentioned, the true black angels were pretty sensitive and slow-growing, and their behavior was very different than that of other angels. They tended to be very aggressive and also very flighty/jumpy/crazy. I'm sure it has a lot to do with extensive inbreeding/selective breeding in order to get the solid black coloring. A lot of the current angels are not this bad because they've been outcrossed, but I also haven't seen extremely nice DD blacks in recent years like I did about 10 years ago.

[Rod]

There were reports of a solid black discus years ago, but someone said they were weak and didn't grow well, so they were pretty much abandoned.

Rod, was it you that told us about this? Someone here remembers them. For a while there was also a "half-moon" discus that was half black, similar to halfblack angelfish... but I can never remember the full story on those, either. Al reminded me of those.

There was a guy here in Brissie that was producing some black discus a long time ago, they were pb based and they had an orange colored chest area as well. I thought they looked kinda neat, but never actually owned any, as far as i know they are not around any more.
I'm not sure, but i think there is an area in Brazil with very dark red/brown discus, thinking back i believe the author was Heiko Bleher (maybe he could tell us if he reads this), but they are not collected commercially due to being in a restrticted military area.....!!!