New Nhamunda Heckels from John (snookn21)

[Discus Origins]

Hi everyone,

Got a group of 8 'Super blue face' Nhamunda Heckels from John about 3 weeks ago. They are settling in well, started eating frozen blood worms and live blackworms second day in QT and have started to feed on my frozen seafood recipe.

I was pleasantly surprised with the colors of these fish as they were not marketed as 'blue moons'. But out of the 8 I ended up with 3 almost solid blue fish, 2 solid blue forehead/shoulder, and 3 royals. They are doing great, beating up on each other as usual. Just finished a couple weeks of external parasite meds and will start internals this week.

Mark

[Eddie]

Beautiful heckels, really nice!


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[Second Hand Pat]

Sounds like a super nice group. You must be quite pleased.

[William Palumbo]

Look good to me, but what do I know?...Bill

[wgtaylor]

Hi everyone,

Got a group of 8 'Super blue face' Nhamunda Heckels from John about 3 weeks ago. They are settling in well, started eating frozen blood worms and live blackworms second day in QT and have started to feed on my frozen seafood recipe.

I was pleasantly surprised with the colors of these fish as they were not marketed as 'blue moons'. But out of the 8 I ended up with 3 almost solid blue fish, 2 solid blue forehead/shoulder, and 3 royals. They are doing great, beating up on each other as usual. Just finished a couple weeks of external parasite meds and will start internals this week.

Mark

Wow, really nice group you got.
I couldn't afford to get a group like those but glad you did, I know you will give them the best of care.
Lucky you Mark, they look awesome.:)
Bill

[vera]

congrats !take more pics when u have a chance ,
any reason u treating them for worms or just a routine cleaning

[Discus Origins]

Thanks everyone!! The colors should brighten up after a couple of months but it is true what Hudson says...the solid patches of blue usually goes away but they retain the awesome blue sheen and stripes over any other Heckel varieties. I am experimenting with different types of algae supplements as I suspect this is something they get in the wild whether from the worms or invertebrates they feed on.

Vera, I make it a rule to always go thru a de-worming regimen with any wild fish....100% of wild fish have internal parasites, but in a closed environment like an aquarium there is a greater chance of spreading and multiplying. Before any fish get introduced into my established show tanks I make the best effort to clean them out. Can't get rid of 100% parasites but hopefully more manageable.

Mark

[yogi]

First off I want to say the Nhamunda heckels look great. The quality of heckels by both Snook and Hans has been fantastic. You touched briefly in the acclimating wilds thread about treating all your wilds for internals. Can you please give more details on your regiment?

[jball1125]

Nice group!

Thanks for sharing.

[Discus Origins]

Wow, really nice group you got.
I couldn't afford to get a group like those but glad you did, I know you will give them the best of care.
Lucky you Mark, they look awesome.:)
Bill


First off I want to say the Nhamunda heckels look great. The quality of heckels by both Snook and Hans has been fantastic. You touched briefly in the acclimating wilds thread about treating all your wilds for internals. Can you please give more details on your regiment?

Jerry, and Bill had the same question for me, The QT regiment that I use has been trial and error over the years and also from Dale Jordan's advice. I treat externally first as that's the easiest because you just dose the water. I start off with keeping the fish in a salted solution, tablespoon of aquarium salt to 10 gallon concentration. This helps any damage/fins heal and wards off fungus and bacterial infections. This usually lasts two weeks or until all damage/eyes/fins have healed, salt replaced to same concentration as water changes are done. At the same time I use Live bearer anti-fluke and go thru two treatments following directions in one week. After the second treatment for flukes I let the fish rest for a week before hitting them with Clout as a general eradication of whatever else is external on the fish. I repeat Clout after 4 days of initial treatment.

The fish rest another week before I start internals. The medication HAS to get inside the fish, all these threads I read about de-worming by treating the water simply doesn't work. That will only kill whatever has crawled out of the fish, not inside the fish. I have my wilds conditioned to live black worms and that's the easiest way to treat, the fish will usually eat worms way before any kind of medicated flake or frozen food. I always dose my fish with 3 meds: metronidazole, flubendazole, and Prazi-pro (praziquantel). I mix one cup of water to the recommended dosage for my QT (which are 55s), making sure the meds are dissolved and then I add a tablespoon of live blackworms to the cup. You will see the worms explode and try to get out of the water....worse in the prazi. You can only soak the worms in the prazi for a maximum of a minute before they start to internally combust and start to turn the water brown. I try to soak the worms as long as possible until you start seeing them not move and then its time to feed the fish. They wont like the taste but the movement of the worms keeps them eating.

So for example lets say I am treating with metro today. I will dissolve 6 tablets in a cup of water (for my 55 gallon tank), and then add the worms and all the medicated water into the QT. The worms usually can soak in this for about 5 min and then I feed to the fish. I will dose with one med per day and rotate until I can hit them at least twice with each med. I change 50% of the water in my QT everyday. Then I give the fish a week off with regular food before repeating this cycle one more time. After all this, I expect that the fish will be as clean as I can possibly do myself and feel confident introducing them to all my other fish.

I don't usually have to repeat any meds once the fish have gone thru this regiment....the only thing I keep an eye on is gill flukes and both plates open when the fish are breathing. I have had to redose a couple of times in the past for this.

Hope this helps, Mark

[wgtaylor]

Hey Mark
Thanks for taking the time for the detailed reply.
Bill

[Melissa]

Sounds like a reasonable routine! GORGEOUS fish, they're going to be incredible when they're fully settled in and in your display! Can't wait for more pictures :)

[Iralde]

I'm from Spain. Did anyone Knows if it's possible to buy blue heckels from Hans or John Snooks? I dont know them, just heard about them in this forum. Are they European? have they web site? thankyou all, nice discus m3h3c3

[TURQ64]

Hudson would be the one to ask (HEKDISCUS)..he could steer you to a dealer than can ship to you..

[Iralde]

Thankyou TURQ64. Its difficult to find good quality hekels here (Canary Islands) More difficult find a group of the same heckels with similar age. I need someone to sends me quality, like those i saw in this forum. Thankyou again, best regard from Spain.

[Discus Origins]

I'm from Spain. Did anyone Knows if it's possible to buy blue heckels from Hans or John Snooks? I dont know them, just heard about them in this forum. Are they European? have they web site? thankyou all, nice discus m3h3c3

Yes, Hudson at H&K would be the one to contact and see if there is already a distributor in Spain or near by. He is also one who ships internationally, John or Hans does not ship internationally to my knowledge. Mark

[Iralde]

Thankyou Mark. I will ask for him and will see. Good posts and good discus too. It's there any post about heckel and their provenience? I mean, i'm still confused about the caracteristics they have depending their provenience, black river, unini river, nhamunda river, trombetas river... is there a less dificult heckel to keep? or to breed? i think that the water values are different in each river, isn't it?

Sorry me, still beginer with hekels. Anyway, thankyou Mark, i have read you for lots of weeks.

[Discus Origins]

Heckels all come from tributaries with similar characteristics - low ph, high tannins, low conductivity. There are mOstly minor differences in the different Heckels with the exception of Heckels from the northern Nhamunda River. They exhibit a high amount of blue not normally seen but that does fade in captivity which leads me to believe we are missing something either diet or water mineral.

The only heckel that has been documented to breed is the Rio Negro variety and they are also the most common. I don't think one variety of Heckels are anymore difficult from another. Once acclimated they all do well. Start with healthy fish and give them clean water you should do fine.

Mark