Alencer Red Discus babies

Hi Guys,

On 23 May, a pair of Alencer Red Discus, which I bought as youngsters in Johannesburg two years before, spawned very successfully. These babies became freeswimming on 28 May and have been growing steadily since then. I have shown them on other forums, but I know that not subscribe to those forums as a result of which I thought I would show you some of the pics showing how they have come along.



These are the babies six days after freeswimming.......



And here they are at 7 weeks old and coming on nicely, eating like troops, I estimate the batch to number at about 120.

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

Hi Dirk

They are looking really good!

Congratulations .

 

Looking really good.

Reasons for the added barring on the offspring? Ie 5 to 7? Is that because of them being tank bred?

 

Hi Neil,

The normal number of bars on discus is actually 9, with the first and the last being more pronounced in Symphysodon aquifasciatus types and 1, 5 and 9 being more pronounced in Heckel discus. Only in snake-skin discus is the number of bars more and this is a mutation again.

The barring on these little fishes and also on the female is perhaps not entirely clear as these fishes are not in fright mode. When discus get a fright their barring becomes more pronounced. These fishes actually all possess their nine bars, but you have only been able to see 5 or 7 on the pics. In some of the small discus the bars are forked in some instances, but this has no effect on their health or their colouration otherwise, for which reason I am not particularly disturbed by minor forking of bars. This is an occasional occurrence in both tank bred and wild caught discus. The little fish just below the end of the air hose has such a forked bar.

Hope this explains things.....

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

Thanks Prof for the explanation. Are your breeding pair Wild caughts or F1?

Strange that you mention the conditions for the barring, my browns show them most of the time. Even when they are relaxed

 

These are fishes which come from Fish Fantasy World in Joburg and are imports from the Singapore or Malaysia. I was quite apprehensive about this because of all the manipulation that goes on there, but Alencers are naturally excellent parents and these are really good parents. I have seen Alencer Red Discus in Germany with young and the breeders specifically asked me to keep my hands behind my back when coming into the fish room as the females are particularly aggressive, will recognize a stranger through the glass and then dash to the front glass thereby injuring themselves. These are exactly the same. The female even now goes dark and wants to attack strangers, so these fishes still have bags of instinct in them. This to me is one of the most important things in keeping discus, they must still be able to raise their own young. Many discus hybrids are raised on foster parents in the East and they cannot be bred naturally any more, and I find this totally unacceptable.

Alencers are of course a variant of brown discus. They should show their bars quite regularly but the dominant fish should show less. The other fishes actually indicate that they are submissive by showing their bars, so this may be the reason. However, if discus are in poor condition or are diseased they also show their bars, so you should be careful in your interpretation as to why they are showing bars.

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

Really beautiful fish!

 

Thanks for your compliments, Andre, Neilh and WBS.

WBS, these discus are very pretty, about this there is no doubt, but they are not as nice as the Curipera Alencers that I took over from Rowland. I have six of them and they are slowly but surely also showing signs of wanting to spawn. It has become clear to me that this is going to take some patience and extreme care but I get the feeling that I may get there yet. To see what I am getting at, I have added a pic below of a few of them with the dominant fish on the right at the back that does not often show his bars. His color is really stunning in my opinion.

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

Good to see they're doing well Dirk. Those Alenquers are awesome too. I look forward to watching these babies grow out.

 

Ahh that's so cute! Beautiful fish prof, and congratulations.

 

Stunning fish and nice pics! Congrats

 

Congratulation Prof Dirk - few I humbly belive - would truly appreciate the dedication which leads to such splendid results.

 

Absolutely beautiful Prof Dirk! They are stunning! I really prefer the natural strains as apposed to the line bred varieties. That's why I have wild crossed discus.

Once again, beautiful!

 

The babies are now about 5-6 cm long and I will be selling them from the end of August onwards by which time they will be at least 6-7 cm in size. Currently they are growing like rockets.



Kind regards,

Dirk

 

Hi Prof. Let me know when you are ready to sell them I would really like some .
Please keep me posted
Kind regards

Ross

 

Congrats Dirk

Your babies look fantastic.

 

Hi Prof!!

Those look like little beauties!! When are you going to start selling them? I would love 4 of them for my Discus tank!!

Kind regards

Sean