Hi Sean, As you know, TDS or conductivity measurements are just a measurement of electrical current flow through the water. Salt increases the TDS or conductivity much more than the addition of any other salts. As a result the increase in the conductivity to 270 after adding the salt to your water is not surprising. However, it is not something that you need to get worried about because you know that the increase in conductivity was because of the addition of salt and not because of the addition of Calcium or carbonate which are what you try to reduce when keeping discus. If the TDS of your tapwater is 100, then you don't have to worry about it. For growing out discus that is almost perfect. I know that you know what filtration is needed, and what you explain to me sounds adequate. Time and time again I see all this comment about which major canister filter has been bought for which amount of megabucks, and this is not adequate in many instances. A sump filter has major advantages over canister filters because you can introduce sufficient oxygen for the filter to work properly. Re my work: I have been working until I started writing this post about 30 minutes ago, in between my new parafree discus were fed a couple of times. Tomorrow I start with a lecture at 08h00 which means I get up at 06h00... Goodnight, Dirk
Thanks Sean Here is a photo where one can clearly see the more than 9 vertical bars, showing the SS trait.
Here are mom and dad now alone in the breeder and i can see they already getting frisky. Adjacent pair is a leopard/rsg pair and they have just spawned and now fanning their eggs.
Hi Gareth I have bought more than 80 discus over the last 18months that were all 4-5cm in size. I spent a lot of time and effort raising them, then through selection Ive settled on only retaining 3 pairs that I would like to keep for breeding purposes while I wait for my awesome parasite-free fish to reach breeding age. Kind regards Andrew
Thank you for the information. WOW 80 discus over the last 18 months is a lot haha! If you don't mind me asking you which you can PM if you would prefer the price range of your Discus that you sell and their sizes at which you sell them from?
Hi Guys, I would like to point out something here, that most of you most probably do not know. Red leopard discus, were bred by crossing red turquoise discus with red spotted green discus. This has resulted in an intensification of the red colour of the red turquoise. What was then done was that red leopards were crossed with snakeskin discus and the result was a snakeskin with the fine red spots, and they were called red spotted snakeskins or they were given fancy names such as Web Majestics or even other more spectacular names which is done so often in Malaysia and Singapore. This pair basically is a repeat of that original cross which gave the red spotted snakeskins. I think that it is likely than some of the offspring of this cross will look like these fishes. Have a look at this image of what these fishes could look like when they are adult. The fish on the right hand side is a normal leopard. When these fishes are bred there are always red spotted snakeskins and red leopards amongst the babies, they never breed true. There are always both normal and snakeskin types as can also be seen from the images that Andrew has posted. I look forward to seeing how these babies will color up, but there could be some beautiful red spotted snakeskins amongst them. Kind regards, Dirk
Hi Joshua, Well they are called stress bars, but that does not necessarily mean that they are stressed if they show them, they will show stress bars if they are dominated by larger fishes or if they want to show larger fishes that they do not want to challenge them and pick a fight. They also show these bars when they are shy. So yes, the snakeskins and the red spotted snakeskins do show stress bars, but because there are more of them on these fishes they are finer and therefore not so strong. I show a pic here in which there are two younger fishes which show the snakeskin stress bar pattern, but these are youngsters and for this reason they are not showing so much red and blue. When they become adult they don't show the stress bars that easily any more, but give them a fright and you would be able to see them. Kind regards, Dirk
Highly educational. So does this mean that new variants can always be produced, if we mix them well? For example I have seen some deep red discus, if they mixed with the snakeskin ones, would we see new types?
Hi Luis, New discus color variants can be produced by crossing different wild forms and by selecting for mutations that appear ever so often. The two mutations that have had a particularly big influence are then the snakeskin and the pigeon blood mutations. However, you must know which crosses or selections can lead to something more colorful or whether it will just be another mundane or peculiar colour combination. If you cross red discus with snakeskins the results are in my mind disappointing. Red snakeskins are bred in many places, but the red colour dose not stand out nice and clearly against the blue, it is more smudged whilst in these red spotted snakeskins the spotting is more regular and therefore more attractive. However, there are still a lot of crosses being made with red discus, the reddest of which is most probably the Curipeau variant of Alencer Red discus, with a blue striped discus and this is then a type of red turquoise. I am particularly fond of these, and have recently acquired some of them. Kind regards, Dirk
