Discus Hybrisization 1: Red Strains
七彩神仙之繁殖 1: 紅系品種
Discus Hybrids
Hybridization of discus began in the early 1960s. West Germany and the USA were the two most active countries. The Americans were actually ahead of the Germans in the beginning. Wattley's Original Turquoise made its appearance in 1969. Mack Galbreath launched his Powder Blue in 1971 followed by Dr. Charles Wall's Cobalt Blue in the next year. Nevertheless, Germany soon catched up under the leadership of Dr. Schmidt-Focke. In February, 1976, the doctor introduced his Red Turquoise, the solid color Brilliant Turquoise and other exotic turquoise striped discus hybrids in his Tropical Fish Hobbyist (abbreviated as TFH) article that shocked the Americans. Germany became the undisputed world leader since then. The best hybrids appeared after 30 years in the 1990s. Notable examples are: WB22 Blue Diamond, WW19LS Red Spotted Green Leopard Skin, WR14 Red Diamond and WR25 Tangerine Dream developed by WWFF; Red Eddie bred by Dr. Schmidt-Focke and Manfred Gobel's Giant Discus.
Historically Important Hybrid Discus: Dr. Schmidt-Focke's "Blue Discus" Offspring, Wattley's Original Turquoise, Schmidt-Focke Red Turquoise
The first documented breeding of high quality striped discus was performed by Dr. Schmidt-Focke in 1960. The world's first Red Turquoise strain is most probably the 1969 Wattley's Original Turquoise because the F1 generation could be created as early as in 1964. The second is the Schmidt-Focke Red Turquoise produced in 1970. Red Royal Blue appeared in the USA market in the early 1970s. A detailed discussion of these important pioneer red strains is necessary for readers, especially the younger generation, to understand the history of Red Turquoise.
Definition of Turquoise Discus
The term turquoise discus has been widely used to describe a discus with horizontal greenish blue stripes from head to tail ever since the name was created by Jack Wattley in 1969. Hence, a discus having a solid turquoise body is called Brilliant Turquoise; a specimen with red body and turquoise stripes—Red Turquoise or one that possesses a central dark bar—Heckel Turquoise. Although there is a type of wild discus with full body striation on a brown to reddish brown body known in the discus trade as Royal Blue, however, we do not call them as turquoise discus. Turquoise discus is a name reserved exclusively for hybrids.
Dr. Schmidt-Focke's "Blue Discus" Offspring: The World's First Red Turquoise
In late 1959, Dr. Schmidt-Focke received three wild discus from Dr. Harald Schultz, a Brazilian anthropologist friend from Sao Paulo, Brazil. The female of the pair is fully striated with turquoise blue stripes. The male only has stripes on the anterior half of the body and also on the dorsal, anal, pelvic fins. This male fits the morphology of Blue Discus as described in the 1960 classification by Dr. Leonard P. Schultz (1) so the pair was called "Blue Discus" by the doctor. Both sexes have a trace of Heckel Bar which is stronger in the female. The third fish is a Rio Abacaxis Heckel.
Dr. Harald Schultz never told the doctor where he caught the three specimens. Judged by their appearances, these should be discus from the Rio Marimari or Rio Abacaxis. Both rivers are tributaries of the Rio Madeira which are located not far away from Manaus.
Dr. Schmidt-Focke provides the "Blue Discus" pair with the very best care. They are kept in a big tank filled with soft water specially collected from springs in the Taunus mountain. Many times per day, the pair is fed with live foods such as daphnia, well washed tubifex, bloodworms, mosquito larvae, glass worms and white worms. It takes more than a year for the first brood of 20 fry to be produced. The doctor unfortunately has to stop with the discus very soon afterwards. The precious "Blue Discus" offspring are given away to friends. In all his letters to me he mentioned almost nothing about them except he once wrote that about half of the siblings mature to have stripes on a reddish brown body and the discus on the cover of the February, 1967 issue of TFH is the best male of the group. It has a deep reddish brown body with turquoise blue stripes and the Heckel Bar. The fish is a Heckel Red Turquoise in today's terminology.
Dr. Schmidt-Focke wrote a detailed report in an article, entitled: "The Care and Breeding of the Blue Discus", that was published in the September 1961 issue of TFH.
(1) Schultz LP. A review of the pompadour or discus fishes, genus Symphysodon of South America. Tropical Fish Hobbyist 1960: 8:5-17.
Above: Female of "Blue Discus" pair, photo courtesy
of Dr. Schmidt-Focke, Germany
Above: Male of "Blue Discus" pair, photo courtesy
of Dr. Schmidt-Focke, Germany
Above: F1 offspring from "Blue Discus" pair, photo
courtesy of Tropical Fish Hobbyist, USA
Above: Jack Wattley's Orginal Turquoise,
photo courtesy of F.T.F.I, USA
Wattley's Original Turquoise
In September, 1983 I asked Jack about this strain when he was visiting me in Hong Kong. He told me he obtained information from Dr. Harald Schultz and then embarked on three collecting expeditions to the Rio Amazonas basin in the 1960s. During the 62/63 trip he was able to collect some exceptional wild discus with the help of local fishermen near the small Indian town of Carauari on the Rio Juruá that seem to be a natural hybrid between Green Discus and Royal Blue.
Back at his hatchery in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, USA, Jack crossed the best Rio Juruá fish with a female Tefé Green Discus which was also captured during the same trip. He said offspring of the first two generations resemble the Juruá ancestor rather closely. After working for four generations, Jack developed a strain that has a reddish brown body and wide stripes, specifically a Red Turquoise strain.
Jack entrusted Roberts Fish Farm of Miami to sell the young fish initially. The wholesale price was 10 US dollars for a 2 cm fish. But in the initial months, Jack was breeding a lot more discus than Roberts Fish Farm was able to sell. In 1969 he arranged a luncheon meeting with the proprietor of Roberts Fish Farm, Mt. Jack Roberts and the magazine reporter Tina Man to discuss how to boost sales. The first suggestion Tina made was to create a name for the strain. After some thoughts and with the help of Tina, Jack named his strain turquoise with reference to the bluish green color of the stripes.
Jack lost this strain in the mid 1970s. He told me there was an accident one day when he added too much phosphoric acid into his tanks. All the discus at home died from severe burns. He was lucky to have a pair at the back of his store. Using this pair Jack was able to continue breeding for some time. However, there were already lots of complaints about the quality and the small size of his discus even before all that happened. Business was far from good and by 1977, Jack had to join the famous American guppy breed Louis Wasserman to sell his discus. Besides his own strain, he was also offering for sale Mack's Powder Blue and Royal Blue offspring.
Jack's turquoise strain, which I call Wattley's Original Turquoise, might be the world's first Red Turquoise that could has existed as early as in 1964, nevertheless, Mr. Clarence McDaniel in Independence, MO, USA, wrote to Discus Study Group in the early 1980s to claim he has produced turquoise discus earlier than Jack. Clarence said every time when he hybridizes Royal Blue with Tefé Green Discus, he obtained 40% turquoise discus. He further states the male of the pair must be Royal Blue or offspring bred from them. Regrettably, Clarance did not inbreed his turquoise discus to develop it into a strain.
Even though the Wattley's Original Turquoise was lost for decades, the name turquoise discus is still used to describe the best discus hybrids all over the world.
Above: Mother of Schmidt-Focke Red Turqoise, photo courtesy of
Mr. Hans Mayland, Germany
Above: Same fish, photo courtesy of Dr. Schmidt-Focke,
Germany
Above: Rio Purus Royal Blue having the same stripe patern as the Schmidt-Focke Red Turquoise, photo courtesy of Pet Balloon, Japan
Above: Schmidt-Focke Red Turquoise F5, photo courtesy of
Mr. Albert Pieter, Germany
Above: Schmidt-Focke Red Turquoise hybrid, photo
coutesy of Mr. Manfred Göbel, Germany
Schmidt-Focke Red Turquoise
In early 1970 Dr. Schmidt-Focke hybridized a wild caught Red Discus with a turquoise striped male to create his Red Turquoise strain, which became the doctor's signature discus. He spent nearly 20 years improving it through 11 generations of inbreeding and vigorous selection.
The doctor wrote in the February issue of the 1976 Tropical Fish Hobbyist article that the Red Discus was caught in the region of the Rio Amazonas at the border of Brazil and Peru. However, that area only produces Green Discus. This female Red Discus must originate from elsewhere. I have done a lot of research on its identity. The closest match is discus from the Rio Maués Açu, a black-water affluent of the Rio Madeira.
The male parent was described by the doctor as a turquoise striped fish which should be a Purus Royal Blue or a F1 generation offspring bred from them. There are three reasons to support my theory. Firstly, the best Royal Blue were caught in the Rio Purus basin in the 1960s-'70s. Dr. Schmidt-Focke often mentioned a variety with green stripes from this river which he called "turquoise striped". Secondly, the turquoise stripes of the Schmidt-Focke Red Turquoise have a pattern that is exactly the same as a high quality Rio Purus Royal Blue. Besides of being wide and parallel, the stripes also continue unbroken through the black band on the dorsal and anal fins all the way to their edges. Thirdly, the pointed mouth, the contour of the throat, the body form, the shape of the fins and its proportion in relation to the body in the Schmidt-Focke Red Turquoise are all very similar to the classic Rio Purus Discus of the time.
The F1 generation grows up very quickly as a result of heterosis. Color development begins when they are half grown. Both the turquoise stripes and the red color are inherited. The red color is present in a reduced intensity together with a brownish hue. The majority of the males have short wavy, broken, turquoise blue stripes on a large part of the body. Females are mostly without body stripes. There is also an incomplete turquoise ring inside the black band on the dorsal and anal fins in the female sex.
Dr. Schmidt-Focke divided the F1 generation into two groups to inbreed them. The first group consists of fishes with a paler, greener turquoise stripes that evolved into the first line of the strain. The second group are fishes with more vivid blue stripes giving rise to the second line. The best specimens were obtained at the F5 inbred generation. This strain is so rare even Manfred Göbel has never seen a specimen during the long years of its existence.
Upon inbreeding, the red color of this strain disappears in a generation only to reappear in the next one. This phenomenon was a big puzzle to the doctor in the mid 1970s. To study the influence of the environment on red color, he did an experiment with the help of friends living in different parts of Germany. A big brood of the F3 generation was divided between them to be raised on a variety of live and prepared frozen foods in water with different dissolved minerals.
The doctor performed another experiment simultaneously at his home. He uses fish of the F4 generation and divides them into two groups. One group is fed with white worms, micro worms and beef heart. The other batch is raised on live daphnia and artemia as well as frozen bloodworms. City water of Bad Homburg is used to raise both batches, which has the following chemical properties: pH 8.9, carbonate hardness 1 degree, general hardness 4.6 degree, iron and sulphur are non detectable.
When the discus matured, there was a great diversity in their colors. Those F3 generation fishes nurtured in the part of Germany having a lot of dissolved iron in water have the best red and turquoise color. The specimens from another friend who feeds live foods and keeps them in water with a different mineral composition also show good color but are not as exceptional as the other group raised in iron rich water.
The Bad Homburg batch that received the artemia/daphnia diet developed much stronger colors than the beef heart group. But even the best fishes grown in Bad Homburg do not have the same brilliant colors as those F3 generation specimens nurtured in the iron rich water by his friend.
Dr. Schmidt-Focke made the following conclusions from the two experiments:
1) dissolved iron in the water is essential for discus to develop the red and turquoise color,
2) other minerals such as sulphate and magnesium may also be required,
3) a varied diet containing plenty of live foods is also essential.
The doctor also postulated the number of melanophores in the skin could modify the tone of red color in discus.
N.B.
Red color in discus is produced by erythrophores in the skin which contain the red pigment erythin. Astaxanthin, the precursor of erythin, is a substance that discus cannot synthesize. Red color enhancement of these crustaceans is due to the high astaxanthin content in their tissues. Wild discus obtains a sufficient quantity of this vital compound from its diet but it is lacking in most aquarium foods. While it is well known in the fishery industry that astaxanthin is responsible for the red color in fish, it was unknown to most discus breeders until the early 1990s.
Schmidt-Focke Red Turquoise X Wattley's Original Turquoise
Dr. Schmidt-Focke was the biggest fan of Wattley's Original Turquoise. As soon as he had read Tina Mann's article, the doctor purchased some with the help of a friend in Hawaii. In his letters to me years later, he often mentioned that it is one of the world's best Red Turquoise. Even knowing the strain was extinct years ago, the doctor was still asking for it whenever Jack visited him in the early 1980s.
It is no surprise these 2 cm youngsters arrived at his home in a very poor health condition and despite a year of the best care, they only matured as oval shaped, half size discus. Some pairing eventually occurs but immediately after spawning, the males become very aggressive and drive the females to the corners of the tank. All spawns are devoured. By using a pair of wild discus as foster parents, the doctor obtains some fry from a pair. The Wattley's Turquoise offspring this time grow up normally to attain full size but the aggressive breeding behavior persists.
Dr. Schmidt-Focke observed similar adverse effects in his Red Turquoise strain. There is a decrease in size and vigor as inbreeding continues. Males of the F5 generation only attain a length of 12 cm and females are 9-10 cm long. Fertility is also reduced with the females laying a maximum of 100 eggs. The males, however, have no reduction in fertility. Some fishes from the F3 generation onwards develop an aggressive behavior when brooding. Parent fishes fight each other when guarding the eggs and eventually devour all of them.
Dr. Schmidt-Focke hypothesized this abnormal aggressiveness during brooding in both strains is the result of inbreeding.
To verify his hypothesis, the doctor hybridized a male of his Red Turquoise of the first line, fifth inbred generation with a female of the Wattley strain in the late 1970s to produce a hybrid having a model breeding behavior. All the other ill effects of inbreeding are also cancelled.
The Schmidt-Focke Red Turquoise X Jack Wattley Original Turquoise has wide and parallel turquoise blue stripes that attains a length of 15 cm. Body color is changed from an orange red to a reddish brown, which is an expected result. To produce green stripes and an orange red body, the doctor was selecting fishes with fewer and fewer melanophores in each generation.
Schmidt-Focke Red Turquoise X Rio Manacapuru Royal Blue
In the early 1980s, the doctor carried out his most serious endeavors to hybridize his Red Turquoise strain using a pair of wild Royal Blue from the Rio Manacapuru basin.
Of all the different varieties of wild discus, Dr. Schmidt-Focke likes Royal Blue the best. The doctor has had the best collection in Germany for many years. The supply of Royal Blue became very poor after the mid 1970s for no reason at all. High fuel cost and the low yield of 6-7 fish for a boat trip from Manaus to the fishing grounds in the Rio Purus was thought to be the reason.
In the late '70s Hans J. Mayland went to find them in the Rio Purus basin yet came back to Germany empty handed. Dr. Rolf Geisler and Dr. Octtinger then went to Manaus to hunt for them in 1980 or '81. They succeeded to find Royal Blue in the Rio Manacapuru region, which was about a day's journey by boat to travel the 80 kilometers from Manaus to the fishing location. The team brought back a good shipment of the fish to Germany in an excellent condition. Dr. Octtinger and the famous breeder Gunther Keller were able to breed them. When Dr. Geisler told the doctor Gunther Keller had wild Royal Blue specimens and their offspring for sale, Dr. Schmidt-Focke immediately went to see Mr. Keller together with Klaus Echert and Jack Wattley. In Mr. Keller's hatchery were offspring from different pairs that ranged from those with high fins and wavy blue stripes on a reddish brown background to pairs with thick stripes on a brown body. The doctor purchased several wild adults and a few batches of the offspring.
Very soon afterwards, Dr. Schmidt-Focke falls ill and these valuable discus are taken care of by a friend. When he gets them back several weeks later, all are very sick and the small fishes have hardly grown. Breathing is heavy and the feces are white and slimy. They are cured of their gill flukes and hexamita infection after several treatments with high doses of Clout* (metronidazole) and Masoten* (trichlorfon). The young fish are useless for breeding. Only one wild pair recovers enough to breed. About 25% of the eggs are fertilized but they fight continuously afterwards ending up in eating all the eggs. To solve the problem, Dr. Schmidt-Focke adds a tablet of the tranquilizer Valium 5 (Diazepam) into the 100 liters breeding tank. The two fish calms down and stop fighting but they also do not eat the white eggs either. After several unsuccessful trials, the doctor splits up the pair and mates them with good specimens of the eighth inbred generation of his Red Turquoise strain (first line).
The results of the reciprocal cross are quite different. Among the F1 generation offspring from the male Royal Blue are a few specimens with broad green stripes on a red background which have a strong resemblance to the mother Red Turquoise. The F1 generation from the female Royal Blue is much inferior with less intense red color and weak turquoise stripes. A lot of non striated and half striated discus are produced in the F2 inbred generations of the reciprocal cross, with the exception of a few Blue Turquoise type specimens having no red color. The BC1 hybrids are also mainly Brown Discus when both F1 generations from the reciprocal are bred with the Red Turquoise strain. Very few discus from all later hybridizations are as excellent as the F1 generation from the male Royal Blue.
* Clout and Masoten are trade names of Bayer AG.
Above: WR17 Red Pearl bred by Dr. Schmidt-Focke
Above: Rio Maderia Discus (Jungle Pearl)
Pearl & Checkerboard Discus
A Pearl Discus has turquoise spheres on the body instead of horizontal stripes. If the spheres are arranged in rows, the discus appears to have strings of pearl on the body. Such a fish is really beautiful. In reality, most Pearl Discus have short turquoise bars in addition to spheres appearing randomly on the body. A Red Pearl is one with a red body and a Brown Pearl has brown body color.
Besides Heckel Turquoise, Siefried Homann is also the pioneer breeder of Pearl Discus in Germany. Dr. Schmidt-Focke followed Siefried's method to breed Pearl Discus. In 1983-'87 the doctor made a series of crosses to produce Pearl Discus. All the doctor's endeavors produce a lot of non striated and half striated discus in the F1 generation. There is only a few percent of Pearl Discus in each brood possessing spheres and short turquoise bars on the body.
My most successful work to produce Pearl Discus was to mate WR25SR Tangerine Dream Solid Red with WR14RS Red Diamond Wide Stripe. Although I obtained some spectacular Red Pearl Discus in the F1 generation, the pearl trait was impossible to fix.
German breeders also produce a variation of Pearl Discus which they call Checkerboard Discus. The unique feature is the rhombus of turquoise color on the fish's body. It also has longer and thick turquoise stripes as well as larger turquoise spheres than those found in Pearl Discus.
These two varieties are the result of crossing turquoise striped hybrids with discus that have no stripes on the body. The result of such a cross is a small percentage of Pearl or Checkerboard Discus. Inheritance of all Pearl and Checkerboard Discus has been unstable: they produce striated offspring.
Above: WR15 Heckel Red Turquoise
Heckel Turquoise
Heckel Turquoise is a special kind of Turquoise Discus with a Heckel Bar in the middle of the body. A fish with a red body is a Heckel Red Turquoise and the one that has a brown body is a Heckel Turquoise.
The first person to produce Heckel Red Turquoise is the German breeder Siefried Homann. I was told he too was faced with a poor inheritance of the Heckel Bar in the beginning but eventually was able to stabilize this trait a lot better towards the late 1980s.
Dr. Schmidt-Focke had a pair of excellent hybrid discus with a strong Heckel Bar in 1985. The pair is not red but the turquoise stripes are very wide and linear and also have excellent iridescence. The Heckel Bar is delineated on both sides by a narrow, incomplete stripe of turquoise which is a very unique and beautiful embellishment.
The docor tried to breed them for two years but succeeded to produce only one offspring with a deformed Heckel Bar. In around 1984, I sent the doctor a unique RRB which has a strong Heckel Bar. He also failed to breed from it.
My first effort to create a Heckel Red Turquoise was in 1986. Our WR15 Heckel Red Turquoise strain is the cross of a special RRB male which has a wide Heckel Bar with a WB7 Red Flash Cobalt female.The Heckel Bar only appears in less than 2% in the F1 generation and disappears completely in the F2 generation.
In the mid 1990s I tried again a second time by working with Rio Madeira Discus. The results were rather poor.
In 1992 or '93 there existed a beautiful Heckel Red Turquoise strain in Penang but I failed to obtain useful information on its development from all my Japanese customers.
There are Heckel Red Turquoise in Japan throughout the years. Although the Japanese love this variety, however, nobody has been able to develop a true breeding strain.
Above: WR9LS red spotted Green Leopard Skin,
photo courtesy of Aqua Navi Spring vol. 04, Japan
Above: WR14RS Red Diamond Red Spotted, photo
courtesy of Mr. Fumitoshi Mori, Japan
Red Spotted
The earliest, as well as the most famous red spotted strain, is WW19LS Red Spotted Green Leopard Skin. Its history went back to late 1986 when Dr. Schmidt-Focke bred an excellent Red Spotted Green pair, S. tarzoo Lyons, 1959. The doctor sent us 20 thumbnail size offspring.
Our batch matured to have numerous red spots and a network of fine, reticulated turquoise stripes which is very different from the turquoise striping of wild Green Discus. I called the strain WW19LS Red Spotted Green Leopard Skin.
The eight fish the doctor kept and those from the same brood that people claim to possess mature to have no red spots and very little turquoise stripes. For many years I have been asking the question why the Leopard Skin pattern is unique to our 20 discus? Is it possible our group is not the offspring of pure wild Green Discus? These youngsters were sent to us on a Sunday by the doctor's youngest son Nils inside a shipment containing fishes from other breeders. As the plane was leaving in the early afternoon, it is possible Nils caught the wrong fish in a big hurry.
There is evidence to support my theory that our WW19LS strain is not the pure descendant of S. tarzoo Lyons, 1959. I tried many times to recreate WW19LS by breeding wild Red Spotted Green in the 1990s. Offspring from even the best pairs do not have Leopard Skin pattern and the red spots are also larger. Other breeders also failed in their attempts. The only way to obtain fish with Leopard Skin pattern is to use WW19LS or its hybrids as one of the parents.
Leopard Skin pattern is made up of two traits, which are: red spots and reticulated turquoise stripes. The red spots should be inherited from Green Discus, which is a trait unique to this species. Reticulated turquoise stripes is a form of Snakeskin. Even though this characteristic is common to all species of discus, its expression is extremely rare. From the numerous discus I have bred during my entire 25 years career, I have only produced four Snakeskin Discus and only about a dozen of them were caught from the Rio Amazonas in the past 25 years. It is a feature that must be controlled by recessive allele or alleles and its expression is dependent on the correct genetic combination or combinations of the discus.
Assuming one of the parents of WW19LS is a Green Discus, what is the other fish? We have to investigate what Dr. discus Schmidt-Focke had in his hatchery from 1984 to '86. The Checkerboard Discus having narrow, reticulated turquoise stripes is the most likely candidate. Nonetheless, I have no idea why the German breeders called such a fish as Checkerboard Discus.
The doctor was never able to produce more WW19LS in later years. There was a fish with narrow and wavy stripes inside the three medium size discus that we obtained from him in 1990. It has a strong resemblance to Green Discus but the fish has no red spots. Dr. Schmidt-Focke must be trying to recreate WW19LS. However, he was unable to use the exact fishes for the remake since he sold the parents together with the rest of the brood soon after Nils had sent us the youngsters. Regrettably, I was unable to breed from this unique fish. If I have succeeded, the breeding result is really useful to identify the parents of WW19LS. What exactly is our WW19LS Red Spotted Green Leopard Skin strain remains as the biggest mystery in discus hybridization.
WW19LS is an extremely beautiful strain which has preserved the best traits of wild Green Discus. It also has a color intensity that is not found in all its modern Southeast Asia descendants.
In 1989 I crossed Schmidt-Focke Red Turquoise (1st line) with WW19LS Red Spotted Green Leopard Skin. The resulting hybrid was a sensational strain which I named WR14 Red Diamond. In the mid 1990s, a Penang breeder hybridized a Red Diamond female with Pigeon Blood. The offspring were then mated with the 13 bar Thai Snake Skin Discus to produce red spotted Snake Pigeon, which was improved to become the ancestor of all modern red spotted hybrids.
Above: Male of Dr. Schmidt-Focke's 1988 pair,
photo courtesy of Dr. Schmidt-Focke, Germany
Above: Female of Dr. Schmidt-Focke's 1988 pair,
photo courtesy of Dr. Schmidt-Focke, Germany
Solid Red
The first documented shipment of Red Discus was sent from Brazil to Mr. Weiler of Neustadt, West Germany in April, 1969. There was no location name. The famous breeder Gunther Keller was given a few specimens. He was able to breed them and published their photos in his discus book.
Dr. Schmidt-Focke obtained his first Red Discus in early 1970. This fish was soon hybridized with a turquoise striped male to create the doctor's Red Turquoise strain. In the February, 1976 issue of TFH, the doctor wrote that this female was caught around the Brazilian border of Peru.
For another 16 years there was no more news of solid Red Discus in Germany. Another less red fish arrived in 1985 from an unknown location in Brazil. It is also a female which was crossed with a fully striated German Red Turquoise later in the same year but the offspring have very little red color when matured.
In early 1988 a group of four Red Discus was sent to Dr. Schmidt-Focke. Two of them having a Heckel Bar. These were all initially identified as discus from Rio Içana by Heiko Bleher. The name was changed later to Rio Içá Discus when he was challenged by the German breeders that no discus has ever been found in the Rio Icana. Dr. Schmidt-Focke either has forgotten what he had written previously or was persuaded to believe Heiko Bleher again to agree his first female is also a Rio Içá Discus.
Both the Rio Içá, the Rio Putumayo and the part of Rio Solimões at the Brazil/Peru border are all inside the distribution range of Green Discus, S. tarzoo Lyons, 1959. What species do these Red Discus belong to? Are they S. tarzoo Lyons, 1959 or S. aequifasciata Pellegrin, 1904 (2)?
The famous Has Mayland photo of the female shows the red and yellow color of this fish well but not its body form: the picture was shot at the moment when the fish had turned its head towards the back of the aquarium. There is a big patch of yellow in the middle of the body. The 5th, 6th and 7th vertical bars are darker than the rest. There is a solid black ring on the dorsal and anal fins which are encircled on the inside with an incomplete ring of turquoise bars. Another photo of the same fish that the doctor took shows an oval body form and a slightly darker 5th vertical bar.
The lateral line of this 1970 Red Discus has a sharp bend just in front of the 4th vertical black bar. The parents of our WW46 Flame of the Forest strain have a similar lateral line contour, which are discus from the Rio Maués Açu. The first Paraconi, Alenquer and Cuipéua Discus of the mid-to-late 1980s all have a smooth lateral line contour in that region. In addition, the body form, the turquoise stripe pattern and the red color of the doctor's fish are also a close match with Rio Maués Açu Discus. Gunther Keller's photos of the Weiler group depict Red Discus of the same variety, e.g., same oval body form, same black ring on the dorsal and anal fins that are delinerated on the inside by an incomplete ring of turquoise. A brooding fish also shows conspicuous 5th, 6th and 7th vertical bars. It is reasonable to conclude all Red Discus sent to Germany in 1969 and 1970 are fishes belonging to the same population caught at a very small location on the Rio Maués Açu. Therefore, they should belong to S. aequifasciatus Pellegrin, 1904 (2).
In 1988 Dr. Schmidt-Focke succeeded to breed wild Red Discus for the first time in Germany. The pair of Red Discus Dr. Schmidt-Focke succeeded to breed in 1988 consisted of a brown male with weak, broken turquoise stripes and a long body form. The female is a round, red fish with short turquoise stripes only on the head and fins. What region or regions of the Rio amazonas do they come from?
A small number of Red Discus without a location name began to appear in Germany starting from 1985. There were three main types which were identified several years later as:
1) Rio Içá Discus (Rio Içana)—reddish brown body and a Heckel Bar,
2) Alenquer Discus—pure deep red body, long body form and a pointed mouth,
3) Cuipéua Discus—orange red body and a nice body form.
Above: Alenquer Discus bred by Manfred Göbel,
photo courtesy of Mr. Manfred Göbel, Germany
Above: Alenquer Discus bred by Manfred Göbel,
photo courtesy of Mr. Manfred Göbel, Germany
Above: The much inbred Alenquer Discus from the Göbel line, photo courtesy of Hiroshi Irie, Japan, photo courtesy of Mr. Hiroshi Irie, Japan
Alenquer Discus
Alenquer Discus was shipped to Germany as an anonymous variety as early as in 1987. Although Arthur Werner began to market Alenquer Discus internationally in around 1989, there was no name for the variety in Germany until 1990 or '91. He is a total stranger to the European discus circle because his main business has always been the export of catfishes and sting rays from Brazil. As soon as people know the name, every single wild discus having even the smallest amount of red was called Alenquer Discus in Germany.
The genuine Alenquer Discus is pure deep red in color. Females are redder than males. They have a long body form and a very characteristic pointed mouth but without the Heckel Bar. Most males have a few stripes on the body and fins but none are fully striated.
Above: Red Discus (Cuipéua ?) from Dr. Schmidt-Focke
Above: Cuipéua Discus bred by Jörg Schütz,
photo courtesy of Mr. Jörg Schütz, Germany
Cuipéua Discus
Cuipéua Discus also appeared in Germany as an unidentified variety at around the same time as Alenquer Discus. But it was roughly a decade later, in 1997 or '98, that the variety was officially introduced to the discus world by Mr. Keisuke Onoda of W.B. Sabby ltda who was also responsible for making the variety famous in the subsequent years.
The defunct W.B. Sabby ltda has been selling three types of very different discus as Cuipéua Discus for quite a number of years before going out of business. They are:
Type 1 has a light brown to reddish brown body. Most have turquoise stripes only on the head, the operculum and the dorsal, anal, pelvic. A minority are half to full striped specimens. Fish size is 13-15 cm.
Type 2 is the smallest, growing to an average length of only 12-14 cm. It has longer finnage and redder body color than the other two varieties. There are no fully striped type 2 fishes.
Mangal is the name of the 3rd type. It is the largest at 14-17 cm in length. Most fish have turquoise stripes restricted to the periphery of the body in the manner of a Blue Discus. There are also a minority of half to full striped specimens and even a small number of high body Mangal.
My question is: "What exactly is a Cuipéua Discus?"
In 2004 Jörg sent me two shipments of his Cuipéua Discus from broodstock that he collected together with Mr. Onoda at the Cuipéua
village three years ago. They are from the F1 and F2 generations. These 5-10 cm long youngsters have a nicely shaped orange red body. I grow some up to a sub adult size of 12 cm. Their body form is a bit long but it is much better than the original Alenquer Discus. Body color is a light tangerine when newly arrived but changes to a much deeper orange red after 2-3 month. They have deep red dorsal and anal fins. Most of them have red eyes.
I sold Jörg's discus as WW69 Millennium Red, which is a good name that describes the variety well.
In 1990 I obtained two half size orange red discus from Dr. Schmidt-Focke which looked very similar to WW69. The doctor's broodstocks in the late 1980s must be a mixture of Alenquer and Cuipéua Discus.
The Heckel Bar is absent in both the doctor's fishes and Jörg's WW69 Millennium Red.
Above: Male Red Eddie, photo courtesy of Mr. Manfred
Göbel, Germany
Above: Female Red Eddie, photo courtesy of
Mr. Manfred Göbel, Germany
Red Eddie
The male of the doctor's pair should be Alenquer Discus and the female Cuipéua Discus. The 236 offspring from this pair were called Red Eddie by the German breeder in honor of Dr. Schmidt-Focke and were widely distributed in Germany. Manfred Göbel, Werner Konrad and Willy Brockskothen were the most important breeders of Red Eddie.
The pure Red Eddie is different from Alenquer Discus. They have an orange red body color and many thin and sometimes broken turquoise stripes on as much as 2/3 of the body. Both the wild Alenquer Discus and their offspring have been crossed repeatedly with the pure Red Eddie since the early 1990s. Nowadays, the name Red Eddie is used in a much wider sense to include all the Red Eddie hybrids. Heckel Bar is absent in all Red Eddie variants.
Above: Maues Açu Discus, photo credit of Mr.
Manfred Göbel, Germany
Above: Rio Paraconi Discus Photo Courtesy of Kumamoto Tropical
Fish, Japan
Above: WW46 Flame of the Forest
Above: WW46HF Flame of the Forest High Form,
photo courtesy of Mr. Fumitoshi Mori, Japan
Solid Red Strains Developed by WWFF
In 1992 I developed WW20 Alenquer Solid Red from a wild Alenquer male purchased from Arthur Werner and an orange red female obtained from Dr. Schmiodt-Focke in 1990. This strain has a red color intermediate between the parents and no Heckel Bar.
I created the other two solid red strains three years later in 1995. The first is WW46 Flame of the Forest. It was developed by inbreeding solid red Rio Maués Açu Discus. WW46 excels in its distinctive deep red color which has a very subtle yet perceptible orange tint. This strain is the best solid red strain in the whole history of discus hybridization.
The other strain was made from Rio Paraconi Discus. I named the strain WW46HF Flame of the Forest High Form in view of its excellent round to high body form. It is the largest of the solid red strains to attain 16 cm in length.
(2) Manuella Villar Amado, Izeni P. Farias and Tomas Hrbek. A Moelcular Prespective on Systematics, Taxonomy and Classification Amazonian Discus Fishes of the Genus Symphysodon. Int J Evol Biol; 2011: 2011: 360654.Burgess WE. Studies on the family cichlidae: 10. New information on the species of the genus Symphysodon with the description of a new subspecies of S. discus Heckel. Tropical Fish Hobbyist. 1981;29:32–42.
Above: The so-called Rio Ica Discus own by Dr. Schmidt-Focke
photo courtesy of Dr. Schmidt-Focke, Germany
Above: The so-called Rio Ica Discus own by Dr. Schmidt-Focke
photo courtesy of Dr. Schmidt-Focke, Germany
Rio Içá & Central Bar Discus
Dr. Schmidt-Focke acquired a unique discus from the Rio Abacaxis in 1986. The fish has a strong Heckel Bar in the middle of a reddish brown body. The turquoise stripes are restricted to the head, the operculum and the dorsal, anal, pelvic fins.
The doctor obtained several other similar specimens with less red color in the following months and then in 1988, another group of four Red Discus was sent to the doctor, two of them having a Heckel Bar. All of a sudden these anonymous discus, with or without the Heckel Bar, were identified as discus from Rio Içana (a tributary of Rio Negro) by Heiko Bleher. But when breeders found out no discus had ever been found in this river, Heiko Bleher immediately changed the name to Rio Içá Discus.
The Rio Içá and the Rio Putumayo are different sections of a 1,610 kilometers long tributary of the Rio Solimões. The upper part in Peru is called Rio Putumayo and its lower portion in Brazil is Rio Içá. Only Green Discus has ever been found in the whole tributary.
Rio Içá Discus, a name originated from the king of monkey business—Heiko Bleher—represents nowadays a discus type that has a reddish brown body with a central Heckel Bar. The turquoise stripes are present only on the head and the dorsal, anal, pelvic fins. There are no turquoise stripes in the center of the body. In other words, it is a Brown Discus with a Heckel Bar.
There are now hybrid discus with a strong Heckel Bar which are known as Central Bar. Some specimens also have a thin turquoise stripe on both sides of the Heckel Bar which is a rather unique feature.