Meeting Notes

August, 2009

Mark Weiss is an aquatic biologist and professional aquarist. He gave a talk about discus. He said there are four categories of discuss: blue, brown, green, and "something else." These four types are distinct and come from different geographic regions. After the rainy season, with flooding, there is a lot of interbreeding, and there's a lot of color variations from there.

He said that "hybrid" is not a correct term, and it is called "intergrade" if two different types mate. A hybrid, he explained, is something else, more like when a zebra and a horse breed, that is a true hybrid.

All color forms come from these 4 types. He said the fish do not want to inter breed, and they want to mate with the same type.

He explained that there will be genetic variations that will accomodate a wide variety of water conditions, but it is best to emulate Amazon water to get the best fish. The fish must compromise on some variables such as color, size, number of babies and so forth, if the water conditions vary widely from those of the Amazon.

To get the best fry, you should mate F1 back with the parent generation. For example, mating two spectacular fish usually ends up with poor results. He described it as a grey fish.

He said that brown females are red in the wild. Patterns and colors are very much environmental. Two perfect, inbred fish will have lousy babies. Never breed your best fish together, but breed a best fish with a plain color to get the best assortment of baby fish.

The fish are adaptable, but like meat and fat, and do not do well on vegetable diets. And they need vitamin A for the red coloration. They like mysis shrimp, beef heart, liver, and vitamins.

Mark Harnet