Throughout the 20th century, Discus fish gained popularity among aquarium enthusiasts. They became even more popular after successful breeding ventures began in the 1930s. Initially, attempts to bring them to Europe faced high mortality rates due to stressful transport conditions. It wasn’t until improved shipping methods were adopted in the 1950s that Discus Fish began to thrive in captivity. Breeders like Eduard Schmidt-Focke made pivotal strides in captive breeding. The 1960s and 70s marked a significant era of breeding innovations. That resulted in colorful varieties such as Blue Diamond Discus Fish.   Hybrids like the Pigeon Blood led to a larger expansion of colors and patterns. 

Today, Discus Fish hold the status of “King of the Aquarium,” boasting a range of colors and patterns that are the result of modern selective breeding. 

Wild Discus Fish are primarily found in the Amazon River and its tributaries, where they inhabit areas with low mineral content and slightly acidic waters. Replicating their natural habitat in an aquarium setting is crucial for their health; therefore, Discus Fish remain one of the more challenging yet rewarding fish species for aquarists. Their history reflects not only their biological significance but also their cultural impact, as they have become symbols of beauty and exoticism in freshwater aquariums across the globe. 

In summary, the journey of Discus Fish from being discovered in the wild to becoming a centerpiece of aquarium displays. 

See all the Discus Fish for Sale at www.SOMETHINGSPHISHY.com 

Making your Flowerhorn cichlids breed in the aquarium requires basically the same type of preparations and care that you would give Trimac cichlids or other similar South American cichlids. Keep the potential parents in a very large aquarium, and try to keep them from killing each other. Flowerhorn parents guard the eggs as well as the fry, and the fry is fairly easy to take care off. Even if you start out with prime specimens as parents, the offspring will often turn out to be a disappointment if it is certain color patterns etcetera that you are looking for. You need to know quite a lot about the different strains and lines to successfully breed Flowerhorn cichlids. There is of course always the chance of getting lucky and producing great specimens even without this knowledge.

The Flowerhorn cichlid is considered quite easy to take care of and do not require a lot of pampering from its keeper. The first thing you need to do is of course to set up an aquarium suitable for a Flowerhorn cichlid. Your Flowerhorn will require a large aquarium to do well, since this fish grows quite big and have an aggressive temperament. If you use plants to decorate the aquarium, they might be destroyed by the Flowerhorn cichlid, and plants are not necessary in an aquarium set up for a Flowerhorn cichlid. You should however decorate the aquarium in a way that creates natural territorial borders, since the Flowerhorn cichlid is a territorial and aggressive fish. You can of course keep the Flowerhorn cichlid alone, but if you want to have more than one fish in the aquarium other big aggressive cichlids from South America is the best choice. The Flowerhorn cichlid is a tough fish and can tolerate most water conditions, but it will do best in an aquarium where the pH is neutral or slightly basic. A water temperature around 28º C is recommended.

The Flowerhorn cichlid is a happy eater and you will not have a hard time trying to make it accept food. Its metabolism and feeding habits are similar to that of the other South American cichlids, and your Flowerhorn cichlid will need a lot of energy and nutrients to stay healthy and develop in a good way. It is actually quite hard to over-feed a Flowerhorn cichlid. Your Flowerhorn cichlid will accept most types of food, and pellets are a good base. This base should be supplemented with plenty of worms, crabs, shrimp, or similar types of meaty foods. Feeding two or tree times a day is optimal.

Since the Flowerhorn cichlid eats a lot, it will also produce a lot of waste products which pollutes the water. Frequent water changes must therefore be performed. Changing 20 percent of the water twice a week is a good rule of thumb. If you can only make one change a week, you should change around 25 percent of the water. You can lower the risk of poor water quality by avoiding food types known to pollute the water a lot.

The Flowerhorn cichlid is a result of hybrid between different South American cichlids. The Flowerhorn was developed in Malaysia during the second half of the 1990s, and exactly which South American cichlids that was used and in which combinations is still a secret. This secrecy has of caused a lot of speculation and a number of more or less reasonable theories have been put forth. One of the more far-fetched theories suggests that the Flowerhorn cichlid was artificially created in a Malaysian genetics laboratory by combining genes from a Goldfish with genes from the Trimac cichlid (Amhilophous Trimaculatus). A more reasonable suggestion is that the Flowerhorn cichlid is the result of crossing many different types of South American cichlids with each other, and that different forms of Flowerhorn cichlids can steam from different South American cichlids. The most plausible ancestry is crossings between the Trimac cichlid and other South American cichlids such as Midas cichlid (Amphilophus citrinellum), Red Devil cichlid (Amphilophus labiatum) and Redheaded cichlid (Vieja synspila).

The look of the Flowerhorn cichlids available in fish stores today is however not just the result of selective breeding. You can affect the appearance of a Flowerhorn cichlid by adjusting environmental factors such as the water chemistry in the aquarium. The food you feed your Flowerhorn cichlid can also change its look. The single most important factor behind the look of the fish is however the genetic makeup formed by selective breeding.

The Flowerhorn has been criticized as an unnatural and dangerous hybrid, produced by money-hungry breeders just to make money. Others have been impressed by the hard work that is evidently behind the creation of the Flowerhorn Cichlid. A lot of the South American cichlids mentioned above will occasionally interbreed in the wild as well, but there is no doubt that the Flowerhorn cichlid has been deliberately produced by breeders. The Flowerhorn cichlids are not the result of random cross breeding. Some people view the Flowerhorn as a purely man-made creation while others compare the hybrid to all the other animal variants that have been refined by humans during centuries of selective breeding. 

• Sometimes you get sick and it is not because you did anything wrong. The same thing happens with fish.
• The stress of shipping reduces the immune response of the fish, which increases the likelihood that they can get sick when shipped. Imagine how you would feel after being sealed in a dark box for a day or more and then bounced around with no notice.
• Sometimes the box gets thrown or dropped. Once again, imagine how you would feel if you were in a box and it was dropped or thrown.
• While we pack in insulated coolers and use heat packs in the winter, we cannot completely control temperature.  If the box is left out in the sun in Arizona in the summer, or left in the snow in Minnesota during the winter, the fish will suffer.  We look up the temperature in the UPS Hub of Louisville and at your address on every package the morning before we ship.  All fish are shipped in insulated boxes.  If necessary, we add heat packs.  We have to make our decisions based on weather forecasts, which often can be very wrong.  A forecast that is off be 3-5 degrees can make errors in our decisions on how to pack the boxes. 
• Sometimes, even though we clearly mark our boxes not to be turned upside down, they can be left upside down or on their sides. This can lead to some water leaking and getting on the heat packs which makes them stop working.
• The longer the fish are in a small bag in a small box with limited oxygen, the more likely they are to get sick or die.