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.

We feed our Discus primarily Beef Heart Flake, but supplement it every day with other Flake and Freeze Dried Foods.  The Multi Pack is great way to get started.  As for the Freeze Dried Foods, I would start with the Brine Shrimp.  Once your Discus get larger, you should switch to Earth Worms.  Larger Discus also like Glass Shrimp.  Beef heart Flake is extremely high in protein (higher protein than most other flake foods).  It is also fortified with Vitamins and Minerals and you will find your Discus like it more than any other flake food.  Your juvenile Discus will grow significantly faster when they are fed Beef Heart Flake.

Please feed your Discus three times a day, morning, noon and night.  The night time feeding should be with the lights out.  Discus are naturally nocturnal grazers.  If there is some bullying or aggression in your tank, please feed them at both ends of the tank.  Feed them as much as they can eat in 10 minutes.  They should be kept with some Corydoras Catfish, Plecos or Loaches to eat any food uneaten by the Discus.

Please go to this link:   http://www.somethingsphishy.com/discus-and-angelfish-food-c-41_67.html 

If you are acclimating new fish into a tank, please do not feed your new Discus for 24 hours.  As we detail in the Acclimation Instructions, you should not feed your new for fish at all for the first 24 hours after delivery.  Any food given will likely not be eaten and can end up clouding the tank.  After the stress of shipping, they will typically have no appetite.  Feed them very little for the first week as they will still have little appetite.  Over the next few weeks as they get used to their new home, they will slowly get their appetite back.  You can increase the temperature to 88 degrees to speed up their metabolism and increase their appetite.

Please do not feed your fish live or frozen Blood Worms.  Hexamitia is sadly a relatively common disease in Discus.  They can carry the deadly disease Hexamitia and freezing does not kill the Hexamitia Cysts.  Hexamitia is an internal parasite that can positively diagnosed by your fish showing long white stringy feces and they over time will become emaciated.  It is hard to treat and is contagious.  The cysts can lie dormant in the gravel and one of the only way to kill the cysts is to empty all fish and plants out of the tank, add bleach and let it for 24 hours and then do a complete water change every day for three days. 

Freeze Dried Blood Worms are fine.

This will conclude our series on breeding Angelfish.

Angelfish will eat baby Brine shrimp immediately upon becoming free swimming.

Things you should remember. First, these babies will be very small and weak, so you will need to turn off all filtration, except for a sponge filter. The biggest mistake that you can make is to do a water change in this aquarium with water that is not EXACTLY the same temperature. Angelfish fry are extremely sensitive to temperature shock and will die if you do a water change with water that is more than a few degrees different in temperature. With that said, Angelfish fry are also very sensitive to ammonia burn, so you will need to do daily partial water changes. We like to keep our grow out Angelfish tanks, until they reach about 1 inches, at a temperature of 82 degrees, as the high temperature increases their metabolism and speeds up growth.

Start adding a small amount of live baby brine shrimp to the tank within 24 hours of the fry becoming free swimming. For the first week, just feed them twice a day. To much food will quickly cloud the tank at this stage and that is one of the biggest worries. By the end of one month, they will be about 1/3 inch and will be eating baby brine shrimp four times a day At this point they are much more hardy and you are pretty much out of the woods. Your Angelfish fry should reach 1 inch in approximately 3-4 weeks. At about 1/2 inches, you can start adding in a crumbled flake food. We recommend adding Flake Beef Heart to their food and slowly convert them over to a diet of primarily flake food. This is good for them health wise and will save you a lot of money in the long run. It is also much more convenient.

Angelfish are very sensitive to overcrowding, so putting them into larger tanks as they grow is essential. If they are overcrowded, they will stop growing. Once they are not overcrowded, they will start growing again.

Previously we went over how to artificially raise the fry. Now we will go over raising the fry naturally. Next we will go over growing out the baby Angelfish.

Naturally raising the fry requires very little work on your part. The parents do all of the work for you. Unfortunately, it is very common for the parents to eat the babies, so most breeders artificially raise the fry. There are advantages to naturally raising the fry over and above that it is much easier. Angelfish fry will eat some slime off the parent’s side for the first few days. Unlike Discus, they can survive without the slime and will immediately start eating other food. This slime is very high in protein and contains antibodies that help the babies fight off disease. Naturally raised fry will grow much faster at first and will have more resistance to disease throughout their lives.

There is also the enjoyment of watching your Angelfish raise the fry. They will stay mostly around the parents for the first month and the parents will zealously guard them. When a baby strays to far, the parents will mouth it back to the main school. This is done by both the males and females. There is nothing more rewarding than watching your large Angelfish parents and the fry swimming around the tank as a loose school. I find this fascinating and it has always been my favorite part or the hobby.

Things you should remember. These babies will be very small and weak, so you will need to turn off all filtration, except for a sponge filter. You can also take the sponge from a sponge filter and put it around the intake tube of an over the side filter. Canister filters are two powerful to put the sponge on their intake tube. The biggest mistake that you can make is to do a water change in this aquarium with water that is not EXACTLY the same temperature. Angelfish fry are extremely sensitive to temperature shock and will die if you do a water change with water that is more than a few degrees different in temperature. With that said, Angelfish fry are also very sensitive to ammonia burn, so you will need to do daily partial water changes.

Start adding a small amount of live baby brine shrimp to the tank within 24 hours of them becoming free swimming. Drip it directly over where the fry are located. Be careful how much you add as if most is uneaten, it can foul the water and lead to ammonia burn. After two weeks, slowly reduce the amount of baby brine shrimp you add and slowly start adding crumbled beef heart flake. After a month, they should be eating exclusively beef heart flake. By the end of one month, they will be about ½ inch. At this point they are much hardier and you are pretty much out of the woods. They will reach the size of a dime in about three months.

Artificially raising Angelfish is actually very easy and if you are looking to have the highest survival ratio it is definitely the way to go.

We raise the fry in 5 gallon tanks. Getting the water correct is very important. You should take water out of the spawning tank right before transferring the eggs and put it in the 5 gallon tank. The temperature of the tank they are coming from and the one it is going into has to be the same. A difference of even a couple of degrees will kill the eggs. Clean water is absolutely essential for hatching the fry as if the water is at all dirty, fungus will form on the eggs. That is one reason that keeping the spawning tank water extremely clean is so important. To assist in keeping fungus from forming, we do two additional things. We add Methylene Blue to the water. Add enough to turn the water a deep blue. We also run heavy aeration next to the eggs, creating a current, which helps to stop fungus from forming. When the tank is ready and all the above conditions are met, quickly take the eggs out of the spawning tank and place them into the rearing tank. They should not be out of the water more than 10 seconds. Just a heads up, the spawning Angelfish will be very unhappy about you taking their eggs out. They will attack your hand and while it really does not hurt, it can be quite startling. To reduce that, I usually tap on the opposite end of the tank to distract them then quickly reach in with my other hand to take the eggs out. Hopefully the eggs will be on a breeding cone or something else that is very easy to remove. If the tank they are coming from is a ways away from the tank they are going into, I use a 2 gallon bucket full of water from the spawning tank to move the eggs into before I move them to the rearing tank.

Once the fry become Free Swimming at around 6 days, you will need to feed them within 24 hours. You should set up a Brine Shrimp hatchery on the fifth day so you can feed them newly hatched brine shrimp within hours of them becoming free swimming. They will not eat much at first and you do not want to foul the water adding two much. As the size of the spawn will vary significantly, how much you feed them will be somethings you have to decide when they hatch out. Feed your new Angelfish baby Brine Shrimp for three weeks. After three weeks start cutting back on the baby brine shrimp and when you feed them add in some finely ground flake food. Between 3 weeks and 5 weeks, slowly decrease the Brine Shrimp and increase the flake food until after the fifth week, they are eating only flake food.

After 5 weeks, you will need to transfer them to a larger tank. When Angelfish are crowded in a tank, their growth gets stunted. They will grow VERY slowly to not at all if left in a small 5 gallon tank. The size of the tank they need to be moved into depends on the size of the spawn. Spawn size can be from just a few to a couple of thousand. I once had a spawn of 2400 from one silver pair. Black and Silver Angelfish usually have the largest spawns. Young pairs typically have relatively small spawns, but the size of the spawn will increase as they mature.

In our next issue, we will go over naturally raising the fry.

Previously we went over Angelfish fry prior to them becoming free swimming. Now we will go over your options as to how to raise the fry.

You now need to make a critical decision. Do you let the Angelfish raise their own fry naturally or do you artificially raise them. Both ways have their advantages and disadvantages. We will briefly discuss the advantages and disadvantages of both methods.

The main advantage to letting the Angelfish raise their own fry is that it is MUCH less work. Other than keeping the water ultra clean via water changes, as you will not be able to run any filters except a sponge filter, there is not much to be done different to what you normally do. If possible, please take any other fish out of the tank. The huge disadvantage is that the parents will eat the fry a majority of the time. They will do it very quickly, you will not know they are eating them and there is really nothing you can do to prevent it.

There is one other advantage to naturally raising the fry that most people tend to forget. Angelfish fry will feed a little off the natural slime of their parents and in eating the slime they receive antibodies from their parents, thereby making them much more resistant to disease later in their life.

Conversely, the advantages and disadvantages to artificially raising the fry is just the opposite. There will be two to three weeks of caring for your fry several times a day.  Generally speaking, more fry will survive when you artificially raise them.

Angelfish are much easier to artificially raise that some other fish such as Discus, we recommend that you go with the artificial raising of them. In our next segment, we will go over artificially raising Angelfish.