Colin Heng 9th National Discus Competition, Grand Champion

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Dizkuz
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Colin Heng 9th National Discus Competition, Grand Champion

Post by Dizkuz » 11 May 2008, 15:43

Interview with Colin Heng 9th National Discus Competition, Grand Champion

1) How big is your discus room? How many aquariums and discus do you have?

The area of my hatchery is about 3500 sq ft. I have 327 tanks which occupy two thirds of the space. We use about 90,000 litres of water a day.
I do not know how many discus I have. It’s a lot and I'd be crazy to count them but I do get a feel of the population by the amount of beefheart I feed them a day. Currently it is about 4 kg. The hatchery's record was 13 kg a day.

Hatchery,breeding room
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Hatchery,breeding room
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2) When did you first get involved in discus? Any memories you want to share?

I first came across a discus, not in a fishshop but in a bookshop. As a young teen, besides visiting fishshops, I also liked to hang out in bookshops because I had a passion for reading. One day, I came across two books, DISCUS by Tony Silva and Barbara Kotler and ALL ABOUT DISCUS by Dr Herbert R Axelrod. I remember it was 1984 and I was about 14 years old. I was really fascinated by what I saw so I bought the books and read it from cover to cover many, many times. I still have those two books today.

The funny thing was that I did not come across the real thing then. The fishshops that I frequented never had discus. As I got older, somehow, I stopped keeping fish. I can't remember why. Maybe it was girls.

Anyway, fast forward to early 2000. One day while I was driving, my girlfriend (now my wife) asked me whether I would be interested to have some discus. She told me that a guy working for her mother wanted to give up the hobby. His wife gave him an ultimatum: either her or the fish. I remember very well that day I told her that discus was just too troublesome to keep. You have to change water everyday, I stressed.

Do you know that elderly folks will take whatever you give them, whether they need it or not? My future mother-in-law went ahead and took those discus without even knowing anything about it - an action that my future mother-in-law and future wife would live to regret.

Adult discus
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3) Do you have any other hobbies besides fish keeping?

My other passion is keeping song birds. My favourite is the white rumped sharma. A superb singer and a very beautiful bird.

Adult discus
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4) What other fish do you keep?

Arowanas and just recently, Japanese ranchu.

5) You did win the 9th National Discus Competition, Grand Champion, tank no 47,... A big congratulation from DFS.

Thank you very much.

6) Can you tell us a little bit about the discus that you won with? Genetics and so on?

In the early days of my hobby, I went through a phase when I was very fascinated by the wild discus. I was inspired by the creator of the Singapore Fireworks who used wild RSG to cross with a snakeskin. I didn't go as far as using a snakeskin because by then, you could find some pretty impressive LSS


There are a few reasons I wanted to work with wilds. First, besides my fascination for them, I wanted to "reboot the system", to start again from scratch and see what happened. If something nice came out of it, at least, I could lay some claim to its creation and earn some bragging rights. As a new hobbyist then, just to work with wilds was already a big deal for me.

I had two working male RSG which I crossed with four female LSS from different origins. One male to two females and from there I had four lines. The first two lines, from the first male, had great spotting and pattern but a really terrible bodyshape. Looking at them, I told myself, I am not rearing discus, I am growing bananas. I stopped both lines.

I had better luck with the second male. Its shape was better and so were its off-springs. The Grandchamp and the second prize winner were from the third line. The fourth line is now producing some pretty impressive off-springs. Should have a chance in the competition next year.

My advice to anybody wanting to use wilds: look for an as-round-as-possible bodyshape. Try not to compromise. I know it is difficult to find a round shaped wild male RSG. The upside to using wild fish is that they will give you some pretty big mommas.

Adult discus
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7) Tell us a bit how to prepare a discus for competition. As in feeding, color and how to make it used to people staring at them for days?

In preparation for a competition, do not isolate your discus too early. Alone for an extended period of time, it will not feed so well. Isolate it for about 2 weeks to 10 days before the competition so that it can get used to the lightings and being alone. You don't have to leave the lights turned on 24 hours. Just 8 hours will do.

Before isolation, keep it together with 5 or 6 immature discus and make sure they are smaller than your competition discus. Have you ever noticed that the dominant discus is a great poser (like a fashion model posing for a photo shoot)? A discus swimming with confidence and stopping to pose will score a lot of points.

The trick to using colour enhancer is small doses for a long period of time. Your discus will still look natural. Sometimes you see some over-coloured discus in competitions. This can back-fire, especially in western competitions because western judges have almost zero knowledge in colour enhancing and will blame whatever on hormone use. Eastern judges would take this opportunity to see pattern and colour development (awarding marks) and at the same time penalize those being too artificially enhanced. The key is to enhance a discus to fully express its pattern or colour while still looking natural. You must have at least three months to do so.

8) At what age on a discus can spot a champion and do you separate them for special treatment and how would you do it?

Every winner must have two criteria, good bodyshape and good pattern or colour. I will make a selection for body shape first at 2 inches. When looking for a nice bodyshape, pay special attention to the forehead. If there is a kink or hump, it will become more and more obvious when it grows bigger. I do not worry about the colour or pattern at this stage. In fact, I will not give any colouring agent other than natural asthaxantin to the discus until it reaches 4 inches. By then, their patterns or colour will start to show naturally. Then I will select for colour or pattern.
At 2 inches, I will house 8 to 12 discus in a 200-litre, 4 ft tank. Space is very important to bring it up to its maximum size. Size is very important in competitions. If you have a giant, the judges will overlook minor flaws.

Grooming juveniles,only juveniles with good bodyshape are selected
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Grooming competition discus
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9) Please tell us about the competition feeling? Please share some of the joy taking part in a competition?

It is an excitement that is really addictive, especially if you have put in a lot of hard work to groom a discus for the past year. Even if you do not win a prize, you will know where you stand, what is lacking, what to improve on for next year. If you really want to improve yourself on the hobby, the competition is really a good platform to do so. It is very different to just going there to have a look than to actually compete.

Almost perfect spots and pattern but lousy bodyshape.Will never be a winner.
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10) Will you take part in the next competition as well?

I will certainly do so. Not only in the next but all future competitions.

Breeding pairs
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11) What lines of fish are you working on now? Do you have any breeding pair set up?

I am still trying to improve on my LSS. It is a never-ending process. I am also trying to improve on some albino crosses. At any one time, I have about 50 pairs.

Grooming juveniles,only juveniles with good bodyshape are selected
IMG_0045.JPG

12) What do you feed your discus and how often?

I feed them beefheart mixed with fish meal, rice flour and spirulina. The discus are fed twice with the beefheart mix and once with bloodworm a day.



13) What kind of husbandry do you do on your tanks -waterchange, tank wipedown, etc?

We use a constant drip to refresh the water in the tanks and depend on the albino pleco to do the wipedowns. Waste and left-over food are removed after the last beefheart meal in the afternoon.

14) What filter do you use?

We do not use any filter in the tanks. The thought of squeezing so many sponge filters gives us nightmares and we can't afford the electricity on the individual over-head filters on every tank. For hobbyist who do not have someone to help them change water on the dot everyday, please use some form of filtration.

Dripping system
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15) Can you describe your quarantine procedures?

We give all quarantined discus an antibiotic treatment for twelve days. During that period, if the discus are eating, we will add metrodinazole to the beefheart and feed them for ten days. After that, we will add the new discus to our hatchery's stock. We cannot afford to wait for a symptom to appear before giving treatment. The disease could spread throughout the whole hatchery and a whole generation of fries could be wiped out.

Quarantine, anti-biotic
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16) What are your ethics on medication use?

Early detection + early treatment = happy discus. This is easy if you have the experience. Most hobbyists can't detect a disease early and can't do the diagnosis right. There is a saying: the best way to remember your wife's birthday is to forget it once. The same goes for the treatment of disease. Go through it once, twice, or three times if you are a bit slow and you will be able to detect and recognise the disease and give the proper treatment early. Books can’t teach you so well.

Early treatment, any relevant medication is good. Late treatment, most medication won’t work. Any holistic approach to boost the immune system to fight the disease should be done way before the discus fall sick and not during the sickness.

17) What advice do you have for hobbyist looking for discus?

An experienced breeder once advised me to look for and count the flaws when you look at a discus. This will give you an idea whether it is a good quality discus or not. It is easy to be impressed by the whole package. His advice has served me well.

Breeding pairs
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18) When you look at a discus, what do you see?

I see the brilliance and foresight of a breeder. I can also tell you what I don't want to see. I am trying very hard not to see only dollars and cents but the force of the dark side is strong.

Breeding pairs
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19) What would you like to accomplish in the hobby?

To beat the record of the creator of Singapore Fireworks who won the Grand Champion title 5 times.


Breeding pairs
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20) Do you see any negative aspect in the hobby these days?

Not really. Everybody is just trying their best to get the most enjoyment out of this hobby.

Breeding pairs
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21) Do you have any mentors in the hobby?

Too many to list here. All the experienced hobbyists and peers in the industry that I know have shared their secrets with me and given me many great ideas along the way to solve most of my problems with discus. I would like to take this opportunity to say a big thank you to them.



Thank You Colin for taking your time for this interview and time for the DFS members....
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Re: Colin Heng 9th National Discus Competition, Grand Champion

Post by Poddan » 11 May 2008, 16:59

Great jobb , Daniel and Colin.

Really liked that interview.

Some question for Colin

The competition fish, is this always breeding materia or is they also for sale?
Guess the fisk is worth money in both cases.

I read that you started your line with Wilds.
Have you been tempted to try out Heckel ?
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Re: Colin Heng 9th National Discus Competition, Grand Champion

Post by Alex » 11 May 2008, 22:42

Excellent! Really nice interview!

Thanks Colin for taking time for answering interesting questions! :hura3:
/Alexander Ylipää
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Re: Colin Heng 9th National Discus Competition, Grand Champion

Post by colin » 12 May 2008, 12:41

Hi Poddan,

It is for sale but if the interested party can't meet my price,I will use it for breeding.

I have never tried crossing a heckel because I felt that the fifth bar was just too distracting.I have seen a cross between a heckel and a turquoise.It is as ugly as sin.But thats just me,having good taste is not my strong point. :lol:

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Re: Colin Heng 9th National Discus Competition, Grand Champion

Post by Matte_g » 12 May 2008, 12:47

Thanks Colin for a very Good interview.

Can you give some pointers on how to detect the most comon disease`s early,, What do you look for?

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Re: Colin Heng 9th National Discus Competition, Grand Champion

Post by Dizkuz » 12 May 2008, 13:29

colin wrote:Hi Poddan,

It is for sale but if the interested party can't meet my price,I will use it for breeding.

I have never tried crossing a heckel because I felt that the fifth bar was just too distracting.I have seen a cross between a heckel and a turquoise.It is as ugly as sin.But thats just me,having good taste is not my strong point. :lol:
:garv: Colin, you just broke poddans heart... Heckelcross is one of his favorite "strain" of discus and he is on warpath for some of them...
But i think u are right on that kind of cross, :shys:
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Re: Colin Heng 9th National Discus Competition, Grand Champion

Post by colin » 12 May 2008, 17:29

I'm sorry poddan...don't mean to be insensitive...but that prominent bar is something either you like it or you don't,looks great on a heckel but on a hybrid...hmmm?.But the point here is not whether who think is beautiful or not but the fact that you are trying to cross a heckel (the most difficult wild to get into breeding mode) and if you are successful in crossing it,I think everyone will be interested to see and also want to know what difficulties you faced,me included.

Matte,

The three most common sickness is internal parasite,external parasite and bacterial infection.In fact,these are the only three problems I face.So in my medicine chest there are metrodinazole,pottasium permaganate and anti-biotic.

I mix 400mg of metro to 1 kg of beefheart which I routinely feed to my discus for 10 days every 3 months.I do not have a problem for white feaces because of this practice.

If you see slime or velvet on your discus or all your discus suddenly group together in one corner,that is the beginning of the slime disease.2 to 3 ml of PP (make stock solution by super saturating it in distilled water) to 100 litres of water for 24 hours.You can see the slime falling to the bottom of the tank in what looks like purple flakes.Change water the next day,dose again if they are still slimming.Normally you can solve this by the 3rd day.If you still see slime on the 4th day,stop PP and start on an anti-biotic treatment for 12 days.I stop PP because if I continue with it,it wears the discus down too much.Please note that the discus will not die from the disease but from the slime it secretes into the water (this means,even without medication,if I were to do a 100% water change every 3 hours round the clock,the discus will snap out of this disease in 2 to 3 weeks).Soon the water will be thick with slime and turn very smelly.So you must have an effective filteration running and do a 80% to 100% water change a day and redose anti-biotic to the amount of water you are refilling.

Discus turning dark without slime is usually a bacteria attack.I normally treat it with PP first and if it don't recover,I will start the anti-biotic.

What I have wrote above is the worst case scenario.If detected early,usually one dose of PP will do the job.Even with a bacteria attack if treated early,it will recover on the 3rd day but because you used anti-biotic,you have to go through the full 12 day cycle.That why I will treat with PP first.

Turning dark,slime,listless and loss of appetite.What else is there? :dontknow:

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Re: Colin Heng 9th National Discus Competition, Grand Champion

Post by Poddan » 12 May 2008, 18:18

No worry Colin !

But dont you think I improved Daniels (dizkuz) fish ? :D
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Re: Colin Heng 9th National Discus Competition, Grand Champion

Post by Dizkuz » 12 May 2008, 19:05

Poddan wrote:No worry Colin !

But dont you think I improved Daniels (dizkuz) fish ? :D

:garv: i admit. thats a beauty :2tubsup:

Colin, when you use PP. how strong do you do your long term bath, in PPM?
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Re: Colin Heng 9th National Discus Competition, Grand Champion

Post by Janne Josefsson » 12 May 2008, 19:34

Hi there Colin thanks for the interview, very interesting reading :2tubsup:

When you come to the point that PP doesn't work for bacteria, what kind of anti-biotic do you use and what kind of routine and dose do you use for the 12 days treatment...

Cheers Janne

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