Discus Hybridization 2: Blue Strains
七彩神仙之繁殖 2: 藍品種
Blue Turquoise
Blue turquoise is the first step in the evolution of blue hybrid discus. The fish has wide turquoise stripes to cover up at least 75% of the whole body. The stripes sometimes fuse together to form solid patches on the fins and the periphery of the body. Iridescence of the turquoise color is not too strong in these early strains. A great number of them have an oval body and short fins.
Above: Schulten Blue Turqoise, photo
courtesy of Rev. Rolf Schulten, Germany
Above: The "German Turquouise"
The blue turquoise appeared for the first time in Germany during the mid-late 1960s which were the descendants of wild dicus caught from the Rio Purus. Rev. Rolf Schulten was the most famous blue turquoise breeder at that time. He developed a very good strain with wide turquoise blue stripes on the whole body which extend into the middle of the long dorsal and anal fins. The head and operculum have a very good masking of fine turquoise lines. The turquoise stripes fuse into solid patches in the middle of the body in the best males. They do not have a dark band on the dorsal and anal fins. In their positions are many fine, backward slanting turquoise stripes. Some of the biggest males also have a streamer on the dorsal fin.
The females have a narrow black band on their dorsal and anal fins which are partially masked on the inside by an almost complete ring of turquoise. The dark red fringes of boths fins are embellished with many fine, oblique turquoise stripes. The pelvic fins are dark red.
The pointed mouth, the high fins and the oval body form is good evidence that the Schulten strain was developed from Rio Purus Discus.
Most of the early blue strains contained blood from the Schulten strain. They eventually became Brilliant Turquoise after being worked on for many years by the German breeders.
"German Turquoise" is the collective name for a type of hybrid having a history going back to at least 40 years. Its distinguishing feature is the full body striation of vivid, thick and parallel stripes that can be as wide as 5-6 mm. In the best specimens, the turquoise stripes are so vivid they appear to be painted onto the fish's body by an artist. Body color varies from brown to a deep red. They are big discus reaching15-18 cm at maturity. The body form is well rounded and the finnage is excellent.
I do not know how the varieties of "German Turquoise" were created but I strongly believe the main ancestor is the Schulten strain. Dr. Schmidt-Focke had specimens of this variety as early as in 1983. The batch of medium size discus we purchased from Aquarium Glaser in 1982 belonged to this variety. They are the ancestors of several of our most beautiful and popular strains. The Wattley's strain no. 3 sold by the Hirose Company in Japan and the six Wattley's Turquoise of the 15th inbred generation we purchased in 1982 are all "German Turquoise".
Above: An early generation offspring of the Jesiorsy pair, photo
courtesy of Mr. Manfred Göbel, Germany
Above: Schmidt-Focke Blue Turquoise in the early 1970s,
photo courtesy of Dr. Schmidt-Focke, Germany
A Brilliant Turquoise has a 100% solid turquoise color body and fins. The basic brown body color is found only in the form of short stripes on the head and operculum.
The earliest public display of Brilliant Turquoise was during the Darmstadt discus show held in 1971 or '72. Visitors were amazed by the tank of a dozen completely solid turquoise discus. The whole discus appears to be green or blue according to the light's incident angle. Only a few streaks of the brown body color are found on the head and operculum. Iridescence of the turquoise color is so bright they appear to glow inside the aquarium. The abdomen as well as the fringe of the dorsal and anal fins are orange red. A black band in the middle of both fins acts as an excellent contrast to the solid turquoise body. A painter gave them the name Brilliant Turquoise when he saw them at the show.
Brilliant Turquoise is the name used to describe the extremely rare solid turquoise specimen, not a strain. In those early days, all such discus were males and only a few could be found inside a brood of Blue Turquoise. We created the world's first Brilliant Turquoise strain in 1986—WB8 Flach Cobalt—which has 95% solid turquoise discus in a brood.
According to Dr. Schmidt-Focke, all Brilliant Turquoise came from a pair of wild discus that was caught in the Rio Purus. Mr. A. Jesiorsy in Bad Schwalbach was selling the offspring of this unique pair with greenish blue stripes to German breeders in the 1960s. The doctor, Klaus Eckert, Rev. Neff, Rev. Schulten and others purchased them. The evolution into Brilliant Turquoise was slow. The Jesiorsy pair only produced 10% offspring with good color. The doctor wrote to me the first Brilliant Turquoise has a full body striping on top of which is a turquoise film to give it the appearance of a solid color body. After working for many years, all breeders were all able to produce their own, much improved Brilliant Turquoise strain. Rev. Schulten was the first to succeed who was followed very closely by Dr. Schmidt-Fokce.
Schmidt-Focke Brilliant Turquoise
Dr. Schmidt-Focke developed his Brilliant Turquoise strain from the Jesiorsy fish mainly through inbreeding and also by an occasional outcross with other Blue Turquoise, especially specimens from the Eckert strain. This strain is generally regarded as the best Brilliant Turquoise due to its exceptional iridescence.
Klaus Eckert Brilliant Turquoise
Klaus Eckert's strain is also descendants of the Jesiorsy pair which most probably has been outcrossed with Blue Turquoise from other breeders. The doctor told me Klaus had bred his strain for ten generations until he stopped in 1985. Klaus' Brilliant Turquoise is very similar to the doctor's. Both strains have the same slightly long body and 13 cm maximum length. There are deep red streaks on the dorsal and anal fins which add considerably to their charm and beauty.
Above: Schmidt-Focke Brilliant Turquoise
Above: Klaus Ecket's Brilliant Turquoise, photo
courtesy of Dr. Schmidt-Focke, Germany
Manfred Gobel obtained his first brilliant turquoise in a different way. In 1965 he purchased four half size discus from Tropicarium Buchschlag, the company of Dr. Eduard Schmidt-Focke's brother, Hans Schmidt. He did not know whether these discus were wild caught or tank raised. The fishes grew up to have a grey green film over a light brown body that look very similar to Green Discus from the Rio Putumayo.
Manfred Gobel exchanged some F2 generation fishes of this green strain with Rev. Schulten to obtain the priest's blue strain in 1969. By crossing both strains together he developed his old blue strain in 1971. In the same year, he was able to produce the F3 gneration from his Green strain. When they matured in 1972, the brood had a small number of solid color specimens which are Manfred's first Brilliant Turquoise.
Above: Green Discus from Tropicarium Buchschlag
, photo courtesy of Mr. Manfred Göbel, Germany
Above: Manfred's 1st Brilliant Turquoise, photo
courtesy of Mr. Manfred Göbel, Germany
In the ealy 1980s Jack Wattley brought to Germany some giant discus as a gift to Dr. Schmidt-Focke. The doctor did not like these almost colorless discus. He gave them to a friend Mr. Koch who was living in Mainz at the time. Mr. Koch succeeded to breed one of them with an excellent blue striped female. Mr. Klaus Schmitt, a friend of Manfred, purchased 3 specimens of the hybrid from Mr. Koch but he failed to breed them. By an exchange of discus Manfred obtained a male from Klaus which he used to cross with a lot of his bloodlines. In 1989 Manfred hybridized this fish with his 1971 old blue strain. In the F1 generation of this cross was a high body striated specimen which he called "Giant Discus" even though it was only about 15 cm long. Hower, offspring from this fish grew to 20 cm in our hatchery. He also found out in later years that high body individuals only appear in every other generation.
Above: A sibling of Manfred's Giant Discus, photo
courtesy of Mr. Manfred Göbel, Germany
Above: Manfred's Giant Discus, photo
courtesy of Mr. Manfred Göbel, Germany
Wattley's Turquoise
The Hirose Company, exclusive distributor of Jack Wattley discus in Japan, has been advertising Jack Wattley's Turquoise of the 15th inbreed generation since 1979. However, the Japanese were selling Blue and Brilliant Turquoise as Wattley's Turquoise, not his red, striated original strain. Although he was so interested to obtain Brilliant Turquoise Jack offered a 500 US dollars reward for a solid blue fish from his own strain in a series of advertisements beginning in the December 1969 issue of THE AQUARIUM, however, he was never able to get a single specimen. Having failed to develop his own Brilliant Turquoise, the only option for Jack was to buy it from Germany as soon as he had signed the sales contract with the Hirose Company.
Above: Wattley's Turquoise in the early 1980s
It is generally agreed Brilliant Turquoise was produced in Germany by the collective effort of a group of very dedicated breeders. Jack Wattley played no part at all in its development.
The early Brilliant Turquoise has an elongated body form and short fins. Improved, high fin strains with better iridescence started to appear by 1983 as a result of selection over many generations. It was a slow process that took almost twenty years to complete.
Above: High Body Brilliant Turquoise Bred by Manfred Gobel in the last '80s, photo courtesy of Mr. Manfred Göbel, Germany
Above: Schmidt-Focke High Fin Brilliant Turquoise, photo
courtesy of Dr. Schmidt-Focke. Germany
Cobalt Blue
The cobalt blue color produced by the metal cobalt in glass is a very deep blue which is not very attractive. However, when combined with iridescence on the body of a discus, this color is transformed into a very interesting blue that has depth and sparkle. We call discus with such a color Cobalt Blue.
Turquoise color in discus is a complex optical phenomenon generated by the scales in combination with the iridophores and melanophores. Iridophores contain guanine crystals which break up light to produce a silvery effect. Light is also scattered by diffraction and interference at the minute ridges and grooves on the scales' surface. Together with the selective absorption of melanin inside the melanophores, these effects add up to produce the turquoise color. When the angle of the incident light is changed, the diffraction and interference effects are changed to produce a shift in the balance between the green and blue components of the turquoise color. The iridescence of a discus is controlled by the number of iridophores in its skin and linear rows of small scales. The finer are the scale's indentations, the stronger are the diffraction and interference effects.
A Brilliant Turquoise has a lot of iridophores all over its entire body. A Cobalt Blue has the highest concentration of melanophores in all the blue hybrids. Blue and green components of the turquoise color are absent in an albino discus because one of the key components to generate the turquoise color is missing—melanophores. Therefore, albino versions of Blue Diamond imitations are silvery discus.
Above: Cobalt Blue
The Wall/Seto Cobalt Blue
In 1972 Dr. Charles Wall was selling his Cobalt Blue strain in the USA which was acquired in the previous year from Herman Chan who crossed a Heckel Discus with Blue Discus and obtained a brood of 250 fry. Bing Seto bought out Dr. Wall a few years later and so the fish is known as Watt/Seto Cobalt Blue.
This strain has a strong bluish gray film on the entire fish. The strain has a long body form, a cephalic hump and long dorsal, anal fins. There are wide, wavy, pale blue, non iridescent turquoise stripes on the whole body. The strain does not resemble the German Cobalt Blue but looks quite similar to the Red Royal Blue from Thailand. It has never been a popular variety. The Wall/Seto Cobalt Blue existed in the American market for only a few years
Above: Cobalt Blue bred by Dr. Charles Wall in the USA,
photo courtesy of Tropical Fish Hobbyist, USA
German Cobalt Blue Strains
Cobalt Blue strains already existed in Germany in the early 1980s. I do not know how they were developed. They may be derived from the Schulten blue strain or obtained by crossing wild Royal Blue with Brilliant Turquoise and "German Turquoise".
Above: German Cobalt Blue, Mother of WB8 Flalch Cobalt
Above: Cobalt Blue bred by Dr. Schmidt-Focke in the early '80s
photo courtesy of Dr. Schmidt-Focke, Germany
In 1983 Rocky and I purchased an excellent Cobalt Blue from Dr. Schmidt-Focke which has a nearly solid color body, high fins and blood red eyes. The fish is the only high fin cobalt blue that I have ever seen. Its offspring, the Dragon Seed, are the best Cobalt Blue Discus.
The best cobalt blue discus in our possession was a 11 cm female obtained from the doctor in 1984 as a 6 cm yooungster. It has the deepest and most iridescent cobalt blue color that I have ever seen in my whole life. We used this fish female to make the WB8 Flach Cobalt strain.
Above: German Cobalt Blue, ancestor of WB3 Electric/Iridescent Blue
Above: WB6 Metallic Cobalt
Above: WB22 Blue Diamond
Blue Diamond
The Blue Diamond has a 100% solid body including the fins (dorsal, anal & pelvic), the head as well as the operculum. The nine vertical black bars are absent. It is the evolutionary end point of the blue hybrids.
The original WB22 Blue Diamond strain from World Wide Fish Farm was introduced to the Japanese market in 1990.
The first Blue Diamond imitation is the rather nice Ocean Green from Penang. The strain made its first appearance in 1991 or '92. A few years later, there was a big farm in Indonesia producing a lot of very poor quality Blue Diamond imitation by breeding artificially with egg yolk. Hong Kong breeders hybridized our WB22 with Brilliant Turquoise to make various fake Blue Diamonds known as Blue Cover, Emperor Blue and Blue Angel.
I produced two Blue Diamond type discus from the hybridization of various Cobalt Blue strains in 2002 and '03 which I named WB65 Celestial Cobalt blue and WB66 Neon Cobalt Blue.
The WB65 and WB66 strains are very nice but they do not have the perfect balance between body form and finnage. They also lack the exceptional iridescence of the original WB22 Blue Diamond strain.
Around 2005, the time of my retirement, there appeared in Namtau County, Taiwan a Blue Diamond imitation strain that has a big size of 20 cm. A good specimen won first place in its class at the 2004 International Discus Championship in Duisburg, Germany. I went with my student Leo Law to see the fish in 2006. We saw some nice quality discus in the narrow roadside shop, which might be a hybrid of our WB66 strain. The imperfection of this Namtau variety is the weak iridescence.
Above: WB65 Celestial Cobalt Blue, photo courtesy
of Aqua Navi Spring vol. 04, Japan