saddle on the face

[scott bowler]

this is mostly for LR but others may have some idea. I was looking at bsome fish at ashop the other day and noticed thet they all have the saddle on there face just round the eye. then i came home and can see that some of my fish have the same thing and now on the site i see that others have the same thing. my question is does any one else think this couild be some think to do with water ,food , or nutrition. see i dont remember ever buying a fish like it , but as they have grown i have seen it appear. ill put some pics to show what i mean thanks guys
its like a beak

[Merrilyn]

It's nothing to worry about Scott. It's just an indentation on the face that shows up as the fish matures and bulks up. If you were showing the fish in a fish show, it would be classed as a fault. But in a domestic discus, it's nothing to worry about.

If you plan on breeding those fish, try to find a mate with very straight lines above the nose, so you don't double up on the fault.

The idea is that we try to improve the strain all the time. Breeding out faults is just part of the game.

[the german]

in europe we call it parrot face.
nothing wrong with it
it's just not highest quality fish

[samir]

i had this problem a couple of weeks ago. when my fish went black quite a few developed a very pronounced saddle nose. this has almost gone now. So I did some reading and here's what I found

Shaifullah Yeng's book Penang Discus gives the following reasons
1. an indication of excessive inbreeding or week parents
2. happens after a prolonged illness where fish turn black and produce excessive slime as in my case.
3. Impending hole in head problem
4. intestinal parasites and/or mineral defeciency in food or diet.

Andrew's book Discus The naked truth says
1. happens after discus plague.
2. all cultures done show presence of bacteria
3. chronic infection leads to goldfish eyes
4. not genetic but disease can be transmitted to fry.
5. very difficult to grow back.

my personal opinion is that is probably bacterial. when my fish got sick and went black, i treated one half with antibiotic and one half with metro.

The metro treated recovered in 3 days and some got a very pronounced saddle nosed, which has now almost gone. indentation in the younger fish were more pronounced.
The antibiotic treated did not have a single case of saddle nose but took at least 10 days to recover.

so thats why I feel its bacterial, and it does not look like it will ever fill out entirely.
hth

[the german]

so many reasons??????????????????????????????????????????? ????
Shaifullah Yeng say's its genetic or ill or have parasites????
i can write a book when i had so many reasons for everything!
you should read dieter untergasser!
he's a european discus guru and in my opinion the most helpfull
guy i ever met!!!!!!!!!
he's there for you when you need him.
i agree 100% with ladyred,it's genetic and you can get it out when you cross them with non sattlenose(or parrot) discus.

[scott bowler]

thanks guys and thank you LR . the fish are very healthy just this beak but is ok so thats fine .thanks again

[samir]

In this case I do not agree with you, I'm just sharing information thats available from two very experienced discus keepers. Of course they could be entirely wrong but in my opinion they are not. nobody knows everything, we learn by experience and sharing information.
IMO South East Asians are the world's premier discus breeders and I have a lot to learn, so I read and read and read :P You can ignore Shaifullah Yeng at you own peril :lol:

[the german]

no samir i didn't say all what this guy's say is wrong but how can it be that there are severeal reasons for this thing??
genetic or illnes?
makes no sense to me.
i think there don't know what saddlenose come from so there guess.
south asians are good in breeding but there also dont care about the consequences who are the result of F12 inbreeds!!
nobody knows all :D
and we all have to learn especially from our mistakes :(

[samir]

my bd male has got it too after the illness. I got it as an adult fish and have had him for more than 6 months. it has fathered three batches. none of the fry had saddle nose at 6cm . it would be strange for a genetic trait to manifest itself after 2 years.

[the german]

there will be a reasom for that thats for sure.
but i just can't understand it.
so you say it "grow's"on an adult discus?
and is there any change on it after the fish is free of any illnes?

[the german]

+ the philosphy of the asian discus breeders is sell sell sell
quantity before quality

[DiscusEden]

Surely if we don't know the exact progress of each disease process, there can be more than one cause for a physical problem? That's like arguing that there's only one cause for fever because it's silly to look for more.

At the moment it sounds like we're describing observed symptoms and trying to make links without understanding the pathological process, so we should be listening to anyone with vast experience and the intelligence to note the connections. To ignore information because it comes from asia doesn't seem wise, but each to their own....

[the german]

no no i don't ignore..
i'm just wondering how somebody can say it can come from illnes or from genetic faults or from mineral defeciency.
sounds to me like he dont't know where from.
i don't wont to argu with you guys in the forum i only say that it sounds
weired to me what Shaifullah Yeng say's about the parrot's nose.

[scott bowler]

samir did your fish get ill before this happened ? the brown was a ill it was velvet , i had trouble getting rid of it but it seems well now and has been for some time . as for the ss i have had no probs with it. it has been one of the best fish i have had and i have had it from about 6cm it a lot bigger then that now and no probs at all . thank you for looking it to it for me .ill be reading from those books my self now and see what else we can come up with . scott

[samir]

yes it happened recently after my water change episode. a couple of them had dents right up to their eyes. i was shocked. I've been reading up on this. I would have probably put up the same question you asked. i feel its something to do with diet or infection. I'm leaning towards the latter. Andrew says in his book on page 20, that two bacteria, Aeromonas sobrio and Mycobacterium were present in all cases, though he does not say that its definitely a bacterial cause.
maybe someone with access to a fish friendly vet can shed some light on it ??
then again it could just be genetic :? there's not too much research done on ornamental fish anyways

[scott bowler]

yeah i know that but that is why we are here isnt it so we can get together and come up with the hard ones and try and fix it , i love this site great learning experince we can all do with a little help some time and this is were we can get it . so thank you samir we will keep up the good work

[endless]

Asian breeders rule. They produce quality fish in large quantities at a relatively cheap price. Isnt that in itself a definition of a successful breeder.


+ the philosphy of the asian discus breeders is sell sell sell
quantity before quality

In order to sell sell sell there must be people that are willing to buy buy buy. And if there are people willing to buy buy buy, I guess the product cant be too bad. Just look at this forum alone, most of us are enthusiasts and are not willing to settle for second best, yet nearly 100% of the discus which are not locally breed are from Asia.... go figure.

btw Samir, Isnt metro an antibiotic?

[samir]

yup metro is an antibiotic, what i meant was the ones treated with tetracycline did not get the bump. back home when one said antibiotic it was automatically assumed to be tetracycline,because that was the only one we ever saw :lol:

regarding the sell sell sell, yes they are some that do that, but its connected to economic conditions not what they are. You will be surprised how much Asians love their fish. You probably have not been in contact with too many of them. I think its that passion they have for fish, combined with their intelligence that makes them so successful.