Brilliant Blue

[Steve-o]

What do you think of my Brilliant Blue discus... I believe its a female. What do you think?

http://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg74/guitarkid1545692/100_0571.jpg

[Hollowman]

Hi Steve.

I would say it is not a Brilliant, to me it is something like a Coblat. Brilliant's have full body markings that run in horizontal lines fron head to tail.
Looking at the head, it looks like it has quite a few nasty scars and pitting due to HITH, sometimes on blue fish like this the pitting can end up leaving scars for life. It also looks to be a little 'beaky' and the forehead looks very sharp or pinched making me think it needs to be on a better diet. Discus that are healthy have softly rounded foreheads, not pinched. Feed it up. The eye is not the best colour, it should be a bright blood red, although the size of the eye is not too bad right now for the age of the fish, again proper feeding will keep it in proportion.
Looking at the dorsal fin, it appears to have a scar where the first hard ray should be, this gives the fish a very abrupt transition from the forehead into the fin. There should be 9 hard rays here, I can only count 7. Also, the 8th and 6th hard rays look odd because they are too long.
The anal and caudal fins look ok. Still a young fish judging by the length of the pectoral fins though.
Overall impression of the colouration of the fish, for me is poor. A Cobalt should have a more striking lined face with a solid blue body. I would guess this is some sort of cross throwback.

Having said all that, I think that with proper care and good food and proper water parameters this fish will grow into a nice pet fish in your tank. This fish is still young and some of the negative points I have made 'can' improve with age and growth, this will be down to you Steve.

I will post a couple of pics of a Brilliant and a Cobalt so you know how they differ. The Cobalts were a freind of mine's fish which I photographed.

[Hollowman]

Note in the above pics, the blood red eyes.

Under is a pic of a Brilliant from our show last November. I hope you can see the difference.

hth

h :)

[Steve-o]

Hey Hollowman, I really appreciate your knowledge. I was wondering if it was a true brilliant or not... breeder said it was... then again he gave me this fish for free! as far as the scars and pitting due to HITH... what is HITH. :oops: is there anything i can do for the scaring? also you said he needs a better diet... i feed my 5 discus 4-5 times a day... at every feeding they get a cube of beefheart and they also get a cube of bloodworms, white worms, brine shrimp, or freeze dried tubiflex worms... i thought i was giving them a nice balanced diet :( . what can i do to help improve my beloved discus? how should i change the diet?

[Hollowman]

Hi Steve, looking at the diet, it sounds ok. (although I would drop the Tubifex) By feeding that much I am hoping that you remove any uneaten food within half to 3/4 of an hour.
I see you have gravel as a substrate, this can, if you are not cleaning regularly, harbour all the uneaten food, which then rots, and lowers the water quality. I would prefer a bare bottom or a very thin layer of sand so cleaning can be made easy. Water changes and keeping good quality water is the best thing you can learn for healthy discus, this will also help to heal up those scars.
HITH (Hole In The Head disease) or Spironucleus/Hexamita is caused by a protozoan that seems to strip the fish of nutrients which leads to the fish turning anorexic and starving. It will often show up as small white puss lumps growing from the head area, quite often around the eyes. It can be treated with Metro as well as F&MG (formalin & Malachite Green), raising the temperature can also help.

How often are you water changing ?

H :)

[Steve-o]

i should have figured out HITH to be hole in the head haha... She has never had Hole in the head when i have had her... shes always had those markings on her head... maybe she had the disease before i got her?... maybe thats y the breeder gave me her for free ha... as far as cleaning up the food remains im very diligent about it although there never seems to be much to spare... they will eat until they pop it seems. and for water changes i do a 25 percent water change 3 times a week using RO water and adding RO Right to it. I will stop feeding the tubifex worms. just curious, why is feeding tubifex a bad idea? i thought it was high in protein and fat

thanks!

[Boyam]

I like her / him. very cute ^^

[Steve-o]

thanks Boyam!