ABOVE: My first PA loudspeaker
ABOVE: My third Hong Hong hatchery
MY FRIENDS
Something about me...引言及自傳...
I celebrated my 69th birthday last month (April, 2019). It was in 1982 when I received the first letter from my mentor Dr. Eduard Schmidt-Focke. In it he wrote he is a retired, 69 years old gynecologist living in Bad Homburg, West Germany. What a coincidence that I am starting to write about discus at the same age of 69.
I was borned in Guangzhou, China. My parents brought me to Hong Kong in 1951. I was already collecting fishes and shrimps nearby my kindergartin when I was five years old and tried to keep them in all sorts of containers at home. I spent my high school years in a home resembling a zoo. We had cats, dogs, birds and turtles in the apartment.
I entered the University of Hong Kong to study biology in 1970 with the intention to learn about breeding orchids. After graduation three years later, I went everyday after work to hunt for exotic tropical fish on Mercer Street, Central District, HK Island.
My adventure with discus began in 1980 when I purchased my first pair of Red Royal Blue from Thailand. I was a hobbyist in the beginning years. Like everybody else, I was keeping the fish at home. In 1986 soon after my son Edward was born, I decided to become a professional discus breeder. Together with my good friend, Mr. Ng Ching Yung (nicknamed Rocky by Marc Weiss), we made a small hatchery in Tin Wan. I named our company World Wide Fish Farm.
I built a total of four farms to mass culture discus. The first three were located in Hong Kong. The fourth, which was also the largest, was built in Taichung, Taiwan. Its construction took a year and was completed in early 1997. Within a month we moved my discus business over there.
In 2005 I said farewell to discus because I have not been able to breed any new varieties for a few years already. Rocky had also retired three years ago. It was time to move on. Too early to retire, I went to America to chase my dream in audio which has been a passion since childhood. I was soon busy manufacturing high end speakers and cables.
But I was becoming too old to be in active business when I was approaching 60. In order to be successful, I had to travel every month to sell and promote my new products. Making speakers was also hard work. They are big and their parts are heavy. I decided to retire and went back to live in Taichung, Taiwan in early 2009.
Besides teaching my student Leo Law, who took over the farm when I went to America in 2005, I have very little to do with discus and was having a peaceful life in growing orchids, enjoying music and studying Buddhism.
I joined Facebook in 2017 and was soon connected back with the discus.
I was expecting to see a lot of new and exciting hybrids but found nothing. First class fishes are still rare. There is also a general regression in the quality of the discus. To my great disappointment, nearly all the popular tank raised varieties are Pigeon Blood offspring.
Dr.eduaRd Schmidt-Focke
Mentor & good friend
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Ng ching yung rocky
WWFF partner
From the many photos I saw on FB, people are pairing every variety of discus together. Experience tells me most of these random hybridizations are going to produce useless offspring. It is sad to realize nobody understands the inheritance of our beloved fish.
The discus is a flat, round chiclid that lives in the Amazon River basin. Its beauty, its regal appearance give discus the name "King of the Aquarium". Discus also has a reproduction biology that is unique in fish: the larvae survive by feeding on the skin cells of their parents. A breeding pair of discus with the parasitic larvae swimming around them like a swarm of flies is a unique sight to behold.
Ever since the discus was described by Johann Heckel in 1840, it has always been a rare aquarium fish. In addition to being very sensitive to the environment, it also has several crippling diseases to make the discus a very tricky fish in captivity. Breeding has always been very difficult. Nearly all the adults carry parasites which are transmitted to the offspring during brooding. Most of the larvae die very quickly after infection.
I have done a lot of pioneering work during my long years of association with discus that was necessary to make the business successful. The first decade was focused on its culture and then switched over to the study of its inheritance in the later years.
In order to save labor and to prevent transmission of diseases, I was experimenting to automate my hatchery as early as in 1986. After working hard for several years, I was able to convert our discus hatchery into a mass production factory in the early 1990s.
My genetic studies gave birth to many new color varieties which were used extensively in hybridization worldwide. It is true to say every single hybrid discus that are swimming in tanks around the world nowadays has genes from my strains.
I must say I am most fortunate to have the opportunity of working with many extremely talented friends. Dr. Eduard Schmidt-Focke, Mr. Frank Hoff, Mr. Masao Kitano, Mr. Y Inouye, Mr. Marc Weiss, Mr. Manfred Göbel, Mr. Jörg Schütz, Mr. Dieter Untergasser, Dr. Lin Zu Quon, Mr. Chen Yi Zhong, Mr. Lau Kam Keung and Mr. Zhang Kuan Hua have all contributed a lot to my success.
The discus brings back a lot of good memories. It has made my life interesting. I am happy that I made the right decision to study biology in 1970. The irony is I have bred no orchids till now, only a million discus instead!
mASAO KITANO
Japanese business partner
It is now the time to share my discus knowledge with the next generation before I get too old to write. I hope breeders and hobbyists alike could benefit from my work. Now I can finally tell everybody the true story of what has been going on inside World Wide Fish Farm during all those years of its existence.
Lastly, I must thank my friends for supplying me with photos of their beautiful discus, namely: Dr. Eduard Schmidt-Focke, Germany; Manfred Göbel, Germany; Jörg Schütz, Germany; Has Mayland, Germany; A. Pieter, Germany; Mr. Burkard Kahl, Germany; Rev. Rolf Schulten, Germany; Mr. Marc Weiss of Discus Study Group, USA; Mr. Masahiro Uemura of Pet Balloon, Japan; Mr. Fumitoshi Mori, Japan; Mr. Masahiro Kariba of Kumamoto Tropical Fish, Japan; Mr. Sadaaki Hachiya of Discus Arrow, Japan; Mr. Hiroshi Irie of Göbel Study Group, Japan; Mr. Mizukoski Yoshinori, Japan; Pisces members, Japan; Justin Chen, Taiwan and the publisher of: Discus Annual '93-'94, Japan; Aqua Navi Spring vol. 04, Japan; F.T.F.I, USA; Tropical Fish Hobbist, USA; The Chinese edition of Tropical Fish Hobbyist, Hong Kong.
MARC WEISS
WWFFUSA Sales Manager
Manfred
Göbel
Best friend