Every now and again you get to sit around and listen to people put together a timeline of some facet of aquarium history and few were the great source of mystery that breeding discus turned out to be. Unique among fishes the young fish eat a slime on the side of the parents body when very young and initially all attempts to raise them on anything else failed.
Soon photos began to circulate showing proud parents with as swarming feeding fry, these were significant milestones in both the raising of captive fish and our understanding of the diversity of Piscene reproduction.
This then the result of a discussion with Marc Weiss, Bobby Ellerman and Mo Devlin that began when Mo found an article by Gene Wolfsheimer that talked about breeding discus for the first time.
Marc Weiss recalled that "Discus spawned for Barrett in the 1920's. None were raised though." and added "There are some old, hard to understand references that Takase may have bred them in Brazil in the 20's too, but so far I can't confirm."
Bobby Ellerman adds:
The first to spawn and raise discus was Gustav Armbruster of Philadelphia in 1935.
The first to discover and publish that discus fry fed off the parents' bodies was Herbert Hartel, son of Hermann Hartel, of the legendary Hartel tropical fish breeding firm in Leipzig. He successfully bred and raised them in the late 30's and wrote about the slime coat feeding of the fry in "Wochenschriften" in 1940. Because of WWII, this groundbreaking discovery went virtually unnoticed, certainly in the US.
Other Germans bred discus and raised them around that time but not many (Hoffmann, Beirlein (?)).
Dodd in Portland bred and raised 100's in the late 1940's and even mentioned the fry on the parents' sides without realizing they were feeding.
Lois Sahion raised 100's in the early 50's in St. Louis on strained live bbs.
Merserve in Boston in 1955 or 1956 successfully raised discus and reported in "The Aquarium" magazine that the fry fed off the adults. No one noticed his report. He had no photos.
Wolfsheimer bred F1 discus from Saphion in 1956 and he took the first PHOTOS of discus fry feeding off the parents.
Schmidt-Focke brought up the rear and bred browns in 1955-1956 and was not sure what the fry were feeding on on the parents' bodies. He published his first discus article in 1956. His discus fame will come later, after the pioneers.
