Episode 185 - Colourful Angels

"Angels are all around us, all the time, in the very place we live."

These are two of the Discuses I purchased from the pet shops at Prince Edward recently. The one in the first photo is a Red Turquoise; and the second one is a Pigeon Blood.

When they were first introduced to Hong Kong, Discuses were sold at very high prices. In the light of the profit margin, the tropical fish farmers soon acquired the skill to bred these fishes locally. Save for those newly developed species, the prices of the discuses have now dropped to a reasonable and affordable level.

Local people like to call the discuses the "Colourful Angels" and consider them to be one kind of Angle Fishes. While both the Discuses and the common Angel Fishes belong to the Cichild Family, it may not be correct to consider discuses as one variety of Angel Fishes. In any event, this is what they are being called here.

All the "Angels" hid behind the plants as soon as I released them into the fish tank. They even refused to eat anything in the first week and I worried that they would soon become angels. I tried to keep the environment quiet and treated the "Angels" with frozen worms. It worked! They are now swimming leisurely in the tank and will ask for food as soon as I walk close to the tank. Apart from worms, I also feed them with flake type fish food. I learned that the discuses can be fed with certain kind of hamburger - with cow's heart and shrimp as the main ingredient. That's why the discuses in some pet shops are so fat!

I keep some neon tetras with the "Angels" and they appear to be living together peacefully. Occasionally, the "Angels" would quarrel and fight among themselves - annoying but acceptable.