Hi, we are Tony and Clare. We are African Cichlid breeder's based in the seaside town of Bridlington, East Yorkshire and have been keeping and breeding Malawi Cichlids for much of our adult lives. We currently have 100+ tanks of stock and specialise in breeding Aulonocara (Peacocks) and produce some of our own selectively bred red peacocks including "firefish", "eureka" and "OB fire's". We also breed many other species of cichlid from both Lake Malawi and Lake Victoria. 

    
We approached C.E Fish Essential's a couple of months ago for a high quality feed for our breeding programme and after detailed conversation about our fish requirements and what we need from a food product we purchased some stock feed to try.

When it arrived it was still frozen and whilst putting it away in the freezer I decided to open one of the packs and try the fish on it to see if they liked it. I put the food in the tank whilst still frozen and noticed it sank straight away. This told me instantly that I had bought 100% fish food and not fish food with ice (as it is the frozen water in frozen food that causes the floating and not the food). As for the fish they went absolutely berserk over it, Mbuna and hap's alike. The way it is produced we found it is good for all size fish from two week old fry right through to large adult Hap's with no need to mess around breaking the food up for the smaller fish. 

We now use this food alongside our regular staple granule food and our fish seem to be thanking us for it.

We have mentioned C.E. Fish Essentials to some of our customers and they too are giving good report's back with their findings with this food.

Gregory Day is a person who can only be described as a 'fish freak'. He is absolutely in love with all of the wonderful rare, interesting and unusual species which are becoming more and more available to the UK hobby by the day. He keeps several highly sought after species including P13 and P14 stingrays, golden Arowana, wild Heckel discus and several others as well as these captivating wild Parancistrus Aurantiacus which originate from the Rio Araguaia, Brazil. Below are photo's of the actual parent fish submitted by popular discus fish retailer Matthew Boardman of Manchester Discus, whom Gregory purchased the fish from thanks to Francis Hu at Chens Discus who imported 2 pairs (both taken by Gregory).

 
              Male (left)                           Female (right)
 

Gregory feeds all of his fish with C.E. Fish Essentials foods and varying dried foods. He finds that his Parancistrus Aurantiacus also enjoy stealing C.E. Discus Professional food from his discus fish and reject foods such as courgette. The ideal food for this species is C.E. Pleco Carnivore.

In the photo above you see the male Parancistrus Aurantiacus guarding the fry. Previously, the male had also rejected some of the eggs which Gregory was able to save (see below). They are currently housed in an egg tumbler device which Gregory had to improvise and the first few fry have begun to hatch. 

   

We have uploaded a video to the C.E. Fish Essentials Youtube account to document this wonderful achievement by Gregory and would like to wish him the very best of luck! Congratulations from us here at C.E. Fish Essentials.

------------------- Update: 30.04.13 -----------------------

8 fry saved by Gregory are all doing well. No fry found in the cave.


------------------------- Update: 02.05.13 -----------------------

6 days old. Yolk sacks almost completely consumed. 


------------------------- Update: 04.05.13 -----------------------

8 days old.

Here is a little about Chens Discus fom the face of the company Francis Hu.


                Francis Hu (left)                                  Chris Englezou (Right)

"My brother and myself started keeping tropical fish when we were kids and moved on to discus in 1995. We had a few Red Turquoise and Blue Turquoise. Started breeding them a year later and after a lot of unsuccessful attempts succeded in getting a batch of young fry that eventually did not survive. Finally, learning from past mistakes, we successfully bred and raised some beautiful discus fish. We at Chen’s Discus stock more than 700 discus fish starting from 2.5 inch to 7 inch and between 15-25 different strains at any time. We specialise in breeding pairs and we take pride to ensure that our stocks are of the best quality, both in shape and colour. Our main aim of starting Chen’s Discus is to supply new strains and quality discus fish to local breeders and discus hobbist. We pride in supplying quality discus and even guarantee that each and every fish is personally selected by us before we send them to you. Even better, we encourage customers to come and hand pick the discus of their choice. Most fish available are imported from Malaysia and Indonesia"

 

Francis feeds approximately 6+ kilos a day to his extensive collection of fish and this is spread out over the day into approximately 3+ feeds. The fish feed aggressively and grow at a fast rate as a result of regular feeding and the hard work put in to change very large amounts of water on a daily basis.

  

Chen's Discus also stock a generous number of breeding pairs, all of incredible quality and snapped up very quickly!

 

Chens Discus can be contacted via their website here.

 

Last week, some of the team took a trip over to the mediterranean to visit one of the largest wholesale aquatic distribution companies on the island of Cyprus. CH.A.KY Aquaristik LTD is based on a large industrial estate in Aradippou on the outskirts of the city of Larnaca and is one half of two companies owned by Mr Panikos Christodoulou and co-managed alongside his son Andreas. The sister company is their equally large pet supplies establishment  'The Scarlet Macaw Pet House' and retails a vast array of foods medications, toys and other necessities for pets. 

CH.A.KY houses hundreds of well stocked aquaria with a large variety of both freshwater and marine fish species including a generous collection of African Rift Valley Cichlids, large Central and South American cichlids (including a section for discus fish), loricariidae and a generous assortment of oddballs including freshwater moray eels, black ghost knife fish, puffer fish, albino clawed frogs and many others!

Standard of care, quality of fish and cleanliness of the aquaria were of a good standard here, even down to their Siamese Fighting Fish cabinet which contained a few hundred individual jars each hosting a Betta Spendens in good condition, with clean water and generally appearing happy (sadly this is not a common occurrence in many places). Alongside their collection of all the classic favourites there is no doubt this meticulous approach is how they are able to meet the demands of an evergrowing proportion of the aquatic retailers across the island.

Our visit here truly was a breath of fresh air and our continuing negotitations will hopefully see C.E. Fish Essentials products in wide distribution within the beautiful Island of Cyprus very soon.

We took a trip at the beginning of this month to visit Tjorvi (Churvi) Einarsson. Tjorvi and his wife own an exotic pet shop in Iceland's capital city Reykjavic where they keep a large varietyof Aquatic species from Marine fish & Invertebrates to freshwater species of all kinds. On the other side of the store is a doorway into the bird section where they keep breeding Macaws (with vocal chords that will knock your block off), Amazonian parrots, African grey parrots, finches, cockatiels, cockatoos and some beautifully patterned and even rare bird species.

 
Tjorvi is somewhat of a pioneer of exotic pet keeping in Iceland as he has been the first to convince the Icelandic customs authorities to allow the import of quite a few creatures including insects (previously not permitted), amphibians (including Dendrobatidae) and more.

 

 

Tjorvi's relationship with his pets and the treatment and care of all the animals was first class. He advocates feeding only the best to his fishy and feathered friends (as you can see below).

 

We hope to have products in circulation in Iceland before the end of the year!

Said Chris, "I am very grateful to all our customers and readers of practical fishkeeping magazine for voting us not only in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2011 and again this year as well’. Winning this award once again just underlines our commitment to customer service, this time, next time, and every time. Our customers are the most important part of our business, so we must be doing something right"

Plymouth Discus Products are also the home of Discus Delights, the gourmet discus hamper pack, which is their own brand. Another own brand is Wormer plus, the aquatic wormer, fluke and parasite killer. Wormer plus can also be easily added into C.E Beefheart for easy feeding once defrosted. They also sell the discus pro cone cage guards and a host of other discus goodies that you will never see in a normal high street shop. Plus they sell the whole range of C.E foods on their online shop.

The main website for Plymouth Discus Products is www.plymouthdiscus.co.uk and their home page has plenty of helpful advice for the discus keeper. Plus pictures of their Far East trips, and a page dedicated to Chris’s book, Discus World.

 
Above Left: Discus World Book         Above Right: Chris Ingham in Taiwan

Chris Ingham signs a copy of 'Discus World' for the famous author Bernd Degen