Prior to my November 2002 vacation trip to Taiwan, I emailed one of my
internet penpals, Willie Loh.  He recommended that I visit Shining Discus
Studio while I was in Taipei. Coincidentally, one of my aquatic plant keeping
friends, Neil Frank, lent me his copy of AquaPets, a Taiwan published
aquarium magazine and in the December 2001 issue was an article about
Shining Discus Studio.  Our first attempts to contact the owners were
not successful; later, we found out that most of the aquarium shops in
Taipei, do not open until 2:00pm in the afternoon.  The Shining Discus
Studio is owned by Chang Pei-Chi, but he told me he goes by the
name Weng Jui-Hui now.  He and his wife run the business.  They also
have Asian Arowanas and a few of the luo han "lucky flower horn" fish.
Unfortunately, I do not know the 'official names' of the varieties of
discus which they had for sale.  Maybe someday I can ask them. :-)

(click on the small photos below for an enlarged view - note that the enlarged view
will be in a new window; close the new window first before proceeding to the next
small photo, or else the new window will be hidden from view.)

 

These are two photos of myself (on the left) with Mr. Weng. If you look
at the photo on the left, you'll notice the trophies that he has won
including several from Duisburg (he was the Best In Show in 1996).  In the
photo on the right, he can be seen in on the poster as winning the 1996
Duisburg show.  His wife was very nice and served us tea while we
waited for Mr.  Weng to show up.  I didn't buy any discus, but I did buy two
books; Discus in Taiwan and Malaysia Discus.  I was glad that they
allowed me to take photos of their fish.  Wille told me these two used to
be dance instructors.  Mrs. Weng doesn't like her photo taken, but she
reminds me of that Hong Kong actress, Maggie Cheung.  My father
took these photos.  Mrs.  Weng told me that due to the slumping
economy, many discus breeders in Taipei have gone out of business.

 

These two look like a variation of a blue Snake skin.  Many of the tanks held
several varieties of discus mixed in together and I had to wait until the ones
I liked would 'pose' (sometimes discus can really be unfriendly to
photographers!).

 

The red fish in both of these photos look like Rose Reds.  According to the
book, Malaysia Discus, Rose Reds were created by Mr. Chew Beng Taik
by crossing an F1 Wild Green with the Virgin Red discus in 1993 and
introduced to the market in 1994.  They have been bred to show no
stress bars.

 

I was trying to get the snake skin discus in these two photos.  According to
Malaysia Discus, Snake skins were discovered in 1993 by Mr. Ronnie
Teoh as being discus with 14 stress bars and having very fine lines.
Another discus breeder, Ah Liang, also had some Snake skin discus and
from many buyers and breeders crossing these early fish, thus have
the many variations of the Snake skin discus become available today.
Personally, I like the leopard and golden Snake skins the best.

 

The fish on the left is a Red-White discus (I hadn't seen one of these
before my trip to Shining Discus.  In the book, Malaysia Discus, in
1995 Mr. Robert Chin found that a few of the offspring of Wild
Brown discus had a transparent body - when these grew up, they
become colorless and were white discus.  White discus have been
crossed with many other varieties like the Marlboro Red to produce
The Red-White.  There's one wild discus in the photo on the right.

 

The fish on the left side are mostly Snake skins, but the pinkish one has
some red spots (more like splattering) on its sides.  I thought the photo
on the right is cute because that one blue fish is surrounded by the
white ones.

 

Yes, I know these are not discus, but since it's next to impossible to
get Asian arowanas in the USA (because they are protected by
CITES as an endangered species), I always like to stop and take
a look at the golden and red Asian Arowanas.  Mr. Weng
showed us that the scales have a different "look" depending on the
angle of the lighting.  In Taipei, we saw some new 'platinum'
Asian arrowanas that were being sold for $7,500.00US at a size
of about 12" (about 30cm)!  There's nothing wrong with the eye on
the fish on the left - it's reflecting the glare of the flash!

 

These last two photos are from the AquaPets article.  It is the December
2001 issue.  The photo on the left is Mrs. Weng and the photo on the right
is of the store front.  In the large tank in the front window, they had discus
and even some altum angelfish.  Their store is located about a block away
from the Confucious Temple - and a short ride from the Grand Hotel.  I had
Mr. Weng sign the profile of them in the Discus in Taiwan book and the
AquaPets magazine article.  The Wengs do not have internet access
nor their own website yet, but I hope someday they will be able to
visit this webpage.
 

Unless specified, these photos were taken by Walter Wu and these are not for public distribution
(ie. posted on other websites) without permission.

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