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		Cary Strong
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		JE: Do any of your existing strains have special sentimental value for you or which you plan on keeping going? CS: My original snakeskin line which I have been keeping going for 15 years is really quality and is a strong line. Also my original marlboro reds. Ive been building them up by breeding F2 to F1 and working with F3 back crossed to the father. Im going for the best quality fish with strong genetics. JE: Are there any special tips you have out there for the aspiring breeders? CS: Number one ANYONE CAN DO IT! If you start with quality fish and give them plenty of good foods, lots of water changes and good care, they will do great and end up fine. Number two DONT alter parameters. Go with the water you have. Keep up with your WC and you will be fine. Number three CULL! I cull first at 1 inch for body size. That cuts out about 30% of the fry. At 1.5 inch I cull for defects. Most defects are visible at that time. 20% more go at that time. As they hit 2.5 to 3 inches I cull again for color and pattern and anything I missed the first time. That leaves you with 20 to 30 percent REALLY good fish. This way only the best fish are sold or held for future breeders. That last bunch that I cull I do sell to LFS and they are still better than most of the stuff they see. JE: Heres a tough one. If you are kind of burned out and very tired, why stick with it? Would you ever consider getting out all together? Im just testing you here. CS: No. I'll always stick with discus no matter what. I love animals and I love fish. It would be really strange not to have them around. I love discus, even if I do get tired and burned out. Ive also always liked being popular. I guess that comes from where I grew up, but I always like being known and just being popular. JE: Celebrity discus breeder status, right? CS: Pretty much. JE: Any other notes on a busy life you wanted to give us. CS: I did want to go back into the guppies for a minute. I raised and bred them for years and breeding them was a good start to breeding discus. I used to keep 26 strains of guppies in 20 kiddie pools using my RO wastewater, from when I used the RO. I grew some HUGE guppies more like the size of mollies. They became known in Michigan as super guppies. I still have people calling me asking for me to go back into breeding them. JE: Any chance of that? CS: No. I gave up guppies to concentrate on discus and I dont have time for both of them. Speaking of kiddie pools, I have discus in one in my backyard right now. Heckel/Turq crosses. They have grown huge and are really vibrant in color. They eat a ton of mosquito larvae and love them. JE: I just posted recently about wanting to put a pool in my basement and raise discus in it. CS: I read that. I think it would work great, except you obviously cant breed them in the pool you need to be able to get at the young and see what you are working with. If you used it for a grow-out tank, you would do well with it, I think. They have these new fold-out pools that would work also. JE: Any credit you want to give to anyone or any personal comments? CS: I want to thank my wife. She is the best and I couldnt do it without her. She lets me get away with a lot and do what I need to do. She also does a lot of the computer work and accounting to help with the discus, which I am not good at! Thanks for everything, Sue! We will be having a new baby scheduled for October 7th and .. JE: Wow! Congratulations! CS: Thanks. I guess this is an official scoop. I am asking Matt Parsons, who is a great friend and great guy to be the Godfather. Its going to be a boy and were planning on naming him Tyler. JE: Can I print that? Tyler, like the guy on the SimplyDiscus site? CS: Go ahead. And yeah, just like that. By the way, I want to thank you also, John, for taking the time to do the interview. These are a lot of fun and youre saving me from having to type so thats even better! JE: Thank you for agreeing to answer all my questions. And that brings us to the final one: Do you have any last words of wisdom? CS: Just have patience. Discus take a long time to grow and they take a while to get breeding down. Nothing comes quickly. If your fish are healthy, they will come around. Good luck!

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