The Paris Grigny Discus Show 2017

For this second edition, the Paris Grigny Discus Show contest gets a makeover. Indeed, EDA club had decided to make a few changes to his championship.
The Organization of such an event requires a very big job of preparation. After the first edition of 2015, participants and visitors were waiting for improvements. The participation was there since no less than 150 aquariums for competition discus fishs had been installed in Ile de France region.

 

New place, new disposition

The club European Discus Amateur moved to a new room, bigger and better laid out. Discus aquariums have invaded a large gymnasium. Their disposition was the most beautiful effect, worthy of major European events.

Professional stands were proposed to visitors. So, we were able to meet Eheim society, Dennerle but also the aquarium shop Paramount Aquariums. Laurent Garcia, Aquascaper for his part proposed Aquatic layouts.

 

Numerous conferences but no aquarium fish market

Unusual thing, the french association proposed a huge choice of conferences. visitors were able to take part for free to proposed talks :Live aquascaping, Aquaristics bases, Discus and the view of Guillaume Laué or the 2 other subjects i had the pleasure to present. (Classification and discus judging, Fish nutrition and Dennerle fish food)

With few people to organise this nice week end, It was impossible for the organizers to associate an aquarium fish market.

Visitors could nonetheless buy beautiful discus on Asia Discus and Discus KL France stands.

I think that the absence of a tiny fish market will be one of the reasons for the low attendance of visitors.
Indeed, Despite the good level of organization and efforts provided by the members of the EDA, It can be said that attendance was disappointing. Many major actors of the 'world of the discus' had yet moved and I think that visitors who had made the effort to come were not disappointed !

Because even if the room sounded hollow, the atmosphere was warm, Thanks to a very successful gala dinner.

 

The warm atmosphere of the Paris Grigny Discus show

Gala dinners are always an opportunity to meet each others around a good meal. A real good time. If you have the opportunity to move to a contest, I urge you to go ! There are talks of multiple subjects and we laugh a lot... This is how weaves many links. Moments that remain etched in memory !

We were able to make the acquaintance of our Polish friends, Scottish, Maltese or even Malaysians who had made the trip for the first time for this competition.

A small part of EDA members

 

Our Polish friends talking with the judge Cüneyt Birol

To the maneuver ; in the kitchen, the chef "Régis" who concocted a nice meal. He seems to be like "a fish in water" helped for sure by club members coming to help him.

Regis.l in the kitchen!

According to smiles and laugh we heard... I think that everybody had good time.

 

Mark Neill… Some bread, some wine, Welcome in France!

Mark Neill (Scottland) and Patrick Sammut (Malta) had good time!

Mark Neill and Patrick Sammut (Best friends)

Malaysians from KLD Jackson Keong and David Bailly (France)

 

An international contest

Whether it's the jury or participants, the manifestation of Grigny Paris 2017 was clearly open to the international.
Six judges were asked to rate the discus : Annie Maesschalck of Belgium, Cüneyt Birol Turkey, Carmelo Arico Italy, David Bailly, Guillaume Laué and myself all three from France. As for the first edition, the jury was managed by Henri Back.

PHOTO BOARD

The judges at work

As what is happened during the France Discus Show, the Paris Grigny contest agreed two "students judges" to join us : Maltese Patrick Sammut and the french Wilfried Barbas.

Due to a problem of communication with the association, the Italian judge ultimately not attend the contest and evaluations will be done by five judges instead of six announced beforehand.

On the side of the participants, they were french, Polish, English, Indonesians, Scottish, Malaysians. More than 150 fishes (breeding groups included), and supported by the inscriptions of many advanced hobbyists... We can say that this edition was a success.

Hobbyists who have also done a good job for this edition wich was at rather high level. Also, we can welcome this tradition of french competitions that reward the hobbyist breeders with a prize dedicated to them in each category.

The two french competitions organized by the EDA in (Paris region) and SODA (in South West of the France) create an interesting emulation and rapid progress from one year to the other. France remains dynamic in terms of discus!

Henri Back (Head judge), Yann Hoiret, David Bailly (Who is definitely smaller than me!!!!)

Annie Maesschalck (Belgium) Patrick Sammut (Malta), Cüneyt Birol (Turkey) and Guillaume Laue

 

Discus of a very good standard

The discus presented during the Paris Grigny Discus Show were generally of a very interesting level. I even found that unlike fish presented during the Discus Show France 2016, the participants had better selected their fish from a morphological point of view.

Did they improved the selection after their disappointments of the last french Arvert contest?

For wild discus, participants could enter their fishs in 4 categories : Browns, the Blues, the Greens and the Heckel. The 'green' category was at a very low level and none of the fish won't really hold the attention of the judges.

I must admit being impressed by the quantity and quality of animals presented in the Paris Grigny discus show in the wild categories.

Overall, the fish were in very good condition. On the other hand, I always wonder if it would not be irrelevant to judge these wild discus 1 day after breeding forms... Because as often, some discus proved to be in better condition the day after the judgment...

Which of course brings sometimes misunderstandings for the visitors about the ranking. Difficult to find the "right formula"...

On the side of breeding forms, the varieties that we had to assess were rather varied. It was a very interesting exercise.

Here is the 9 categories that were proposed during the Paris Grigny discus show:

– Solid blue
– Turquoise
– Large patterns
– fine patterns
– large spots patterns
– Albino
– Open
– Red
– breeding groups

 

Wild discus

It was 27 wild fish that were divided into 4 categories (In my opinion the ideal). With animals mainly from Brazilian exporters Hudson Crizanto and Vitor Hugo Quaresma.

I think that it is useless to deny the competition that exists between the two most mediatic discus exporters of Brazil. And I imagine that the results were expected on the other side the Atlantic ocean !

It was their European representatives distributors who presented fruits of their fishing season.

The game was won by joint registration of Quality Discus-Chen's Discus Anglo-belgian distributors of Vitor Hugo Quaresma.

This last had even made the surprise to appear personally during the competition ! This trophy has come to reward a smoothly fishing season conducted by Francis Hu who came to select in Amazon his own discus "himself" .

A personal investment which will be highly rewarded since Francis Hu and his Belgian partner won the trophy of the best discus wild in Paris... But also in Poland ; where the English will win a few months later the title of Wild Grand Champion...

Chen's Discus team

Champion fish in wild (Quality Discus Belgium) – Francis Hu (England)

Second place for Frédéric Gobert KLDF

 

Third Heckel of Sébastien Ancelin (France)

Some beautiful wild discus no rewarded for the pleasure of your eyes…

Francis Hu (England) had presented some beautiful Brown discus

 

Heckel discus presented by Clément Gobert

 

Wild Brown presented by Frédéric Gobert France

 

Wild blue discus from Francis Hu……. who may have some regrets…

 

Breeding groups of discus

A "breeding group" category has been proposed to the participants. You had to enter 5 young identical discus. The difficulty here is to propose young and beautiful fishs constituting a group of the most homogeneous quality possible. A real challenge for participants !

A registration will have troubled the jury : The presentation of a group of small Heckel "blue Face" discus..
Was it wild fishs ? F1 born in aquarium ?

Regulation system stipulated there that the fish had to be born in captivity ? Not obvious... And especially a first of its kind !

Rather nice to look at, this group of Heckels who will not be unnoticed but will not be rewarded.

 

"pigeon blood" discus group first (Francis Hu Injazz Discus Qatar)

On Left Clément Gobert (France) second. on right Francis Hus Injaaz Discus third

 

Turquoise

Mark Neil coming straight from Scotland will win 2 trophies (1st and 3rd place) with the same type of fish . Christian Evin Asia Discus won a second place with a nice electric blue fish.

First place will be played in 1 point.

First of its category Mark Neill Scotland

Second Christian Evin Asia Discus France

3turquoise th Mark Neill

 

Solid Turquoise

It is with a discus of this category that Francis Hu won the title of Grand Champion in the previous edition of the Paris Grigny Discus Show. With a very nice "Blue Diamond"..

This year, will be less propitious to the English who won here a third place. I draw your attention to the variety of this discus which mask on his head reflects the presence of "snakeskin" genes..
This will be the tiny originality of the category.

In second place, We find a Polish ; Waldemar Bernecki. The fish will be very close to the first place who tended him arms. But it is not counted on the presence of a "blue diamond" presented by Christian Evin from the hobbyist breeding room of Victor Lim Singapore.

Victor Lim, a long-time breeder will harvested once again a trophy with the help of Christian Evin Asia Discus.

A homogeneous fish in its qualities with a better overall morphology than his pursuers .

Solid blue first Asia Discus – Victor Lim (Singapore)

2th solid blue Waldemar Bernecki (Poland)

3rd solid blue Francis Hu Injazz discus

 

Discus of the Open category

Frédéric Gobert and his partner Jackson Keong from Malaysia will win the first two places.
The third place of the podium will be assigned to Francis Hu representative the prince of Quatar Injazz Discus.

Champion elected fish in this category suffer no competition. It will easily win the first trophy.

Very elegant, a respectable size, This fish had a real presence. I think, however, that the breeder will have to make important decisions about the evolution of the pattern.

Indeed, in the case of stronger competitors, It will have get a clearer position about the pattern of this type of fish. Is it an intermediate stage of selection?

This to ensure that judges adopt good evaluation method : Should we consider it as a Solid fish 90% with the evaluation of the facial mask (Which is very successful here) ?

The few dots of pattern at the center of the body may be evaluate such as ? (With the need of homogeneity of distribution).
Without doubt a kind of discus that leaves no one indifferent... and deserves to be followed.

With a lesser degree, fish in second place could almost have the same comments. Do we Propose us a spotted or line pattern ? Less comfortable than the champion, This fish will have pride on its morphological criterias.

The "white butterfly" discus will miss the second place for a handful of points. A nice looking fish, with correct eyes that could be more "white" (White) for a "butterfly"..

The color at the center of the body should be more homogeneous. It is on the edge of the limit because you guess stripes-points. But enough to outshine competitors of the day.

Discus first 1 Open Jackson Keong – F.Gobert

Zoom on the face and the central part of the body

 

2th Jackson Keong F.Gobert Open (Sorry for the poor quality picture)

3th Francis Hu Chens discus

 

Large pattern discus in Paris Grigny 2017

The fish that were hosted here were "pigeon blood" types discus .
The three winning discus easily placed themselves above all others. Fish designated for first place will have a best pattern ; more homogeneous than his pursuers.

About all of the other assessment criterias, These three animals were very close to each other.

First Clément Gobert France

Second Francis Hu

3th Francis Hu Injazz Discus

 

Large spotted pattern fishs

We have seen here some nice specimens of "leopard" discus types. In this category also, the first three are very easily distinguished.
And the podium will be 100% "british" because this will be Francis Hu and Clive Brampton who will reach the podium...
Only the second place will be played in few points. And I think that we can congratulate our English friends for these nice specimens.

First discus Francis Hu – Injazz discus

2th Clive Brampton (England)

3th Francis Hu Injazz Discus

 

The fine pattern discus

It is here that will be one of my favorite fish... The "fine pattern" designation means all phenotypes expressing the "snakeskin" mutation .

That to say, the snakeskins, but also the "red spotted snakeskin". And it was primarily the latter that were presented during this edition.

We had the opportunity to observe 2 fish of very high level, Once again from England. The fish of Clive Brampton was just awesome... A giant with a very good personality in his aquarium. It will end up in second place.

The first winning fish will have convinced three judges out of five (With one of the three judges placing him equality with the second). Although my picture does not live up to its quality ; I can tell you that this fish was of a striking elegance. It was not a demonstrative fish. But he had a good balance and a very good morphology. Pretty good pattern with however a less successful Gill marking than the second fish.

A real pleasure to be able to assess such animals...

First discus Francis Hu

Second discus Clive Brampton

Third elected fish of Clive Brampton

 

The Red discus

In Red phenotypes, the color is never really fully solid. Color of the head region remains a challenge for breeders.

At this facial selection game, a subject will be noted. We could enjoy in this category several types of Red discus. And these different phenotypes remain an opposition of style.

It will be Clément Gobert Working with his father in the company KLDF who will be elected at the first place.

In second place we find a red melon from Francis Hu. A fish with an interesting face color.

At the second a typical "red rose" with a black bar across his eye. An not penalizing element..

Discus first in red category Clément Gobert

Second Francis Hu – Injazz Discus UK

Third Clive Brampton

 

The albino discus

You will not doubt... Here is the grand champion of the Paris Grigny discus show 2017 edition...
Solid yellow albino phenotype discus were presented in numbers. The three winners will be of the same color.

The second fish (Francis Hu) and third (Frédéric Gobert – Jackson Keong)

Overall, We have seen great work on the eyes of fish ; less obvious to observe in albinos.

The fish who will win the first place in the category but also the title of Grand Champion 2017 presented better morphological qualities. A very good behavior ; which is always nice for photographers !

It is Jeremy Dhieux participant as a hobbyist who has entered this fish with his son Arthur. For the short story, It is him who will have insisted his dad to choose his favorite fish !
A deserved first prize and a Grand Champion title allowing him to pocket the € 1000 promised to the winner !

 

It was once again a pleasure to be able to "support" the jury for this edition 2017. I thank once again the EDA members and their families (Because spouses were requested(a)s !!!). The progress expected was there ! BRAVO !

Thank you again for your warm welcome and thank you to the whole "Back family" for these unforgettable moments ! That's also what I appreciate in our meetings goshawk of the discus... Moments of sharing and conviviality with simplicity ! Thank you !

Gastronomic cultural Franco-Turkish exchanges with Henri Back

I now give you appointment in April 2018 for the Nordic Discus Show which will take place in Sweden around Gothenburg. But also in Cognac for the France Discus Show, which runs from the 11 to 13 may 2018...

See you soon,