trying to breed discus (PIC HEAVY)

First topic message reminder :

hey all,
as you know i have gotten lucky enough to have spawned discus in my community tank a few times.
seems like that was the easy part. the hard part is raising them to young juvies. or so i read.
so heres the start of it all.

you can go the safe route and use maroxy for the eggs to keep them from getting fungus. Also if your water is to hard it will make the eggs unpenetrable for the male to fertilize them. general rule of thumb is 2 parts r/o to 1 part tap water. also common for pairs to eat their first few spawns. they have to get the hang of it.

i caught them in the act so i turned off the sponge filter for 2 hrs. so i think that was the trick.
so the last batch of eggs was really fuzzy, so i need to find some stuff for the eggs fast. but i have 5 wrigglers from the batch.
daily w/c still 50%. i have some BBS on hand and a bunch of frozen BBS.
im going to try to raise the fry , but we will see.

Will frozen daphina do the same job as baby brine?

IDK. the big discus breeders swear on live BBS for the first feedings.
i dont really want to raise live BBS.

Ya me neither!!

so today is the wrigglers free swimming, i count 3-5 sometimes.
so im going to change half the water and fill then drain to about half the tank.
so the fry can bump into the parent everytime they swim around the tank and eat.
i tried frozen BBS, but i dont know if they ate it. ill try every hr or so. im sure they will get the giff of it sooner or later.

pic are impossible to get.

My fingers and toes are crossed for you!!!!!

yes good luck!!!!

the 5 fry are MIA:-(

OH NO! That sucks. Hope they are just hiding.

Ouch!

How long do the eggs usually take to hatch?

3 days i guess

would suggest a breeding cone or a piece of slate laid on an angle of the tank like angels they lay the eggs in rows...would also suggest after you find the pair to section off the tank if it is another pair cause 1 pair spawing with trigger the other pair to spawn and then they will battle and eat each others eggs.If its their first clutch watch them if they dont take care of ie fan them and remove bad eggs you will have to pull them meaning the eggs and place them in a seperate tank a 5 or 10 gallon with an airstone under them so the bubbles flow over the eggs to keep them clean and blue the water up with quick cure and i mean blue blue almost to the point you cant see them.This will help cut down on the fungus from the bad eggs.
Once the hatch feed them live baby brine start them growing on the second day after being laid takes 24 hous for them to hatch and be prepared to do alot of water changes like 50% a day.When they go free swimming start to watch feeding habbits feed them 3X a day and seperate the fast growers from the middle from the small...this is where most do the culling to keep the line healthy i never did and some of my best fish were what most would have culled. after about three months you can move them to a grow out tank suggest a 75 gal or larger and can start feeding the flake or what ever you were feeding the parents.
If the parents are good you can leave them with and they will start with the heavy mucus coat which the fry will eat off one parent then the other and dont get freaked because the parents darken up whn this happens it is normal and after awhile they will lightin back up to normal.
good luck and be prepared for alot of work but it will pay off in the end.

feed the discuss heavy meat diet( ground up chicken hearts , and worms) or as i was told by a weel know discuss breader.

never tried the chicken hearts did the beef heart and in my opnion way too much trouble fouls the water fast and unless you are breeding to meet the demands of selling there is really no need for it just extra work on both ends preparing and cleaning

I never feed land meat to fish just aquatic meat.....

there mix right now has beef heart in it.
im gonna look for a terracotta thing for a breeding spot.

im not going to raise the fry myself. i cant and i wont, wayyyyy to much work. i need the parents to raise the fry and the BBS will be right there also.

there a young pair so this is not a surprise to me

Either the parents raise them or they get eaten I'm the same mind set with mine!
I may get my son a shrimp hatchery so he can do that part for me Alan, if you have kids and they want to have fish tell them that if they can raise shrimp for a while for you, you will get them a tank!

hmmmm sounds like an idea.

HHMMM sounds like typical parents to me.

what do you mean?

Yes let the parents raise the fry that's the best way to do it with discus because of the slime coat the fry need for the first week.

Yeah just give them time and somethings the less you do the more they do. Too much fussing is not always what they need. Just let them do their thing.

If they eat the eggs you could rig up a net or wire around them so the parents can't get at them but once they hatch the fry can get to the parents easy.

I wasn't talking in fish terms.

Well kids do need to 'earn' a fish tank I know he did 'sea monkeys' at his grandparents house and really enjoyed it They also learn quite a bit just by hatching the brine shrimp!

moma says no more tanks in the house, im at my limit.

same here alan..lol