Discus have bred

muckyhands

Myself and the other half have a 500 litre South American aquarium.

Got 6 Stendker Discus about 6 months ago (lost one of them unfortunately) and 2 of the have paired up.

Noticed they had been behaving differently the last few weeks and saw on Friday that they were guarding eggs/ fry (looked as though they had/ were just hatching).

The fry have started free swimming today and feeding from the parents sides so fingers crossed.

Its a community aquarium with Pristella tetras, Neon tetras, Hockeystick pencilfish, Dwarf loaches and Brisltlenose plecs so far. Had Congo tetras in there but I took out and relocated to my Dads aquarium as soon as I noticed eggs/ fry.

Covered the filter outlet with a hollow filter sponge and stocking so the fry wont get sucked in and also added a LED night light/ will make sure a lamp is left on in the room so the parents can see the fry.

Have Brine shrimp eggs ready to go as soon as I need to start feeding the fry, which from what I have read will be in about 5 days time.

If anyone has any words of wisdom please share.

Havent been able to get any decent pics yet but I will add some as soon as I can.

Thanks.

fred funk }{

Any pics?

muckyhands

This is the best pic we could get, sorry about the quality.

You can just about see some of the fry near the top of the discus on the left.

muckyhands

Just to update this, the morning after I started this thread all the fry were gone. Dont know what happened to them.

But the pair spawned again about two days later and the second set of fry have now been swimming freely for 5 days as of today so Im more hopeful this time.

The only thing that I did differently since the first fry disappeared was relocate blue tetras to my dads tank but still dont really have any idea what happened.

Heres some pics of the second set of eggs and fry. Also started hatching the brine shrimp eggs to feed the fry.

fred funk }{

It's always exciting when our fish breed. In my experience it's the shortage of food that kills the fry. It can be very hard to get food down to them regularly without polluting the tank.

Have you thought about capturing the fry and feeding then yourself in a breeding tank?

muckyhands

I havent because the fry need to feed from the parents at the beginning, they produce some kind of mucus that the fry feed on from their sides, a first food that I dont imagine I could do better on...

I dont know how long the fry need to stay with the parents but from what Ive read at about 5 days of swimming freely the fry should be big enough to eat newly hatched brine shrimp... They certaintly are growing fast and are big enough. And after about a month they shoud have the typical discus shape, in 10 cent coin size and can be moved but...

I dont know, they are still feeding from the parents and I dont want to interfere too much...

Im used to Tanganyikans to be honest, never bred Discus before.

muckyhands

Well I cant believe how fast the fry are growing, you can already see how the typical 'Discus' shape is starting to form.

I think Discus are fantastic, the way they take turns in minding the eggs, then minding the newly hatched fry and finally feeding them, taking turns.....

Its gas to see them change over, the parent with the fry swims up to the other parent- then suddenly takes off leaving the other with the fry.

You 'd have to see it to believe it..... I had been reading up a lot in books but this doesn't compare to seeing it actually happen. :)

paddy147

Pretty god damn savage...is all I can say.:)

muckyhands

The parents started bringing the fry further out into the tank today and around the other fish that are in it- up until now no fish was allowed anywhere near their breeding area in the tank or the fry and its like theyre showing the fry around their home now and the fish that live in it.

The plecs, loaches, pencilfishes,neon tetras and pristella tetras are grand, the parents dont seem to mind them being near the fry now that theyre bigger, but as soon as the other Discus in the tank so much as looked at them they were put firmly in their place.

The fry have also started 'blowing' into the substrate, as Discus do, looking for food, its fantastic to watch.