Breeding Discus?

Discussion in 'Breeding' started by Sean J, Jan 11, 2010.

  1. Sean J

    Sean J

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    Ok, this is a thread directed at all of you who have successfully bred the King of the Freshwater Aquarium.

    I am struggling at the moment. While they are continuously spawning, (once every week!) they always eat their eggs. It is confounding me to no end!! They must have spawned about 10 - 15 times now!

    What I have done now is place a plastic "wire mesh" around the spawning cone so the parents can still "wave" clean water over the eggs, but they can't eat them. Hopefully they manage to get the eggs to free swimming stage this time. I have brine shrimp eggs just waiting for this hatch, so the food department is sorted.

    PH is about 6.5 and the GH is about 4 and KH about the same. Standard, out my tap.

    Now, what I want to know is this: What's your secret? Do you use smaller tanks? My Discus breeder is a 400L system. 250L tank and 150L sump. Do I use a smaller tank with bubble/sponge filters? Should I use one of my 160L tanks as a breeder? What am I doing wrong here?

    Any help would be much appreciated.
     
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  3. Dirk

    Dirk Dwarf Catfish

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    Hi Sean,

    I only saw this thread now, as I am not on the forum all the time and I did not notice it before, so here goes...

    Firstly, 4 GH and 4 KH is too high for breeding discus, my values (out of the tap here in Somerset West are 0 for both), they must be lower or else a major proportion of the eggs will always have eggs going yellow. Basically the hard water just stops their development and then they eventually fungus. Bottom line is that you will have to do something about your hardness in order to be able to breed them. What happens is that if discus get the feeling that the eggs are not going to hatch they will eat them, so this may be the one reason for the lack of success.

    Then, if your discus spawn about three times with weekly intervals, the male's sperm production cannot keep up and he is no longer able to fertilize the eggs properly. He will go through the motions of the whole spawning thing, but he will not be fertilizing the eggs any longer so they will fungus.

    Finally, and I know that I am going to get crucified for this, fish that come from the east, Singapore and Malaysia, have in most instances been raised artificially and do not have the right parenting properties any more as a result of which they will eat their spawn regardless. It is amazing how one or two generations of artificial raising completely smash all parenting instincts.

    What you are trying to do, i.e. to put some mesh over the eggs is a trick that may work, but for the moment you must separate the pair for about three to four weeks to allow the male to recover as well as attend to the water quality. If he is a young male this is also the likely reason because male discus always take longer to mature than the females.

    Kind regards,

    Dirk
     
  4. neilh

    neilh

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    Thanks for the insight Dirk. I have pairs from the same batch that Sean got and as I type, the female is busy eating the 2nd spawn in as many weeks. Out of about 15 spawns, only 1 has made it to wriggler stage before my school of Rummy's picked them off as easy food.

    Interesting on the KH and GH affecting the hatching. Is this due to their being too much calcium in the water that the eggs don't develop enough? In my case my KH is higher than Sean's. Guess its time to break out the RO and blackwater extract.

    10-1 it is an age issue, I *think* that these fish are still under 1 year old
     
  5. Dirk

    Dirk Dwarf Catfish

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    If you have got to the wrigglers stage once, that is a good sign as it means that the fish are at least fertile, or were fertile at that stage. Which spawn was that? One of the first when the male still had enough sperm?

    Discus need to learn how to raise their fry and they are only guided by their instincts the first time around. If they make repeated flops of raising their fry that does not help, they actually learn to eat their eggs. My advice would be to separate the parents so that they can grow out more and then that the male recovers. This then also improves their instincts for a second try later.

    And yes, if the calcium and the carbonate is too high the osmotic pressure of the water surrounding the eggs is too high and basically stops the development. There is lots of literature on this.

    The age issue is important, but the water is also not right.

    My 2 cents worth....

    Dirk
     
  6. neilh

    neilh

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    Thanks Dirk!
     
  7. OP
    Sean J

    Sean J

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    Thanks for the replies Professor! I really appreciate it.

    I was just having a look at the spawn. About 10% of the eggs have turned white after 2 days, so I'm staying optimistic.

    Ok, so it seems that I am going to need an RO unit one of these days... I'll need to start looking around. It's a pain going to the LFS to get RO, but I might do that to lower the hardness a bit...

    I'll feel slightly more confident if the eggs make it to wrigglers, and by my calculations, they should start hatching by tomorrow?

    Let's see what happens. I'll update this thread as I go along.
     
  8. OP
    Sean J

    Sean J

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    Ok, so as the Prof foretold, the eggs turned white. I took the mesh off this morning and let them eat the eggs.

    So the next investment is going to be an RO unit. I am getting some 4ft tanks which I will divide in 2 parts and separate the pair for a while to condition them. I'll update this thread as I go along.

    Thanks for the advice Prof.
     
  9. neilh

    neilh

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    How much do you charge per litre of RO? :p:blink1:
     
  10. OP
    Sean J

    Sean J

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    TEN BILLION zim DOLLARS!! LOL!!

    Nah... I'm going to go to the LFS for now, but I will get an RO unit in the next couple of months.

    Just, how much RO should I be using? 30/70 split? 50/50? 60/40?
     
  11. neilh

    neilh

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    70 RO 30 Tap with some Sera Morena is what i'm going to try first
     
  12. OP
    Sean J

    Sean J

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    I guess this is going to be a dual experience then. Let's keep this thread updated with the progress.
     
  13. Dirk

    Dirk Dwarf Catfish

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    You guys must stop guessing about which mixtures of RO and tap water you must need. You need to find out what the exact amount of Ca and carbonate is in the water and then mix tap and RO water accordingly. Particularly carbonates are bad and this needs to be 0 if you want to have success. If your tapwater contains carbonates it will therefore not be suitable in any combination with the RO water, but then again you cannot use RO water only, the fishes kidneys will then have to work so hard to retain any salts that you will be putting them under major osmotic stress.

    If you filter over peat moss the peat moss acts as an anion exchanger and will remove the carbonate, but it will be saturated quickly and will then need to be replaced. Also, the local peat fibre is not a peat moss and cannot be used. The only peat moss to be considered is sphagnum peat or Canadian peat. You must be careful when you buy this that you do not buy a plant grade to which fertilizer has been added. You also need to know that this stuff will acidify the water drastically, Canadian peat moss will lower pH to 3 easily and then you can scorch the fishes with too low pH again.

    What all of this means is that you have to put a significant effort into getting the water right before you will be successful. An essential tool in all of this is also a reliable pH meter, and the hand held jobs will not work because in very soft water their electrodes do not manage to measure pH accurately. Test kits and test strips are also incorrect in very soft water. I have an expensive laboratory type pH meter with which I measure pH on a daily basis.

    What is Sera Morena? If this is a peat extract, remember that peat extracts do not make water softer, they add humic acids, but they do not remove hardness. I use no added peat extracts as this is not necessary really.

    Kind regards,

    Dirk
     
  14. OP
    Sean J

    Sean J

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    Ok cool... I'll try some Peat moss in the tank. I have quite a lot at home.

    Thanks for the reply professor, it is greatly appreciated.
     
  15. Dirk

    Dirk Dwarf Catfish

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    You must prefilter the water over the peat into a water preparation holder (use a plastic drum or something similar), not in your tank. If you do it in your tank you have no control of the pH in the tank in which you have the fishes as well. In this way, you could have a pH drop in the tank overnight and kill the fish in the process.

    Kind regards,

    Dirk
     
  16. OP
    Sean J

    Sean J

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    Ok... That's perfect. The biggest container I have is roughly 80 liters though. I guess it will have to do for now.

    Thanks Professor.
     
  17. Fanie Jordaan

    Fanie Jordaan

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    @ Neil and Sean: have you been able to get beyond the wrigglers stage with your wild x pair.
    Would you care to share some of your experiences if indeed the case?
    I got to the wrigglers stage with the first spawn of my current breeding pair of red turqs and am eagerly awaiting the next phase of development which should be free swimming in two days.

    Thanking you.
     

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