Discus fry

YIKES! So much bbs!

 

That was all gone in 5min flat and they wanted more...2 teaspoons of BS eggs freshly hatched.

 

You will notice in the latest pics that the RT fry are starting to show a bit of colour in their fins, orange on top and blue down below. Their diet has changed a bit they are now taking adult granular dry food 4 times a day and frozen adult BS 3 times in between.

I am going to start them on Ox heart next week on the one there after. Water changes are having to be done more often now as they are producing way more waste now as they get bigger, having to do a 10% everyday and 50% once a week.

I will be splitting the bigger ones from the smaller ones in a week or so so as to let the littler ones a chance to get better pickings and more food as the bigger ones are starting to bully them around for food.

 

Awesome! How are you hatching your BS eggs? Ratios, brand and all.

Thanks.

 

I get my BS from Dirk and he sells 95% hatch rate and it is a really good product that he brings in from Germany I have changed all my food to the stuff he brings in. check out the shot on post 65 of this thread you will see them in the milk bottle that I aerate and I use a pinch of bicarb and sea salt. There are many other recipes so to speak for BS, check out aquazulu’s posts his got a much more intricate method. the 2 teaspoons I mentioned earlier is one batch.

 

@jpvd007 your babies are looking so healthy! you can clearly see the two blood lines, that so cool! i just want to see them colour up. great job, how old are they now? and what size are they?
cheers doug

 

Well the colour is starting to show on the foreheads of the Red Turquoise’s now and it’s getting really exciting to be able not just to see a dull little fry anymore but a developing colourful Discus. You can hardly see it in the photos but it is easier with a naked eye when the light catches it right. It’s interesting to see that the turquoise is coming out before the red base, @Marco y does this happen?

 

@jpvd007

Apologies Jason, I only now saw you asked me about this.

The reason why you would first see the Tuquoise striations and only later the red is because Red is a very slow generating colour on Discus. I speak under correction but to my knowledge it is the last colour to start showing and can take more than a year ti fully develop on the fish.

This is very evident in fish such as Red spotted greens, where as up to as much as 9mth age the offspring of such a pair can easily all look similar. Only then, and at first very feintly will the red spots start appearing. Of course there are exceptions but in Discus I have noticed this tendency for red to come very late.

On some strains you find red edges to dorsal and anal fins, but even that only becomes evident close to semi-adulthood.

Your fish should start filling in from the head region, then past the gills untill it will stop wherever its genetically made to stop.
Some of the best Red Turks ive seen are red from the lips all the way to the peduncle region, with long wavy turk stripes from nose to tail.
Such superb specimens are not easy to find though

Rgds

Marco

 

@Marco thanks for the reply. My next question is in post 98 the PB fry in that pic has almost see threw vertical lines on his body and then one black one on his tail is this how all PB baby's form? because Dirk mentioned that they have no vertical baring at all in th PB strain or is this a spin off of the mix of the two parents that this fry has.

 

Hi @jpvd007

Im not going to try comment on the how's and why's of the "negative" barring in your PB fry. I can just say that from what I have seen, in fry/early juvenile stage most barless fish still show the barring.
I can compare with Blue diamonds which I have bred, and they also have all vertical bars until a certain age, at which they then become negative, except for the eye and tail bar. These only go away later.

I suppose it has to do with the fact that these fish are in fact barred, they just dont possess the ability to control the barring.
Thats why with Blue diamond as well as PB, when the fish is put under stress the bars do actually appear somewhat, albeit only in Peppering with PB's and darkening of the area in BD.

Of late the have been crossing PB with albino strains to actually remove the black pigment from the fish. They also use True Golden varieties I am to understand, and again then the peppering is gone and makes for a much cleaner fish.

Of course, crossing them back to any naturally barred strain puts you back to square 1. Hence Dirks insistance that to breed "true to strain" varieties is much safer for the breeder.

Rgds

Marco

 

So another week has past and I got some of dirks food for the little guys, here they are feeding on it with gusto.

 

Hi @jpvd007

Well done Jason, they are looking good

Rgds

Marco

 

looking great man

 

Awesome man!

Awesome to see the progress from the beginning to now. Just a question, when will they get their "strong" colours?

 

@matteffect from now on till about 12 months is when discus colour up.

 

Looking great man! You sure must be proud? When is the next batch coming?

 

Hi @HennieRoux

It is satisfying to watch them grow from egg to fish.

The next batch will only be next season so to speak as I am relocating the family to the farm in Namibia so there is no time to do it again unfortunately. I am planing on getting some Bettas once I am up there so I will need some tips from you at that stage.

Regards

Jason

 

Any time....you know where to find me good luck with the moving!

 

The majority of these fry are now up for sale, please check out the thread link below for additional info.

http://www.tropicalaquarium.co.za/showthread.php?13727-FS-Discus-Pinelands-Cape-Town

Regards

Jason

 

An update on the fry, they are starting to show some interesting patterns.