Water hardness question

If your male shoots blanks where did the previous fry come from?

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

 

@Pierré Schoonraad It is his fry. He is still young so probably not doing it right all the time yet and got lucky on the successful spawns. On the ones that he got right you could see a stripe of fertile eggs in between the rest that went white. They hatched but was only 20-30 eggs out of about 100 or so.

When he started shooting straight he got better every time until a month ago when this egg die off started. The little fishy I'm trying to raise now was his last successful spawn.

I started to jump to all manner of conclusions when I started testing the water. I knew from reading that the strips are not very accurate but the ones I used seems to be very very bad. The kh reading on them doesn't work at all.

I broke one of the rules haha which is patients.

 

Hope it is temporary for him. @Marco might know if it possible that a male can go infertile or if it is just a stage his going through

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

 

@Pierré Schoonraad that would be horrible. I am not worried about it for now because discus males are known to be hit and miss when still young. The females mature earlier.

 

Maybe he just needs a break... LOL

 

@Reedfish They are in their own tank with sides covered. You guys have a point there. They've been at it since November, spawning every 2-3 weeks.

Here's the spawn from a few days ago. This is a perfect example of what it shouldn't look like.

 

5 months? Geez, that's a long time to be going at it, he needs a break for sure. Like you said, he's still young so give him a break and then try again.

 

Hi

@MariaS and @BoelderBeestie
Pleasure for the post and glad it found some appreciation

What I want to suggest is-
Split the pair by using a see through tank-divider. Perspex or glass, but perspex is preferable
Just get a 5mm thick piece, dril a few holes through the sheet for water flow and then put it inside their tank, effectively splitting the tank into 2 halves, with 1 fish either side. Put the spawning cone in the side housing the male.

Then feed them properly. I dont know what you are feeding but unless you are feeding a proper diet this may result in poor milt prodiction in the male. Get some frozen brine shrimp into their diet, contact Prof Dirk maybe for some food from him, and get a good spirulina flake also. Seachem also makes a good Spirulina flake
Feed excessively. Feed a varied diet and keep water on the soft side. Set your tank temp to 29°C and just leave them for 3 weeks.

During this time prepare water. Make a mix of RO and Tap water and make sure it has a Kh of 1dh at most

After the 3rd week do a large water change with the prepared water and see if they bow to each other. If so remove the divider
If you see them getting ready to spawn switch off all air and filtration. Wait until spawning is complete and then only switch filtration back on.

Then wait and see if fertility has increased.

Its the best advice I have now. He is possibly a little exhausted and what you do not want is to develop a culture of rotten eggs and egg eating with them
That will be hard to rectify

Rgds

Marco

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

 

@Marco I'll build the devider over the weekend then. I'm getting food from prof Dirk for almost a year now, you still gave me his details. I'm waiting for the next shipment to land. I'm feeding benkers royal, brine shrimp granules and a ostrich mix I make make with prawn, garlic and some cichlid pellets crushed in. The male is now 1 year and 5 months and is 14cm total and 11cm standard lenght and still growing. After I got the their dietary needs right they really grew out better than expected. I only have one runt luckly but he was a bad choice from the start.

 

Did some measuring last night it doesn't look like a divider will work with this tank as it will divide the tank into two too small sections. It's a 60cmx60x60 cube leaving me with only 30cm of width. I'll just take her out for 3 weeks and place her back with the rest. I did this a while back for a week and she was fine with it, they spawned the very next day when I put them back together.

My fish are very tame, I can move them around and they don't show any stress that I can see. They just continue with life as if nothing happened. They are actually a nuisance when cleaning, following the siphon around and getting in the way. I have to shove them away with my hand when they start crowding me. The moving particles in the pipe is what they are after and chase after this haha.

 

Hahahaha that's the life of a tame fish following you like a dog. At least she's not stressed about being moved around and being tame does help with that. Tame fish - less stress. Shame, don't shove them away - let them be entertained

 

@Rainstorm haha I have to otherwise there will be no cleaning done. They swarm me and won't budge. I'm very gentile with them though. When you look at a discus you would think that they are soft and have fragile scales like an oscar, they don't, they are hard and with a kind of raspy scaly feel to them, a very robust little fish. Reminds me a lot of what a blue gill feels like.

Since I got them the have been getting a lot of my attention, everyday, all day. The discus fever got me pretty hard, to the point of it being an unhealthy obsession haha. I love doing it though and I don't know why. I can't wait to get home and clean their tanks and change water. I look forward to it everyday. I'm turning into a fish dweeb.

I got it from my grandpa, he was a canary man. Breeding them. It killed him in the end. He got a very rare lung disorder that you get from the very fine feather dust from baby birds. It affects the lungs the same as what asbestos does.

 

Raspy feel like a cat's tongue or cow's tongue? I know how that feels - when I was living on the other farm, my castrated bull calf that grew to 2 years old still sucked my fingers like a baby. Pretty much felt like I had rubbed my hands on sandpaper in water.

Perhaps you should drop something else in to distract them while you are cleaning?

 

Nah I just move them along, some days they back off other days they are more persistent but it's fun. Discus have a rep for being skittish so I'm very happy that they interact with me, I don't think many people have that experience with discus. The only thing that scares them is if there's light behind me and I cast a shadow on the tank. They are not that raspy though but not smooth. The first time I handled them I was surprised, I'm used to fish being smooth and slippery.

I must say they are the easiest out of all my fish to catch. I just guide them into a net with my hand, they don't even put on a fight. You have to keep your hand over them the whole time while they are being moved so that they don't fall out of the net as they do flick a bit once you lift them. Catching a big oscar is drama though, they put up a hell of a fight and they also damage easily. I don't like handling them because of this.

 

Haha i heard stories about oscars. Yeah like the first time i touched an elephant and I wasn't prepared for what their skin feels like - mind you, this was in a game reserve and it was quite tame.

Its rewarding when animals interact - took me two weeks to tame our hens and now the white ones follow me lol.

Sent from my D5503 using Tapatalk