My previous attempt to breed and raise Discus didn’t go very well. Unfortunately the young fish got ill after 3 months and all have died.
This Saturday I cleaned out my breeding tank and put the breeding pair back into the tank. They have spent last three months in my show aquarium and haven’t paid much attention to each other. I was very curious to see if they are still a couple. I was getting ready for a long wait until they would spawn.
After moving them to the breeding tank I let them get used to the new water condition. To my big surprise they started cleaning their breeding cone after two hours! They have been busy for two days with the usual mating rituals. This afternoon they have made the big step and spawned. As I want to photograph each step, they decided to put their eggs at the back of the breeding cone. Lets hope they will do it at the front next time.
The first images – The female makes some test runs on the breeding cone.
In this image you can clearly see the females breeding tube (ovipositor):
Spawning:
In a few hours the eggs will hatch. I can can’t around 140 of them, inside you can see the small fry.
It is very hard to photograph, but to not let you down I will give it a try:
Now they start moving the eggs around. Unfortunately some of them are moved to the back of the aquarium, making it difficult to get good photos.
Lets hope they will move to the parents skin without too much problems in two days.
A close up of the Discus larvae:
The small wigglers seen from above:
The white in the background you see is a styrofoam plate, overexposed by my flashlights. This aquarium has been set up with photography in mind.
The next image shows mother Discus talking to her wigglers:
There are more wigglers than you can see in this image, the rest is just out of view.
Just enjoy….
A number of fry moved from the breeding cone to their parents skin, the rest is still attached to the cone:
Forgive my enthousiasm:
They are growing well – Last night:
This morning:
In real they are even ore beautiful. It’s a lot of fry such a small female:
The couple is quite calm, you can tell they learned a lot from their previous nest. Feeding was going great straight away, the first time it gave a lot of stress and the fry went flying through the entire tank. They change places every 5 minutes and swim calmly through the tank. They communicate much better now so there are no misunderstandings when changing places.
When I do a waterchange, only the fish that is not taking care of the fry is defending them. Breeding discus is a hobby on its own.
As they grow by the hour, I’ll just show some more pictures:
Arriving at the change:
The parents make skin secrete, 24 hours a day, the fry eat the secrete. By moving the fry every 5 minutes from one parent to the other, they can rest a bit, swim around and eat some themselves.
changing time:
Heavy burden:
If everything goes well, I leave the fry with their parents for around three weeks.
I just captured moving the fry from one to the other parent. The fry feed on him until he is relieved by the female:
One second later, the male swims next to the female, the fry can’t keep up and stay with the female:
They have grown some more, the first brine shrimp is ready to be harvested, lets see if the will take them this afternoon.
The female shaking free of the fry:
Feeding on their father:
The father guides the fry back to their mother:
I used to have a small pot of brine shrimp eggs (37,5 gram) which costed me around €21,75. This was a bad batch as only 50% of the eggs hatched. I now have a large can of around 1 liter for €55,-. The difference is amazing. Over 90% is hatching now.
A small aquarium with around 20 centimeters of water is used to keep the bottles with brine shrimp at around 28 degrees Celsius. The bottles sit in the water, each bottle has its own airpump.
Lets not get you bored, here are some other shots taken from above:
They are growing:
I started feeding brine shrimp, not many fry actually eat them yet, but I expect that all of them start eating the brine shrimp in a couple of days.
I don’t think there are still 140 fry left, I can only see around 100 of them. I think the parent are selecting them. I saw one that was swimming a bit odd, but he is no longer there.
The fry will be divided over two tanks in three weeks. If one of the tanks gets a disease, the chances are not all of them will get sick.
The fry are starting to get the orange bellies:
The fry are swimming around some more now they have brine shrimp to feed on:
More pictures as they grow by the hour:
Two more close ups, you can see the brine shrimps in their bellies:
The young discus fish up close:
The fry are growing fast. They are relaxed now, yesterday they where a bit stressed by all the attention:
I just separated the pair, the female started to suddenly demolish the male, killing five of the fry. I put the female back into the showtank where she retook here spot as dominant female (she is in great shape).
The male is swimming around with the fry, although I don’t think he likes it they keep picking his skin, he is a bit stressed now…..
The fry can actually live without the parents now, they feed on the brine shrimp but it is better to leave the father with them for a little longer. He can manage just fine on his own. With the previous nest, it was the other way around, with the female getting the beatings…..she just had to get even.
Ah well, it just are special fish those cichlids…..
I feed them lots of brine shrimp to prevent them from not only eating their fathers secrete but eating their entire father:
The male is doing exceptionally good, he is calmer now he tends for the fry alone.
The young discus fish swim around more, always looking for food:
They are giving a headache, just by looking at them:
I can see that some of the fry are still not eating brine shrimp, they only feed on the skin secrete and are not growing as fast (around 5 of them). They can’t swim as good as the other, they do feed on the secrete but hang around at the side of their parent. I assume their father will get rid of them one of these days.
One day later, things are not going well. I lost 8 of the fry today and spotted another one that is not good. I can’t see anything on the outside. They eat well but suddenly they have problems swimming and gasp for air, they flutter through the water and die fast.
Perhaps they choked on a brine shrimp shell, I don’t know what is going on. The water is fine, I changed the water like I do every day….
I was thing about gill worms (again). Unfortunately I don’t have cure for that. I do have Colombo Dactycid, but that is not specific for gill worms. I should get some Moneol but that is hard to come by. I notice some scrubbing behaviour now, one of the symptoms of gill worms. (I got a solid tip: Sera Tremazol is based on the same effective substance as Moneol and is more easy to come by).
This sucs, I had some time today to visit the LFS, they had everything from Sera except Tremazol.
Just to do “something” I added Dactycid to the water, I have not time to go to another shop today. The prescription says it si effective against gill worms but I still have my doubts.
I lost no more fry since this morning and they eat well. I hope all goes better now.
Today, two days after the first death, I lost no more fish. They feed wel. As soon as the water clears up (the medicine made it cloudy white) I will get back to making photo’s.
I put the male back into the showtank, it was getting too hard for him. It is difficult to make good images without the parents. I can see a big difference now between the largest and smallest fry, but they all seem to eat real nice.
It is incredible what the young discus can eat. I feed them two batches of brine shrimp a day. I noticed I have increased the hatching percentage of the brine shrimp by adding a small light. I still have around 80 young discus left, I think the parents have removed some of the dead fry as I only removed 12 of them a couple of days ago.
How much can they eat? I feed them at least ten times a day, but they stay hungry!
I tried to give them some bigger foods like chopped discusmix and cyclops but they are real picky and will not eat that. I will start to feed them something else in the morning when they are really hungry….they still eat two brine shrimp batches a day (1 liter of water, 2 spoons of salt and a teaspoon of brine shrimp eggs). They really eat a lot.
Some more pictures:
Hatching the brine shrimp actually is not that much work, I can start that in around 30 seconds. Changing the water is more time consuming.
I will try to take photo with a ruler, making it easier to compare them. They are still very small, although you can almost see them grow…
I feed them brine shrimp every hour….I don’t know where they leave it….
Two more close-ups:
Some wonder what I will do with all those discus fish. I have the feeling not that many will reach adulthood, I expect some more setbacks.
I have plenty of aquariums, so I can take my time selling them. First I can just enjoy raising them:
Feeding:
They are mainly feeding, feeding and feeding some more:
They eat lots of brine shrimp. Fortunately they will now eat cyclops and finely chopped discusmix as well, a bit less work now…
Discusmix:
Some more pictures to track their growth:
You can see around 60 of the fry in my 100 centimeter tank. In total there are around 80.
Feeding time:
Tomorrow I will use the ruler again to show their grow rate. The difference between the largest and smallest is smaller now, although there are some “funny” ones.
They refuse to listen to me and swim next to the ruler, the image is a bit vague.
What they keep doing is eat, eat and eat some more…. They cost me a fortune on discusmix and brine shrimp. I still feed them ten times a day, but they stay hungry. It is a lot of fun cleaning the tank with a swarm of hungry snapping piranha discus on your arm.
Here they are, waiting for food:
I thought I had around 80 young left but after counting there are just 71 left. With the gill worm infection I must have lost more than I thought. Perhaps the parent have cleaned up some of them…..
They eat so much, I think I will have to raise my mortgage to keep this up!
Photography: Pieter Bregman
Website: www.fotobregman.nl
wow that was interesting! lovely photographs!