seth@cbnewsh.ATT.COM (peter.r.clark..jr) (01/17/90)
In article <2342@ncr-sd.SanDiego.NCR.COM>, stever@falstaf.SanDiego.NCR.COM (Steve Rochester) writes: > > Hi all, > > > Anybody out there in net land have any experience in breeding Discus. > I have a pair which is currently showing spawning activity and I want > to give them a chance to further populate the world with little Disci. > > I have a few books on the subject (Axlrod & Degen) but I think that > actual experiences, trials and errors, and final success stories are > the best teachers. > > I am interested in everything from basic water condition, filtration, > aeration, lighting, medicines to keep the fungus from the eggs, tank > environment (plants, rocks, clean bottoms...) and anything else you > can think of... [ not too greedy, am I :-) ]. > > I will collect any responses and e-mail them to anybody else who is > interested in this type of data. > > Thanks in advance! > > Steve Steve, I tried E-mail, and it just bounced back to me. Could you post a summary? I'm sure it would be interesting to a few people who might not get mail through... thanks in advance, Pete Clark Jr. att!hos1cad!seth att!cbnewsh!seth
evans@ccicpg.UUCP ( Scott Evans) (01/18/90)
Tried to send this via mail but it bounced so I'll send it this way instead. Press "n" if not interested > Anybody out there in net land have any experience in breeding Discus. > I have a pair which is currently showing spawning activity and I want > to give them a chance to further populate the world with little Disci. > I have never been successful in further populating the world with little Disci but I have had discus that have bred and I can tell you what I've found out. > I have a few books on the subject (Axlrod & Degen) but I think that > actual experiences, trials and errors, and final success stories are > the best teachers. The Watley book is where I got a majority of my information about breeding and raising the fry. > > I am interested in everything from basic water condition, filtration, > aeration, lighting, medicines to keep the fungus from the eggs, tank > environment (plants, rocks, clean bottoms...) and anything else you > can think of... [ not too greedy, am I :-) ]. > > I will collect any responses and e-mail them to anybody else who is > interested in this type of data. > > Thanks in advance! > > Steve Let's see where to start. I had a pair that got the urge, and despite being in a community tank (4 other discus, some clown loaches, and a couple of angels) started to spawn. One was a turquoise (was quite beautiful) and the other a blue (not quite the equal of the turquoise, but not bad when it was in breeding colors). They spawned several times but ate the eggs each time, soon after. I assumed this was due to being in a community tanks so I removed the other fish and they continued but at least took care of the eggs till just before hatching and then ate them (rats!). I finally got tired of that and tried the recommendations in the Watley book. I removed the eggs (they were spawned on a rock) and placed them in a bare 10 gallon with only enough water to cover the eggs on the rock, provided an air stone running just enough to keep the water circulating and added in the methylene blue to keep them from fungusing. I believe it takes about 72 hours for them to hatch (haven't done this for about 4 years now) and they did that just fine. I think it took another couple of days before they loose their yolk sac and become free swimming which was when my problems began. Young discus typically feed off the slime on their parents for the first week or so and you have to supply a subsititute for this. Watley recommends egg yolk that is strained through a very fine mesh (panty-hose works fine) and smeared at the water line of the tank. Unofortunately you have to do this quite a few times a day and make a significant water change after each feeding. Since I work I was not up to the task and thus was unable to get past this stage which I tried a few times. An interesting thing is that once the eggs are removed from the parents tank they will spawn again right away. If you could get past the feeding problem then you could have quite an assembly line going and make lots of money, but... Once they get large enough you can start feeding them freshly hatched brine shrimp (nauplii) of which you have to have a continuous supply for several weeks until you can start to feed them other food like regular brine, worms, or whatever. As far as water conditions go, I'm not very scientific about that. I used to change about 25% of the water in the tanks every 2-3 weeks, directly from the tap (cold water), adding Novaqua (1 Tsp/10 gallons of tank water). I've never measured PH, hardness, ammonia, etc.. That regimen worked well until they started adding the dreaded Chloramine to our water. At first it caused no problems, I added ammo chips to filter and all seemed ok. Then one day I managed to kill all of my large discus and some small ones doing a single water change. Found out from the water company that they add a lot more Chloramine when the weather turns warm/hot. Thanks a lot! After that disaster we really haven't had a good pair of discus for breeding. Now I use an extra 40 gallon tank in the garage which I filter for a few weeks (plus the ammo chips, Amquel (for breaking down the chloramines), and Novaqua) before doing a water change. I don't keep up with the water changes as well either so the discus I have now don't grow as fast and keep their black bands most of the time. As far as feeding goes, my wife used to feed the fish flake food about 2-3 times a day (helps to grow them faster) and worms (tubifex or brown) once a day. I've been told that I probably feed them too much as far as worms go. Watley has a beef heart recipe in the book which probably works quite well. The aquarium setup that the breeding fish were in was a 40 gallon, 2 18" flourescents, gravel and large rocks (for laying eggs on), anywhere from a couple to no plants (depended on how long they lasted), external filter with carbon and floss, and no undergravel filter. Hope that helps some. Good Luck Scott Evans evans@ccicpg