Discus spawn: How to artificially raise?

[mtchye]

Well, the snow white pair we've had barely 2 weeks spawned this afternoon after all. They are still in the quarantine tank with a tonne of baby peppermints so I had to remove the spawning pot with the eggs on it into a bucket of R/O water.

Now assuming they hatch, which is a big IF as the male was pretty lazy around spawning time, what can I do to artificially raise them? I've read various accounts on the net, what they do agree on is keeping the fry in a small white container. Some say you must smear the sides with egg yolk and raise the water levels, others suggest using small sized proprietary foods will suffice if squirted at the fry. I guess I'm asking if anyone has practical experience with this and has any tips.. I might try both ways as I have this really good artemia replacement food in 100 micron size I can try out. Also has anyone ever tried microworms to feed discus fry?

Cheers
Vincent

Heres a pic of the female cleaning the pot.. :)

http://members.iinet.net.au/~chye/white%20swan%20discus%206.jpg

[DiscusMad]

I've only done this with blue rams and had a great hach rate useing an air stone over the eggs but lost half the babies due to i think not eating

[kalebjarrod]

Rod lewis has done it a bit i've herad :wink: http://www.lewisdiscus.com/

[flukes]

Alot of work with discus, might take a few times before you get it right..

[nicholas76]

good luck if you do decide to go the artifical way.

we will need a great deal of time for this thats for sure. Please update us in relatin to your success with whatever you decide

nick

[nicholas76]

Ps. that is a quality fish !!! well done

[mtchye]

Thanks for the well wishes guys. I did not do much, just been feeding them and was not expecting much since I've had them less than 2 weeks. Can't take credit for their quality, SLS is to 'blame' there.. :p

So far it looks like about 80% of the hatch are fertile, I'm preparing a few alternatives to try with the fry, rotifers, the paste yolk method, artemia replacement feed, microworms and green water. I'll let you guys know which one works best.

Luckily my gf's mum just installed an R/O filter at her house too lol. What a coincidence. I think thats really helped with hatching the eggs and avoiding fungus :)

Hopefully Rod will see this post and chime in sometime too :)

Vincent

[mtchye]

http://www.kluweronline.com/article.asp?PIPS=150262&PDF=1

Heres an interesting abstract. Apparently discus fry really go for freshwater rotifers. I don't like my chances finding a culture though!

[sunshinediscus]

http://www.discusforums.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=6563&highlight=#6563

[kalebjarrod]

nice work Rod

on to it i see :wink:

[Proteus]

Looking at the pic she looks like a juvenile, I would be guessing many practice runs before they get it right...

I am more down the lines of leave them be, if you can get a good parent pair, you are on a winner, especially with such a nice looking fish.

[mtchye]

Thanks Rod! :)

Proteus: I don't think they are juveniles.. Not sure of the age but I think they were sold as being a few years old. In any case I was not intending to have them spawn for quite a while yet as the tank they are in needs to be used as quarantine for peppermints and some more discus, so they won't get a chance to parent raise for quite a while yet. I just thought I'd try to save the eggs and give it a go - though chances of success are low.. :)

I will give them a go in their own tank sometime in the future.

An update on the eggs. The infertile ones fungused. I think I caught it early and removed all the infertile and fungused ones but to be sure can someone give me the doseage of methylene blue to use as an antifungal? They are in about 10 litres of water at the moment.

BTW Seems some of the eggs at least are fertile. I see black dots :)

[flukes]

The dose i was told was 1 drop per 10gals.. not sure if its right hopefully someone can back that up or correct it..

[mtchye]

Well just about 47-48 hours later the eggs have hatched! Mind you I did have the temp at 31 degrees. I've rinsed the wrigglers into a container and commenced light aeration. Still a few to hatch, and a few fell to the bottom of the original bucket and I'll retrieve them later...

I had just popped in the methylene blue this arvo too.. Put in 1 drop / litre, and it seems to work.

Anyway hopefully the rest of them hatch soon and I can get a proper count. After that comes the hard part.. I'm going to try smearing the paste onto flat rocks and placing them into the container, rather than on the container itself...

[kevkoi]

:wink: I said they were a breeding pair didn't I? They'll continue to do this weekly. So, if you loose this batch, get the pair ready next week in a tank of their own!

[flukes]

You got a better chance by smearing the food paste at the top of the tank/container.

Just seem to migrate too the top from what ive seen...

Better if speaking to Rod though as he has personal experience..

[mtchye]

I'll give a few things a try. Hopefully they will only need to be fed the egg mix for a couple of days, and then if they start taking microworms or the artemia replacement feed that would be great.. It will be good to experiment in any case :)

A lot of the eggs were infertile after all. Out of the 150 or so eggs, only got about 30-40 wrigglers...

[mtchye]

Oh and another thing, what size tank have ppl found to be good for single pair of fish to encourage spawning. I gather from many posts that its best not to use a dark background on the tanks too, do you need a background at all or can you just leave the bare glass? I am tempted to setup a tank for the pair soon and am looking to purchase probably a 2x18x18 for them... However tank dimensions i can get are flexible and I'd like to hear what sizes you guys think would be good...

Cheers
Vincent

[Merrilyn]

Just about any size tank can be used, but 2 x 18 x 18 seems to be the ideal size. Enough room for the parents but not so large that the fry get lost. Cover the back and sides with a light coloured background. It gives the pair a sense of security, and the light colour wont attract the fry. The darkest thing in the tank should be their parents, as fry are attracted to dark objects.

[mtchye]

Hmm... thats going to be a problem considering the parents are completely white :) Thanks for the tips anyway, I'll give it a go and see what happens!

[Merrilyn]

Hahaha - Yes I realised that after I wrote the post.. But you will find the parents darken a shade or two which will attract the fry once they are free swimming. How are your new babies going. Some people crush baby brine shrimp and mix it in with the egg yolk and smear it around the bowl. Keep us posted. Very few of us would have first hand experience of artificially raising fry, so there will be a lots of people following this thread with great interest. Good luck. :P

[mtchye]

Hi Merrilyn,

The fry are still wrigglers. I expect them to become free swimming tomorrow night sometime, at that stage I'll give them one feeding to experiment.

The general consensus is one hard boiled yolk, one raw yolk, and a teaspoon of spirulina. I'll try that mix and pop in some bbs or artemia feed.. maybe both. :)

We'll see how it goes. Given my inexperience chances of success are low - but its worth a try as the eggs would have been wasted anyway.

:)

[sunshinediscus]

Hi Vincent,

Sounds like a fun experiment going on there mate, one tip is when you do start feeding the egg yolk mix keep it to a bare minimum, too much and the water will get polluted and clouded very quickly. I feel you may have more chance of success if you tried smearing the egg around the rim of the tank but a flat stone sounds interesting, perhaps the color of the rock will attract the fry even better. Good luck, be watching for updates.

Rod

[mtchye]

Thanks Rod. I will probably try varying techniques and see which ones the fry prefer. I've put them in a transparent container so that the only thing solid they will see is the food on the various things :)

[mtchye]

Well its been about 48 hours and most of the fry have not died. I smeared the rim of the tank, a PVC pipe, and a colourful weighted airstone and surprisingly their favourite was the airstone. THis bodes well for me as I can easily pop them in and out of the tank.

Another thing I've been trialing is using Seachem Purigen - i put a few bits of it in there. It should absorb all the ammonia or nitrogenous waste products, and as it grows darker I know its time for a water change. I also pop in a drop of Prime for an added safety net every so often.

I must admit I havent been changing water every 2 hours like everyone says. I had a full day at uni today and left it about 8 hours or so... All the babies are happy and healthy so I'm guessing the purigen works. Its a little bit darker in shade so I did a water change as soon as I got home.

Heres a lil pic of teh babies on their fav feeding post:

http://members.iinet.net.au/~chye/discus%20fry.jpg

[sunshinediscus]

The babies look very healthy, keep us updated.

I gave up rairing fry artificially because it was such a pain in the rear to do, but maybe your on to an acceptable alternative to the tradional method. Good work.

Rod

[mtchye]

Thanks Rod, that means a lot coming from you. ;)

Yeah it seems that daily maintenance is OK. The purigen does turn dark pretty fast so I guess you have to keep putting in new purigen. It also means that nitrogenous waste builds up pretty fast in there! I'm not surprised considering all this uneaten egg yolk floating around lol...

Have you ever found discus fry to eat microworms at all Rod? I put a bit in but its hard to what they heck they are eating in there. I know they eat off the airstone because they are always hanging around and pecking at it.. no idea how to tell if they're eating anything else..

Vincent