Discus hatching

[pringle]

Hi All,

I'm a beginner in keeping discus. I've had my discuses for about a year now (got them when they were 5cm). At this stage, I am in the midst of home renovations, and as such I have had to move my 4ft tank into the kitchen. I did this by draining about 4/5 of the tank, and carefully moving the tank. Imagine my surprise come friday night when I found my pair of discus laying eggs behing the back of an anubias leaf. I guess the stress in the moving of the tank did not really bothered them ~ the massive water change must have triggered this.

At this stage most of the eggs have hatched (I would say greater than 95% of them) and the parents are showing normal behaviour. The fries are sticking themselves onto the leaf and if the get detached a parent is always there to put them back in their place.

My concern are the other inhabitants in my heavily planted tank. I have 4 bloodfin tetras; 4 sterbais; 1 bristlenose; 3 siamese algae eaters and 3 other discuses (apart from the parents). I am guessing that it is not the best idea to move the breeding pair and their offsprings to a separate tank at this stage (is this right?). What are the chances of survival should I leave the breeding pair and their offspring in the community tank. : (

Any advice would be helpful. I've got some photos which I will try to upload as soon as I can.

Cheers,
Pringle

[dwilder]

the wigglers usually get eaten in the community tank not sure iwould bother moving the babies just remember once they start breeding they usally keep it up for awhile so move the pair to there own tank and you'll have a better chance of survival the next time

[ILLUSN]

what strain are the discus? browns and turks have raised fry in a comunity tank (usually with great difficulty), other strains have more trouble.

I wouldn't move the parents and fry out, if your up for a challange you can try artificially raising the fry, if not ask the wife VERY nicely for a 2 footer and start up a breeding tank.

[pringle]

You are right Dwilder. I am not keeping my hopes too high. I am keeping my fingers crossed ~ hope I get a few surviving.

Do not have a spare tank at the moment. I am in the midst of getting timber flooring put in the house. The tank right now is not even at an ideal location. Might be a minimum of 2 weeks before I can move it into a more appropriate location in the house.

Illusn -- I have asked the mrs very nicely. I will be getting a 2 ft. Great minds think alike. : ) Just need to get this renovation out of the way.

[pringle]

Sorry by the way, male is a cobolt (I think he is) and female is a blue diamond.

[Merrilyn]

Just leave them to it pringle, and see what happens. You can assist the parents by leaving a small light on so they can see their fry all night and defend them from the other inhabitants of the tank.

I always let my new pairs practice raising a few spawns in the community tank before I move them into a breeding tank. It helps them to get their act together, and learn to defend their babies.

Once in the breeding tank, they are less likely to eat their eggs or fry. Seems to make better parents of them.

Good luck. Fingers crossed for you :P

[pringle]

Thanks Merryln. I have the room light on all the time so I do not think that they will have any problem seeing.

Just wondering .... what would they do in the wild though.....hmmmm...

I have also found that the parents have been moving the offsprings quite a fair bit - from leaf to leaf.......is this normal behaviour?

[Hollowman]

Yes, they are just putting them somewhere they feel is safer for the fry.

H

[pringle]

OK guys,

This is all going pear shaped for me. The first spawn which I mentioned above managed to get wrigglers to a swimming stage, hovering around the body of the parents. However, overnight after this happened, they vanished the next day ~ eaten by other fishes.

They then spawned again. This time I made sure I used some lighting to ensure the wrigglers can see their parents. However, as soon as I turned off the reflectors and kept a study lamp on, some of the wrigglers swam away from their parents and greeted by other fishes, not in the benefit of the wrigglers. As such I decided to keep the reflectors on insted.

Other wrigglers got detached and was lapped up by other tankmates such as SAE and Sterbais that I keep.

Is this time for me to get another tank and transfer the breeding pair to their exclusive tank.

Any advice on how I should do this? I hear that breeding pairs get slightly tormented with the move and may put of laying eggs for a while after being moved.

I also keep them in a very densely planted tank. Should I try to get some plants for their exclusive tank to keep them settled? Bare bottom tanks would work out easier for me. At this stage I only have 1 spare tank ~30L -- I know a bit on the small side, but will it work?

[Hollowman]

a 30 l is way too small. See if you can get a bigger tank if you want to do this sucessfully. Most people use 18" cube tanks for a pair to breed in.

hth

H

[cityguy]

Congratulations.. that's good news suddenly..eh ?