discus pairing

[dean_alicia]

hello all,

i was told on the weekend by a LFS owning that you can pair your own Discus up(to get best results in fry color & health)
i thought it was best to let the fish pair them selves..

any thoughts??

[Hollowman]

You can force pairs, but it does not always work.

[gabriel_15]

yeah why force pairs??

Discus for sure knows their mates,, haha,, so lets just observe and watch,,,

:D

[Hollowman]

It is common place to force pairs. You will end up with all sorts of yucky combinations if you let them make their own minds up.
For instance, why would you let a PB pair with a Blue strain? we know that the outcome will be badly peppered PB based fish, these are undesirable and are generally the sort of thing that a pushed out to your lfs for unknowing noobs to buy.
Now, force a good pair together it is a different story. I will force a pair of similar strains, or a pair that have good traits to try to bring out the best from both. This works well and is why we see the fantastic fish coming out of Asia these days. In Asia, the fish wont get the free choice of who the fall in love with, there is method in the madness :wink:

[dean_alicia]

i have a had a red melon pair up with a blur turq pair up in my tank and have just spawned...
i am excited and disapointed at the same time....
this is my first ever breeding pairs but it was hoping that the blue turq(male) would pair up with one of similier color.
what should i do..... do these pair up for life??

[Hollowman]

No, they do not pair for life, but an established pair once seperated can pine for a lost mate sometimes. Just put the same colours together in a tank on their own, give them a few weeks and see what develops.

[rex82]

i have a male and female ring leopard that i am trying to force pair........not much seems to be happening even with all the tricks in the book tried( temp drops/rises, large water changes, ph changes, etc).. i have another male ring leopard i was going to put in with them and see if jealousy will make things move along......i could put the other female in but the two girls always pair together hence why i wont just leave the two girls and two boys in one tank to find eachother natuarally.......driving me nuts they are.........any ideas are welcome