new pair eating the fry

[chandra2b]

Hi I have joined the forms few months ago and I have to say I found so much useful information and advice in here. I had discus for a long time now. I recently got a pair they are really beautiful pair of fish. As I have noticed them pair off I left them in the community tank for few weeks and noticed that they are not showing any interest in spawning so I have separated them into a 51cm cubicle of their own. After 3 weeks they have spanned in the new tank, I use RO water in the breeding tank change 20% everyday, pH 6-6.5, temperature 29oC and other stable conditions.

About my fish: the female is 20cm fish and the male is 15cm, I had them for a year, bought them at 6 months old they are both blue torques. They are very cool fish not aggressive or violent compared to other fish in my community tank, they are very calm always. The male is active every time I give it food it eats but I have never seen the female eat, may be it eats after I leave or don’t know! But they never had any problems or diseases before, very healthy fish.

Three weeks ago they laid eggs on the cone in my breeding tank, they (both the parents) took very good care of the eggs, flushing water, clearing fungus and so on.... on the third day the eggs have hatched and the they even took the hatched fry that have fallen down and put them on back on the cone, I was so happy that I really had a very good pair that are doing good parenting. But on the fifth day they ate the fry, I don’t know if both the parents ate them or only one of them, I was really depressed because the parents are so good I was not expecting this.
Now they again laid eggs few days ago and it’s the same situation again I couldn’t see which one ate them.

Is there anything that I could do to help the fry? Or should I give them some more time because his is just their second spawn? Am I being too greedy, please help some advice, is there anything that I can do........
Thanks
Jay :cry:

[Andrew Soh]

Let me offer my view.

Two possible reasons:

1) Discus is sensitive yet caring and one reason might be that you view them too frequently...hence adding stress to their parental activity.

Solution: Don't view them or go near to the tank unless water-change. You can also cover the front and the top (But don't keep peeping).

2) Also, it is quite common especially for those discus that don't know how to handle the initiation of free-swimming. As one by one dislodge and start to swim, both parents will pick it up and throw it back to the cone. But as more and more start to dislodge and parents kept throwing them back to the cone, this activity is extremely stressful to the parents and in some cases, they are pushed to the limit, irritated, frustrated and finally eating up the babies one by one (only those dislodged). They think that the babies should not dislodge and free-swim (taken as irregularity) and that is why they only eat up those that free-swim but not those on the cone. Unfortunately, all will eventually dislodge...thus all finally eaten up.

Solutions:

a) Best if the babies dislodge in the early morning just before dawn.

b) More than fifty percent dislodge and swimming with one or two minutes. This becomes out of control for the parents and within half hour, all free-swim.......then nothing much the parents can do but to finally accept it as norm.

c) Keep the tank dim with a blue light above the tank. Best to maintain the whole room dim during the 120hour to 180hour from spawn (spawn to hatching=60hrs; hatched to free-swim= generally 60hrs but for some mutants...61hr to 80hr). Keep tank in constant lightng 24hrs a day.

Take care,
Andrew :wink:

[chandra2b]

thz andrew, i will try that. at the moment they have just spawned yesterday, i am waiting ........

[silviaf]

thz andrew, i will try that. at the moment they have just spawned yesterday, i am waiting ........Hi I also have a problem with the fry.Mine have reached their fifth spawning as maiden parents. The first ones attached to a piece of driftwood so I removed it and then they attached to the parents.Each day they grew so fast,then they began to dwindle, on the forth free swimming day only one remains. And it is clinging for dear life as the male trys to shake it off.They disappear during the night every time. What is the deal here????? Help someone....

[Andrew Soh]

Most likely cause my friend is that you might have viewed them too often and this threatened them....causing them to feel insecured and hence eating up the fry.

On the other hand, there are some parents that disagree with each other over the parenting and that ends up 'fry-eating'

If I were you and if this habit persist, I would remove the parents out on the fourth day of fry swimming.

Don't worry......once the fry start eating BS on the third day, you can remove arents on the fourth to fifth day.

Take care,
Andrew

[Merrilyn]

Good advice as always Andrew Thankyou.

[Andrew Soh]

Hope my recommendation works for him, Merrilyn.

Take care,
Andrew