red melon discus with fry

[crushellon]

hello discus forums!

I am new to keeping discus, I started buying one then got addicted to this amazing fish. I bought a few small (2in) discus to bring up and hopefully one day breed them, but in my travels of fish shops i found these two large red melon discus. They were HUGE and absolutely stunning, so i had to have them. Whoa did they cost me. They weren't bought as a breeding pair and weren't even bought for this purpose but after only a month of having them (2 months since my first discus) omg there are eggs in my tank!!!! Zomg. I was uber excited, the first spawn yielded very positive results considering i wasn't expecting it. At least 10 got to wriggler stage in a tank that totally wasn't meant for breeding. So an empty tank they got. but because I'm an amateur keeper I made the mistake of thinking a sponge filter is a sponge filter and thats that. Well the second spawn of about 30-40 wrigglers (was very excited with the progress the fish were making) all got sucked into the filter but 4..... So it turns out I had a "power" sponge filter. So a new filter I got, spawned again they did and I now have about 70 wrigglers and 2 free swimming guys. The discus have even halved they're cycle now from once a week to once every 5 days. I'm very excited and proud for my fish and for myself so i just had to get on a forum and tell people about it!!!

I'll keep posted on the progress of these guys, very promising start with 3rd spawn giving 60+ wrigglers. woohoo
:)


http://i942.photobucket.com/albums/ad261/Crushellon/IMG_0254.jpg

red melon female looking after 24hr old fry with 4 day old having a munch on her side. a wriggler even managed to attach itself to her side if you can spot her.


http://i942.photobucket.com/albums/ad261/Crushellon/IMG_0255.jpg

male red melon


[/img]http://i942.photobucket.com/albums/ad261/Crushellon/IMG_0256.jpg


another of the female

[Hassles]

Well all I can say is "well bloody done mate" :D

I had my first discus spawn a couple of days agom, and like you the mother was a red melon. The eggs were all gone on day 2 which is unsurprising the nature of the community tank but yeah, its always a buzz when its starts happening. take care & best of luck

[Hollowman]

I hope you never spent too much money on your first fish. These are poor/low quality fish and imo, I would never breed them. Breed to learn by all means, but nothing more. They look stunted to me also, not your fault, done through poor care in raising before you got them. If you want to try to do this properly, save the effort breeding these fish and save your money to look for a good pair that is worth the trouble.
Do a search for melons and see how yours differ.

Sorry if it sounds a bit harsh, it is exciting to breed fish, but it is a bit like breeding mongeral dogs, nobody really want them.

H

[Hassles]

Your fish are highly peppered - eg: all the little black spots. Discus have what is known as "stress bars" which are vertical black bars. These bars are pigmentation which have all but been bred out of some discus types. Once almost bred bred out, occassionally this pigmentation is seen as tiny black spots known as peppering. Peppering is not a desirable trait in discus but a little peppering is present in many discus strains. I think you should enjoy your fish, enjoy the experience, learn as much as you can about the breeding of discus and move on to more equisite strains when the time comes. The breeding of discus and the raising of fry is no less an achievement because of any given strain or the presence of Peppering. If I were you I would be pulling the champagne corks and drink most of the bottle myself.

Take care and enjoy your fish. Once again, well done :-)

[swampy1972]

Crushellon,

Congrats on achieving what many Discus keepers never get the chance to experience. You're obviously providing your fish with good conditions which is another fine achievement.

The two H's raise good points: Agreed that your fish are not the best quality, but they're bringing you two very important things. 1. Experience 2. Pleasure.

Learn from them, enjoy them and when you're comfortable in your knowledge retire these little guys to a display tank and work with some high quality fish.

Be very particular with the care, raising and culling of your fry and you may end up with some good juvies. Avoid passing sub-standard fish on into the market place as it's not good for the hobby.

Like Hollowman, I'm sorry if this sounds cold but the beautiful fish we see in books and online take many years of selective breeding and we should all do our best not to undo this hardwork.

All the best mate ;)

[Hollowman]

Sorry for being a bit harsh. You will learn lots from raising your fry, so good luck to you. Enjoy them. It will prepare you for the future. :wink:
H

[mitsui]

They may not be perfect but Im sure you love them all the same!

Congrats on the fry mate! :D

[crushellon]

here's the rest of my discus

http://i942.photobucket.com/albums/ad261/Crushellon/IMG_0262.jpg

http://i942.photobucket.com/albums/ad261/Crushellon/IMG_0270.jpg

http://i942.photobucket.com/albums/ad261/Crushellon/IMG_0268.jpg

http://i942.photobucket.com/albums/ad261/Crushellon/IMG_0266.jpg

[img]http://i942.photobucket.com/albums/ad261/Crushellon/IMG_0263.jpg

what do you think?