discus or rabbits

[Discus 41]

hi folks,
I have a pair of pidgoen blood discus which i'm not having any problems to get to spawn,they have small batches about every 9-11 days about 75 eggs at a time,
About half are fertile and always get to the wrigger stage and then the parents eat them.
My question is,Is this normal for discus or something else,the fish are about 18 months to 2 years old ph runs at 6.8 water temp is 29.2 and hardness is 60 ppm.
Does anyone have any ideals on why the fish are spawning so often,as most of the articles I have read would suggest a spawn of between 100-300 eggs and about every six weeks between spawns.

thanks Ian

[Merrilyn]

Ian, a lot of parent fish will eat a spawn that they think is not large enough to bother raising. That's fairly normal. In the wild they would have to have about 200 - 300 fry hatch, to have a chance of rearing at least a couple to adulthood.

Are you sure the parents are actually eating the fry, or are they just sucking them up in their mouth, and spitting them back into the nest. That's another normal behaviour.

Couple of things you can do, slow the flow rate of the filter, so there's not much current in the tank. It will give the male a better chance to fertilize the eggs, and so increase the number of fry.

The other thing is, lower the level of the water and keep the tank just dimly lit, so the fry can find the parents, but the fry don't look too much like food.

Unfortunately some pairs are just fry eaters, and there's not much you can do in the end.

Give your pair a bit more time, they are still young fish, and hopefully they'll get things right.

HTH

[Discus 41]

Thanks LR for the advise I have had a chance to watch the parents and as the fry leave the spawning site they do collect them in there mouth and return them,but it almost appears as if they lose patients with the continued round up of the fry and start eating them.
I will also try the lighting suggestion and the water levels

Thanks
Ian

[Suc_Sid]

Ladyred,

I've been reading your posts on breeding.

I've just had two RTs lay eggs, which hatched yesterday, at which time the parents moved them to a different location in the tank. yesterday, there were (approx) 60 fry, however, over night, this has drastically reduced to about 20-30.

I didn't have a light on last night, but am leaving one on tonight, the only filter running is a sponge filter. there are no other fish in the tank, so I assume the parents must have eaten the others... :(

The parents are around 3 years old - previously in a community tank, laying eggs for past 12 months quite regularly, no more than 5 or so fry ever hatched, none lasting more than a day (other discus, rams, cardinals, corys in tank, lots of constant fighting/territory guarding etc)

As with Discus 41, my RTs have never laid more than around 80 or so eggs - should this increase with age/experience?

This is the first time they've had the chance to breed on their own without other fish around - perhaps they might become more experienced after a few more batches do you think?

Any thoughts greatly appreciated.

Thank you

S_S