Breeding; levels of difficulty?

[k9outfit]

I just spoke to a friend with a fairly heavy accent, extremely soft spoken, long distance, so not sure if I understood him correctly. I think he was saying that some varieties of Discus are considerably more difficult to spawn than others? For instance, he said that San Merahs are easy to spawn, whereas Snakeskins are next to impossible, maybe even requiring artificial means, hand rearing, etc. I didn't get the impression that he was refering to difficulty due to colouration, but rather due to extensive linebreeding or inbreeding. Did I understand correctly? Any truth to this?

[Nathan]

well i know there are some strains that are a lot harder to breed, such as albinos and yellow discus, due to their colour being so light the fry are attracted to the darkest thing in the tank and because these discus are so lightly coloured it is hard for the fry to find their parents which makes these starins harder to breed.

Im not sure whether your friend is right about the spawing between strains but im not sure so ill leave it to another forum memeber to answer that.

HTH

[mcloughlin2]

Yes your friend is correct. :wink:

Snakeskins are known to be more "difficult" as they mature later then most strains and males often have to be at least 18months to fertilize the eggs properly..... :)

Im not sure when regarding other strains but those that have been selectively breed for a longer time, are harder to get fertile eggs off...


well i know there are some strains that are a lot harder to breed, such as albinos and yellow discus, due to their colour being so light the fry are attracted to the darkest thing in the tank and because these discus are so lightly coloured it is hard for the fry to find their parents which makes these starins harder to breed.

Yeh your correct with that...

When breeding these colours, you most often have to cover everything with white filter wool so the parents are the darkest object in the tank...

Cheers,

Sam

[k9outfit]

So some of the difficulty being due to a general lower fertility rate in both sexes in the more selectively bred strains? Also if they're slower maturing, then they're less likely to reach a successfull spawning age? Could it also be due to a higher rate of egg/wriggler eating? Any other reasons?

Just curious, is all... Knowing my luck, I ended up with some of the most difficult to breed strains around. :roll: