Three weeks! Now what?

[Mac]

I am abandoning my thread entitled "When do we give up on a pair?" because it has been overtaken by events.

As you would see, the pair in question unexpectedly produced a good spawn, 3 weeks old today. They eat BBS, of course, and I believe are also eating some Hikari "First Bites" and maybe some freeze-dried tubifex. Hard to tell.

My question: When do I move them and/or separate from the parents? As I have explained, they were whelped in a plastic tub (hence the poor quality pix), and I am now preparing to move them into a 20 gallon all-glass to grow them out. Should I move the parents too? Or put them back in the big tank with the other discus?

Anything else I should be thinking about?

I will now try to upload a couple pix taken in that past day or so.

Mac

[PAR23]

It looks like you have a good number of fry there. I think 20G is too small at this stage. I would start looking at something bigger, 40G--55G. I've kept fry with parents until 4 weeks or so and then move the fry into a larger tank to grow out and give the parents some time off.

[Mac]

OK, now we are at 4 weeks tomorrow. They are no longer nursing on their parents, and are eating live BBS, frozen mini bloodworms and (I think) some mini flakes.DSCN8995.jpgDSCN8991.jpg

My question is: When can I stop with the BBS? I have read on another forum that they lose their nutritional value after 12 hours or so when their protein-rich yoke sacs are depleted, and so I've only been making one tsp. per day. Time-consuming!

BTW, sorry about the pic: I should have wiped off the plastic tub before I used the flash.

Mac

[RogueDiscus]

About this time the parents may get irritated and need to be removed, or the fry removed. You might get lucky and they get along for a while longer. 1-2 times a day BBS as long as they keep eating it and you clean up the extra, won't hurt. You'll want to transition them to your staple food; FDBW, pellets, flakes, beefheart, etc. Daily water changes.

[PAR23]

I keep unfed BBS in the fridge in attempt to slow down their metabolism to preserve whatever nutritional value they may have left....I discard them at the end of the day.
I agree with Steve, I keep feeding BBS as long as they continue to accept it and you can perform WC after feeding. By week 4, mine hit BH mix pretty hard.

[Willie]

My recommendation is to wean them onto beef heart as soon as you can. I've had fry go to BH as early as 11 days free swimming. The growth rate on BH is so much higher than on any other food. Once they're gorging on BH, they really don't care if the adults are still there.

Willie

[Mac]

Thanks all for your advice.

I moved them today, exactly 28 days after hatching, with the mother; put the dad back in the 90-gallon with the other discus.


DSCN9002.jpgDSCN9006.jpgDSCN9008-001.jpg

There were 95 babies (after 7 known deaths in the spawning tank). I would have said 70 -- but they would never line up to be counted.

They are eating BBS, frozen mini BWs, and some can even choke down some of the adults' live BW. Plus I saw them nibbling on TetraCichlid sticks lying on the bottom.

Now it's time to work on our tax returns.

Mac