kick starting breeding?

[brady]

As the title suggest I'm wondering is there any way to get a group of 6
1 year old discus to pair off. I've heard over the years-drop w/c temp,
if that's the case what should be the degree differential ? I keep my water at 82-83 F.
I've also heard live food will do it, but I'm not going to feed live food. Disease and such.
Any of the above feasible or is there something else out there?
Thank you
Jay

[Pardal]

Brady
There is a lot more , you need to condition through out , if you don't want to use live food because of the risk involve, make sure the food is rich in proteins, ie beef heart mix, sea food mix, freeze dried black worms, vitamin enrichment etc. WC regimen " daily" so grow and health is guarantee.
For the water quality and temperature it doesn't have to be really cold , is just relative cooler , you are trying to imitate a rainy season for ie a water temperature in the low 70 to a high 60's will cause a temp drop in a normal discus tank temperature of 82 or more.
The other factor is water hardness and ph, with the GH being more important to trigger and get the eggs fertilized a TDS between 50- 100 is good for breeding domestics . I normally shoot for 60 to 70 , just think about those years when music was really good , lol, just kidding. I don't really worry about ph it will take care of itself if you watch your water hardness.
There are many other factors to consider but this is what I can think right away.
Another thing 6 is what probabilities tell us for a random pick, but sometimes people influence the results by choosing the bigger fish, or the red ones etc and you might end up with all males in case of the big ones, or all females like in the later .

[brady]

Brady
There is a lot more , you need to condition through out , if you don't want to use live food because of the risk involve, make sure the food is rich in proteins, ie beef heart mix, sea food mix, freeze dried black worms, vitamin enrichment etc. WC regimen " daily" so grow and health is guarantee.
For the water quality and temperature it doesn't have to be really cold , is just relative cooler , you are trying to imitate a rainy season for ie a water temperature in the low 70 to a high 60's will cause a temp drop in a normal discus tank temperature of 82 or more.
The other factor is water hardness and ph, with the GH being more important to trigger and get the eggs fertilized a TDS between 50- 100 is good for breeding domestics . I normally shoot for 60 to 70 , just think about those years when music was really good , lol, just kidding. I don't really worry about ph it will take care of itself if you watch your water hardness.
There are many other factors to consider but this is what I can think right away.
Another thing 6 is what probabilities tell us for a random pick, but sometimes people influence the results by choosing the bigger fish, or the red ones etc and you might end up with all males in case of the big ones, or all females like in the later .

Thanks Julian for the reply and merry Christmas to you and yours.
I do all of the above and I have bred discus but usually I let nature take it's course.
This time I just wondered if I could move the process along.
I had another idea that I was going to try.
I have 2 fish that I am 95% sure that they are male and female.
I was going to put those 2 in a 30 so that could concentrate there efforts on each other
rather then the other 4 and see what happens.
What do you think?
btw, I just got in snowblowing my 250 foot dreiveway of 6 inches of snow
while you were enjoying 80 degrees and sun.LOL
Jay
What do you think

[White Worm]

I would wait until 2 show some breeding/pairing behavior before putting them in their own tank. If they are not a pair, you could have immediate aggression problems. As you know, mother nature and time works best.