Gutted, just lost a whole brood in hours

[kev1310]

Thanks so much guys! Now all I need to do is work out how to change more water with these guys. I don't normally have too much trouble but with these young as soon as a syphon went into the tank they all rushed over to it and risked getting sucked up, doh! They do spawn pretty regular though so I should get another chance soon

[danotaylor]

Kev do you have a pic we could see of the pairs you are working with?

[kev1310]

Hi Dan,

these are the two main pairs I'm working with at the minute, I also have another very old pair I'm hopeful will breed one more time, although I do have 9 month old young off those I'm hoping will start in 6 months time.

The pigeons are regular spawners, but the turks are on a break. I've not had any young off these yet. The female is a terrible egg eater and eats them more or less as they are being laid.


Pigeons.jpg

female turk.jpg

male turq.jpg

[danotaylor]

Beautiful pairs Kev, I especially like the shape and patterns of the PB's!

[kev1310]

Thanks Daniel, they weren't cheap! lol

[peewee1]

Very nice pairs, Kev. The Turks are very colorful. With those to it is hard to tell the male from the female but I would suspect that the fish in the bottom photo is the male.

[kev1310]

Yep, the bottom one is the male. I'm dying to get a brood off that female but it just doesn't seem to be happening. I'll give it a couple more months and then put the original female back in. They're cleaning and displaying all of the time, but I never see eggs. I'm not sure if she's laying and eating them as she lays (which I have seen her do once before) or if she's just not laying.

[peewee1]

Yep, the bottom one is the male. I'm dying to get a brood off that female but it just doesn't seem to be happening. I'll give it a couple more months and then put the original female back in. They're cleaning and displaying all of the time, but I never see eggs. I'm not sure if she's laying and eating them as she lays (which I have seen her do once before) or if she's just not laying.

It is interesting that you say that about the pair. I too have a pair that for months have cleaned and shaking including motions that look like they are depositing eggs on the cone but no eggs. Dry runs that should have given them enough practice to continue the process. I have one breeding tank so I moved them out and replace them with another suspected pair of wild cross. Did I ask what ph, temp, food, and water changes are causing your successes?

[CliffsDiscus]

Thanks so much guys! Now all I need to do is work out how to change more water with these guys. I don't normally have too much trouble but with these young as soon as a syphon went into the tank they all rushed over to it and risked getting sucked up, doh! They do spawn pretty regular though so I should get another chance soon

I usually place an screen in front of the syphon so the fry won't get suck. Fly screen
replacement works great also good use as a
tank divider too. I usually wipe down the tanks at the same time.

Cheers,
Cliff

[kev1310]

Hi Peewee, In my breeding tanks I keep the temp around 84, TDS is around 70, I get about a 95% hatch rate at that, I don't test GH or KH. I do sometimes vary the PH, it's usually 7.6 unadjusted but I have tried dropping it to 6.5 and then 6.0 to get a spawn, but to be honest it doesn't seem to have made much difference so most of the time I don't bother adjusting it. Water changes are usually between 25% and 50% every other day, it varies depending how much make up water I have ready to go. Food is usually beefheart in the morning and FDBW in the evening.

Thanks Cliff, I'll give that a go with the next brood

[danotaylor]

Thanks Daniel, they weren't cheap! lol

If you bought them as breeding pairs I can imagine! Good quality discus come with a startling price tag at times!

[peewee1]

Hi Peewee, In my breeding tanks I keep the temp around 84, TDS is around 70, I get about a 95% hatch rate at that, I don't test GH or KH. I do sometimes vary the PH, it's usually 7.6 unadjusted but I have tried dropping it to 6.5 and then 6.0 to get a spawn, but to be honest it doesn't seem to have made much difference so most of the time I don't bother adjusting it. Water changes are usually between 25% and 50% every other day, it varies depending how much make up water I have ready to go. Food is usually beefheart in the morning and FDBW in the evening.

Thanks Cliff, I'll give that a go with the next brood

Thanks. I have the pairs that I am hoping for both at 84 to 86. Ph range is 7.6 to 7.8. In the past I had not tested for KH or Gh but I did by my very first KH test kit and it shows between 50 to 100. The only difference in our approach is the fish themselves and the food. When breeding wild discus more than 30 years ago I feed only beef heart and ph so low the water was tea in color. But these now day fish must be different. I ordered beef heart Sunday so I can begin beef heart and fdbw Wednesday. I will see if that improves my chances. One par is about 2 years old while the other is at about one year for the other pair.

[kev1310]

In my experience, neither hardness or pH have really made much difference with domestics, obviously this may be different for those that are wild or F1's. My tap water is 400ppm and pH 7.6 and they'll readily spawn in that the only difference it makes is in fertility rate, although I have had some hatch at 400ppm it's only maybe 10%. I do think they're more inclined to spawn at 84f than at 86f though, I plan on reducing further to 82f to see if that helps at all.

I like feeding the FDBW as well as the beefheart as if the parents are taking it, as soon as the young are 2-3 weeks old you find them taking it as well and then you're not as reliant on using BBS, plus it is so high in protein they grow like stink. Once their off BBS I'll gradually switch over to beefheart but FDBW is so much more convenient and much less polluting, it's just so damned expensive.

The pigeons have laid again this lunch although a much smaller clutch this time, so we'll try again. Meanwhile the 30 or so from the brood before last that I artificially raised are beginning to grow nicely

[brewmaster15]

Kev,
Glad to hear theres another spawn. Hard to say what happened to the last spawn but with your water changes water quality could have been a factor....but the rapidity(hours) they died to me indicates either a toxin in the water or food they ate(quality or quantity). Discus fry can be sensitive to both. Another option is they were starving and ate too much at once. If the pair wasn't producing enough slime coat for the numbers of Fry and supplimental feedings with BBS are insufficient the fry can eat too much too fast. They are also more likely to eat shells . This can happen easily at the 1-2 week mark which is where your fry were and the parents being pigeons don't always make enough slime for large spawns. You can easily load the water with Baby Brine and not have a problem with the fry overeating if they are being well fed by the parents and by bbs..

IMGP3278

But if they are too hungry they literally eat too fast and too much at once.. signs of this are rapid death after eating, often you will see them swollen bellied at the bottom of the tank... They will also dart and swim erratically and die quickly. I have experienced it here in the past.

I would suggest feeding as often as you can on that pigeon pair..don't count on the fry getting nutrition from them.. That and increase the water changes and I think you will probably be okay on your current spawn.


Its just one possible explanation of the losses... its a bummer but sometimes we lose them and never know why.

al

[kev1310]

Many thanks for that Al, overfeeding definitely sounds like a possibility, if not a probability!

They were all looking perfectly ok in the morning and I did give them a larger than normal feed at lunch. As you described, when I went in a couple of hours later they did all have heavily swollen bellies and were all hugging the bottom not moving much or swimming erratically with some of them swirling. Literally by midnight the brood was dead.

Hopefully the current brood will fare better, they were laid 48 hours ago and there's only maybe ten eggs that have fungused so it looks like it could be another strong brood, hopefully they will attach as easily as the last lot. Interestingly I left the cone in last time and that's what they were attracted to the whole time, it made it a doddle for the parents to sit close and the fry to swim over for a bite to eat. I think I'll stop removing it now when trying to get fry to attach.

Thanks again