Artificial raising

[springer]

Is there any difference in artificial raised discus or the discus that have a chance to eat of their parents in regards to immune systems and quality

[brewmaster15]

Is there any difference in artificial raised discus or the discus that have a chance to eat of their parents in regards to immune systems and quality

No. Having raised fry both artificially and parent raised to adult and bred these adults I can say I have never noticed any difference. There are pros and cons to each.Artificially raised fry are initially a little more difficult as its easy to mess them up at a critical development point. Parent raised fry initially can grow faster because they have access to 24 hour feeding...but artificially raised fry that are raised properly can do just as well there. Parent raised fry may also benefit from antibodies found in the parents slime... the flipside is they also are infected by whatever pathogens the parents have such as flukes and bacterias...where as artificial raised fry don't have to deal with that so all resources go to growing. Its also possible to raise fish that are pathogen free as far as parasites.

Another benefit to artificial is you can raise far more fry... a good pair will lay eggs every couple of weeks. At one point I raised 3 batches of fry from the same pair in the time a single batch is raised by the parent. Jack Wattley bred thousands and thousand of fry commercially this way. Our own member Cliff has bred many artificially as well.

Some have raised concerns that artificially raised discus fry will be poor parents. This is also the case in other species of fish. I do not believe that is true. ...Biologically speaking...it would take generations of doing this to affect something as hardwired as parenting instincts. Discus raised artificially grow up the same as parent raised and pair up and raise fry the same.

So why parent raise fry? There are few things in fish keeping more beautiful than watching a pair of discus interact with and raise their fry.Most hobbyist will never forget the experience. I think its probably something everyone that keeps discus hopes for at some point.

Al

[Willie]

No obvious difference in quality. Virtually all Asian discus you buy have been artificially raised. Even so, they can parent raise their own fry just fine.

[Willie]

So a funny story about artificial raising. Back when I first started raising discus, Bing Seto was a big time breeder. My job involved a fair amount of travel and I would try to drop by his place in Alameda whenever I'm in San Francisco. I dropped in one day when he was late coming home and spend 30-minutes chatting with Mrs. Seto - while she was siphoning out and changing water in the porcelain dishes Asians favored for raising fry. So the secret to Bing's breeding success was his wife.

[Discus Fever]

Artificially raising fry sometimes have to be done depending on what breed of discus you want to have. Some of them do not not get dark to be able to attract the babies to raise them. I use to breed a long time ago White Diamonds artificially and was very successful at it and I would rather raise discus artificially then letting the parents do it for reasons that AL mentioned before. I do have a large success of babies that are healthy when I artificially raise the babies on my own. When I get my batch of discus in February and get a pair out of them that is the way I will be raising the babies. Will be posting a lot of pictures of the setup I use when artificially raising them. (Spoiler alert I do not use any type of white dish to do it )

[brewmaster15]

Artificially raising fry sometimes have to be done depending on what breed of discus you want to have. Some of them do not not get dark to be able to attract the babies to raise them. I use to breed a long time ago White Diamonds artificially and was very successful at it and I would rather raise discus artificially then letting the parents do it for reasons that AL mentioned before. I do have a large success of babies that are healthy when I artificially raise the babies on my own. When I get my batch of discus in February and get a pair out of them that is the way I will be raising the babies. Will be posting a lot of pictures of the setup I use when artificially raising them. (Spoiler alert I do not use any type of white dish to do it )

Looking forward to it Scott!
Al

[LizStreithorst]

Me too. I don't want to do it. I like seeing the parents caring for their babies. But it would be interesting to see your method.

[Discus Fever]

I learned this method from a very good discus breeder in the early 90's who use to raise all of his discus artificially, luckily for me he only lived 25 minutes from my house and was able to go there and pick his brain on this subject and see his set up on how he did this. He kept this as a secret but once I got to know him and we became really good friends he finally talked about it and showed me everything he was doing.

[Iminit]

I’ve tried this. I could get them to swimmers but never to eat. So I will be interested to see your approach. I’ve got pairs in both my tanks and a pair in a breeding tank that 9 out of 10 times eats the eggs.