Albino Breeding `Think Tank'

[mmorris]

My kh is between 0 and 1. Do I need to buffer the water in the breeding tank when adding muriatic acid to the storage tank? I can add crushed coral to a hob. My wc regime is 50% every other day for breeding pairs in 29gal.

[mmorris]

An interesting question was brought up on another forum: by artificial rearing and fostering, are we `breeding out' parental skills? If true, and if this result was visible within a few years, I thought it might be evident with our albino pairs. If parental skills are genetic, then by enabling those without parental skills to pass on their genes, over time we should expect to see a larger proportion of albinos without those skills. If the skills are a learned behavior, we should expect to see the result immediately with artificially raised but not with the fostered. Could it be a mix of both, genetic and learned? My albino pair are great parents until the fry go free-swimming, and then the fry are on their own. What have the rest of you who have been attempting to get the fry to attach to albino parents noticed?

[kaceyo]

IMO, parenting behavior is strickly instinctual with discus. Jack Wattley raised many generations of discus artificially yet you could easily breed his fish and raise them naturaly. Fostering shouldn't have any effect on their ability to raise fry as they are still going through the same process, just not with mom and dad. Besides, in the lower animals everything needed for survival of the species is built in.
Cliff would be able to offer some insight on this subject since most of his fish are artificially raised.

Kacey

[CliffsDiscus]

IMO, parenting behavior is strickly instinctual with discus. Jack Wattley raised many generations of discus artificially yet you could easily breed his fish and raise them naturaly. Fostering shouldn't have any effect on their ability to raise fry as they are still going through the same process, just not with mom and dad. Besides, in the lower animals everything needed for survival of the species is built in.
Cliff would be able to offer some insight on this subject since most of his fish are artificially raised.

Kacey

Kacey,
Yes, you are right on, artifically raise Discus will always go back to natural way from my experience. There is a point where some Discus are bred till it is almost at or near
the end of their line or end of in breeding.

Martha and Bob,
I usually feed the frys within a few hours after free swimming instead of waiting of
them to attach, this will just kick start the feeding, as the egg sac on the albino has a shorter life span then the other types of Discus.

Cliff

[mmorris]

IMO, parenting behavior is strickly instinctual with discus. Jack Wattley raised many generations of discus artificially yet you could easily breed his fish and raise them naturaly. Fostering shouldn't have any effect on their ability to raise fry as they are still going through the same process, just not with mom and dad. Besides, in the lower animals everything needed for survival of the species is built in.


Kacey

Thanks for the tip, Cliff.
Kacey - Fostering wouldn't make an impact if good parental behavior is learned rather than inherited. If it is `instinctual,' or genetic, then those fry with poor parenting skills inherited from the parents would have as much of a chance to survive as the offspring of parents with excelllent skills. The same would be true of artificial rearing. Is it not possible that we are, perhaps, slowly breeding out the ability of discus to care for their young? Essentially any gene except those that are necessary to sustain life can be bred out of a species. Since most albinos are artificially raised or fostered, I thought it would be interesting to hear about the parental skills of albinos.

[BOBT00LS]

Kacey,
Yes, you are right on, artifically raise Discus will always go back to natural way from my experience. There is a point where some Discus are bred till it is almost at or near
the end of their line or end of in breeding.

Martha and Bob,
I usually feed the frys within a few hours after free swimming instead of waiting of
them to attach, this will just kick start the feeding, as the egg sac on the albino has a shorter life span then the other types of Discus.

Cliff

Thanks for the tip Cliff. I'll give that a try next go around. Ive tried dim lighting, black lighting, lowering the PH and always lowering the water level. Every spawn resulted in free swimmers and just as Martha said, the parents care for them up until they go free swimming and then they are orphaned. One thing I did notice was that lowering the PH resulted in a larger clutch of eggs. Im currently making a go of artificial rearing as I figured what do I have to lose. I removed the eggs to a bowl floating in a tank. Today they are wigglers and in a few days I'll coat a black button with powdered egg yoke mix just as in your pictures Cliff. We'll see what happens.


Bob


Bob

[mmorris]

Bob, did you find Baker's powdered egg yolk?

[BOBT00LS]

Bob, did you find Baker's powdered egg yolk?

Hello Martha. I got it from Mikeswetpets.com
He's a good guy and its what people in his fish club use. I looked in several other places but had no luck.

Bob

[mmorris]

I usually feed the frys within a few hours after free swimming instead of waiting of
them to attach, this will just kick start the feeding, as the egg sac on the albino has a shorter life span then the other types of Discus.

Cliff

What are you feeding them, Cliff? I have microworms, san fran bbs, phytoplankton, ON frozen cubes (breaks down into particles small enough for the fry) and various other `first foods' at the ready. Are you feeding on the button at the bottom or aiming for the top?

[mmorris]

Hello Martha. I got it from Mikeswetpets.com
He's a good guy and its what people in his fish club use. I looked in several other places but had no luck.


Bob

Thanks Bob. I didn't see it on their website but if it works, I'll give them a call.

[CliffsDiscus]

What are you feeding them, Cliff? I have microworms, san fran bbs, phytoplankton, ON frozen cubes (breaks down into particles small enough for the fry) and various other `first foods' at the ready. Are you feeding on the button at the bottom or aiming for the top?

Martha and Bob,
The egg yolk formula consist of : Bakers Egg Yolk Powder
Metamucil
APR (Artificial Plankton-Rotifer) by OSI
Spirulina Powder(food grade)

you don't have to use this formula and just use the egg yolk but growth rate without the yolk
is not as fast. First feeding is done when mostly all the fry are at the water level any feeding before
this time is a waste of time the fry are still feeding off of their egg sac. BBS feeding starts
at the end of the 6 day or the beginning of the 7th day. For the albinos they tend
to scatter all over the bowls just not knowing where to feed at this time I would place a small
paper covering 1/3 of the top of the bowls, this tend to bring the fry back under the shaded
area. The yolk is place on the waterlevel, some fry will eat at this level and others will stay
a the bottom still scatter, this is when the button is use to attract the fry.
At the end of the day start feeding BBS(any brand) check their gut if they are eating
the BBS their bellies will be orange if not go for another day
with the egg yolk. Once the fry are eating the BBS the process
is completed, this can go on weekly while the pairs are on its cycle.



Suggestion while using the egg yolk, change the water as many times as possible till you know exactly how much to feed. Medication can help such as Furan 2 as recommended by Wattley.

Cliff

[mmorris]

I only let two pairs take care of the fry this was because both times I was away on a trip.

Cliff

Thanks for the details Cliff! Can you tell us something about the times you let the pairs take care of the fry? Were you away when they attached? Was anything done differently for the fry?

[CliffsDiscus]

Thanks for the details Cliff! Can you tell us something about the times you let the pairs take care of the fry? Were you away when they attached? Was anything done differently for the fry?

Martha,
Ok, the first pair was from a breeder that already spawned the pair a least 5 times without
any attachment, so he gave up. When I received this first pair they were still on its spawn
cycle so I artifically raise 5 spawning out of 6 spawning. When I went away on a trip
the pair spawn again but this time the fry did attached.
The second pair was a albino pair from my own stock, weekly artifically raising till I went
on vacation, after coming back I notice some fry attachment on the pair.

I am not sure if because I was away that the fry attached, even if I was home they might
have attached too. Only a couple of things were different they were not fed and no waterchanges.

Cliff

[mmorris]

Only a couple of things were different they were not fed and no waterchanges.

Cliff

Thanks Cliff. It would be quite funny it that was the simple solution to getting albino fry to attach to albino parents.

[kaceyo]

It seems a bit more than coincidence that both times with both pairs they succeeded with attachment and raising fry when they were left completely alone. I wonder sometimes if we aren't our own worst enemy when it comes to things like this. Just back off and let them do it themselves might work more often than we realize.

Kacey