yep
Yes, wow. Eastern North Carolina. That was in the middle of the floods, right?
yep
Mama Bear
The pairs are flirting and cone pecking again. I did all I could do. I changed 1/3 of their water with rain water and gave them big socks of tea as well. Not much rain coming in the foreseeable future and I only have about 30 gallons of rain water left. I hope they get down to business soon.
Mama Bear
I got a good spawn from the pair I removed from the contest because I thought that the male was infertile and the female was terrorizing all the other fish. I knew that my number one pair was on the verge of spawning after feeding and WC yesterday evening. But my back was hurting so badly that I went to bed to rest at 6 pm. I woke up at 8 so I could lock the chickens in their house. (If I don't do this a critter will get one) I knew that I should check the fish but I figured that the eggs would still be there today and went back to bed. I had a marathon sleep and it did me good, but when I went down to the fish room this morning I saw the female of the number 1 pair guarding 2 eggs. They hadn't just started spawning because there was not a breeding tube in sight. Oh well, I made a mistake and paid for it.
The number 2 pair is generally a day or 2 behind the number one pair when it comes to spawning. I see no flirty action yet but I'm watching carefully. My old female lays a lot of legs and the Chicago Discus is young and very fertile.
Mama Bear
Finally something to report. My best pair spawned yesterday afternoon. I pulled the cone, dripped meth blue and put the cone back in the tank. As I was putting the cone back in, my male (my best fish) attacked me. He was so furious he jumped out of the water. Their tank is next to the box I keep my foods in so rather than landing on the floor he just fell a into the plastic bags of fish food.
He had attacked me once before during a water change. I was surprised at his ferocity because he splashed water all over my face. This dude is a Pitt Bull when it comes to guarding his eggs.
I'm sure that there is little rain water left in this tank since I ran out and we have had no rain, but the tank is dark with tea so my fingers are crossed once again.
Mama Bear
So are mine Liz, toes too (that hurts a bit).
Barb
In addition to meth blue/peroxide/whatever, something I had marginal success with was soaking the eggs in distilled water for a few hours about an hour after the spawn. May be worth a shot if they keep giving you a hard time.
I'll keep it in mind, Adam.
Mama Bear
Ho hum...another day another disappointment
Mama Bear
Oh Liz,
I was hoping for better news. You know what they say, “Practice makes perfect.” I am disappointed though. I see your new post and my hopes are up, then I sigh with you my friend. I hope we get to celebrate next time. I can always find something to celebrate in the meantime time. Right? Hope your not too disappointed.
Patty
If the discus are happy, I’m happy
It's not the disappointment to me now that it was when it first started happening.
Funny thing is, I have a large spawn of Angels that should free swim today. I had quit breeding Angels since I had way too many and selling on AB is more of a chore than a pleasure. The breeding project with Angels that had been on my mind for a long time was to breed one of my half blacks to one of my Blue Silver pearlscales in the hopes of eventually establish a line of Blue Half Blacks and perhaps even Blue Half Black pearls. I had a pair in a breeding tank and watched week after week as they would spawn. Since I had no tea in the water the eggs would turn white and be eaten. As a test to see if the tea was no longer working I added it this time when I saw the pair getting in the mood. Sure enough, I have a huge spawn.
I'm back to wondering if the problem is that my existing Discus have low fertility. I know it's the case with one of my males, but he's the one I have have gotten a few wigglers from. I can see no reason why my young home bred male should have fertility problems. The other pair in the contest tank has a Chicago Discus male and the female is one of my existing fish. It seems unlikely that she would produce eggs that were not viable. It's a mystery to me.
I'm still hoping that the problem is with the hardness of my water but until we have rain there is no way that I can test that theory. Every day the weather says we will have a chance of thunderstorms, some severe. All I ever get is the wind, the thunder, and the lightening.
Mama Bear
Liz, what is your water like?
Pat
Your discus are talking to you....are you listening
pH 7.2 after aging. kH 4.5. gH 0. I need batteries for my TDS meter but if I remember correctly it was around 100. Lots of people get spawns with numbers far worse than mine.
I haven't actually tested in ages because my water always tested the same and I never had problems with getting spawns with either RO or the tea until now. And now, it's just the Discus that I am having no luck with. My water comes from a deep aquifer so I don't see that it's likely it would change.
Mama Bear