Discus Egg Color

[natelogston]

I've been looking around to see if there was some good information about discus egg color and haven't quite found what I'm looking for. Can anyone tell me if eggs that are amber colored means they've been fertilized? For several spawn attempts, the eggs remained light grey before turning white (dying) a couple days later. This current time, the eggs turned amber colored on day two. I assume this means they're fertilized but I haven't seen that written anywhere. All I know from reading is that it means they're still healthy. Any help would be appreciated. I'd love to find out my pair is making progress. Until now, I've been worried that I perhaps had two females.

[Chad Hughes]

Not all eggs are layed equally. Depending on the strain of the discus, some will look darker than others when laid.

That said, all fertile eggs should darken as time passes.

If the egg turns white within a couple of days, one of two things has occurred. Either the egg wasn't fertilized or your water is too hard, causing the egg to calcify.

Hope that helps!

[natelogston]

That does help. Thank you! Sounds like possibly good news then, as the eggs have darkened and they do vary in darkness. The batch looks completely different this time. From what I can tell, the male was much more prompt when fertilizing than he's been before and is much more diligent in guarding.

[Chad Hughes]

That's a very good sign!

If they are two days old, you should have wigglers soon.

[natelogston]

well it's day 4 and a lot are still dark but covered in fungus from what i can tell (they picked a difficult spot for me to see). for some reason they're still guarding. usually by now they'd have gotten rid of them especially with a fungus on them

[Chad Hughes]

All I can say is if you're on day 4 you should see wiggles at least. At day 6 of you don't have swimmers ind slick the cone and let them try again. Some discus will sit there and look at fuzzy eggs for a week or two if you let them.

[natelogston]

thanks for the advice chad!

[FORDMAN]

My discus pairs (three pairs) all have different color eggs. Not sure if because the lights are slightly defferent in color but all the eggs hatched.

[cjr8420]

well it's day 4 and a lot are still dark but covered in fungus from what i can tell (they picked a difficult spot for me to see). for some reason they're still guarding. usually by now they'd have gotten rid of them especially with a fungus on them

if u havent seen wrigglers b4 very small and the spawn is hard to see u might already have wrigglers and not know it gl

[pastry]

chad, had to laugh my butt off on the "not all eggs are created equal"... but so right! one of my RCs lays bright red eggs

mike, i'm with you on that. it's funny how many times i'm positive that a pair in the community looks like they ate their eggs only to see several days later fry feeding off the sides of them out of no where (before the lemon tetras go in for the kill... one of these days i'll thin those tetras out!)

nate, just keep letting them do their thing, bud. the key is looking for the "black dots" regardless of the egg color. some males (or strong current) may not get enough of their "mojo" into the eggs. over time it should get better (should). also, I find it surprising to see that some of my pairs are better at keeping a constant flow over their eggs than others. one pair always has wigglers but not many while the rest of the eggs turn white and get all "fungisy" and crap while the other two pairs hardly have any white eggs and one of those two usually have hardly any (if any) white fungus hanging around (my RTs... first spawn they were champs). I don't breed though... so this is purely speculation on my part.