Discus Fry Dying Off After Free Swim

[DiscusBP]

Hello Everyone.
I am new to SD and hoping that the community could help. I have 3 pairs of discus that are spawning regularly and have grown a bit tired of watching them eat their eggs. 30+ to put a number on it. Recently I thought to start my own project and try to artificially rear them. I have had not so good results so far. I have tried a few different things but nothing has worked yet. I keep loosing the fry during the free swim stage. Here is what I am doing right now.

I remove the eggs and pot from parents and place the pot into a 2.5 gallon tank filled with water from the parents, a heater (86 f), meth blue, and an air stone close to the eggs.
Once the eggs hatch and become wigglers I move them to a small tupperware tub.
The water in the 2.5 g tank is replaced with "fresh" water from the parents again and at this point I add a seeded sponge filter.
The tupperware tub is floated on the new water with a slow bubbling air stone.
Do 50-75% Water Changes with Turkey Baster after feeding.

I lose only a few during wiggler stage. It is when they become free swimming as the casualties start to pile up.

I have fed them a egg yolk mix before which they seemed to like but they died out none the less. And also tried "fry crack" that I bought off of aqua bid which is supposed to replace apr.
I also tried baby brine shrimp which they didn't seem to eat.
I have never had fry make it past 5 days.
Today is the first day of free swimming for a batch but only half started swimming and the other half died.

Water is 86f, Ph 6.8, Ammonia 0, Nitrites 0, Nitrates 10. Wondering if I should try RO water?
I know this was long and I probably forgot something but I'm just trying to paint a picture.

Thanks in advance for any help.
Best,
Nathan

[John_Nicholson]

First turn your heat down to 82. There is no need to have it 86. Second your shoe box is not right. When feeding the fry fresh hatched BBS the first few days you have to put tons of it in. The fry nearly have to just swim into it. They will eat it fine and you should not lose very many. Also cut down on the amount of light a little. Check out the following link.

-john

http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showthread.php?115923-Raising-fry-in-a-shoe-box&highlight=shoe+box

[DiscusBP]

Thank you for the pointers John. I actually just bought some supplies today for a new shoebox set up. Do you have an efficient way to feed the brine shrimp? I have a brine shrimp egg+salt mixture and i use a 2 liter bottle. To feed the fry I take out the air going to the 2 liter with the bbs and suck out the bbs with the air hose. I seem to get a ton of eggs etc and not a lot of shrimp. Is there a better/more efficient way? Also it's going on 5 days since free swimming. About 30 fry are still here but they don't seem to be swimming much. They are laying on the bottom mostly but when I stir the water they wiggle and swim and then go back to the bottom. Is this normal for this stage? Sorry i'm still pretty novice at raising fry if you haven't noticed:p

Thanks again!

[DiscusBP]

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[DiscusBP]

Hey John,
Check out the pics. I made a shoebox with 2 compartments based on your design. I hope I got everything right.

[John_Nicholson]

The box looks good. On the BBS I hatch mine out in 1 gallon glass jars. I feed one jar in the morning and one jar in the evening. You want to feed as close to hatching as you can. It is really the unabsorbed egg sack that you are trying to feed more than the BBS itself. I place my jar on a little box that I have and aim a light at one side. The shrimp will collect by the light and I use a small diameter hose to siphon the BBS out. By doing so I pretty much only get BBS. Remember when the fry are first freeswimming you have to put tons of BBS in the water. My guess is this batch is too far gone to save but the good news is you are set and ready to go for the next one.

Good luck.

-john

[Kal-El]

I've raise fry artificial many times. This is how I do mines. It makes life easier for the fry to get to food. I've written a whole thread about this topic you can check it out in my posted thread.

1-2days

http://youtu.be/sjc26Q_RTXg

3-5 days

http://youtu.be/bOS1-83XQ8k

Week older and Up

http://youtu.be/G6oJgv18olI

[Keith Perkins]

I remove the eggs and pot from parents and place the pot into a 2.5 gallon tank filled with water from the parents, a heater (86 f), meth blue, and an air stone close to the eggs.


They are laying on the bottom

There is a study that says if MB is present at free swimming the swim, or is it air, bladders won't properly inflate and you get belly sliders. That may not be what's going on here, but thought it was worth mentioning. You can use MB shortly after egg laying, but should be doing large daily WCs afterwards to get the level of MB down to negligible levels by free swimming time. Good luck.

[delta5]

What is MB?

[Keith Perkins]

Methane Blue. The OP in the post I quoted said he had used it.

[CliffsDiscus]

Methane Blue. The OP in the post I quoted said he had used it.

I use it sometime and other times the use of ariflavine works too, it come down to how the breeders uses it.

Cliff

[DiscusBP]

Thanks everyone for the input. I have one more problem that is new for me and wondering if anyone knows. It has been 2 days since a batch of discus hatched and am patiently waiting for tomorrow for their first feeding. However...a new problem has arisen. Many of the fry are very bloated? I had this happen to a spawn of angel fish fry before and they all died. Does anyone know what causes fry bloat? Half or more are bloated and know they will not survive long. How can I avoid this in the future?

[DiscusBP]

94785

A lot of them look like this and are dying off one by one. Never had this happen with discus fry before.