Separate Fry by size or by appetite (tummy size) ?

[Bart_NL]

My Breeder friend told me to split my fry (2 months now) in 2 groups, so the smaller ones get enough food.

However, I find this hard to do, not only is it hard to catch them, but most of them fall in the "medium" category, maybe end up at the wrong side of the fence ?

I just fed both groups, first some beefheart, then some brine shrimp, surprised at the feeding frenzy that occurs when they get brine shrimp (regular deep-frozen type), so oops...

Now i see that both in the "small" and "large" groups there is a part of them that has a tummy so full, that definitely classifies as overfeeding, yet the rest of them wants more...

Are there breeders among you that use a moment like this to pick out the ones with the largest tummy and appetite and put them apart, rather that looking at just their size ?

As an analog, I am a slow eater, it always happens to me that having dinner with a group, everyone finishes way before me...

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[brewmaster15]

I would sort by size. A fry can be a runt and still have a great appetite but to be a big fry it has to have at least a good appetite.

Hth,
Al

[Bart_NL]

A fry can be a runt and still have a great appetite...

Indeed, I have spotted one of those (out of 50+) today. amazing !

[danotaylor]

Tell us about the pair Bart? What strain are they? Do you have any pics of them? Seems you are doing a good job at raising the fry so far!

[CliffsDiscus]

I'll separate by stress bars then by size. If you separate by size first the females would normally be smaller. Middle size could be male or female. Keep them in a tight tank and they should be all uniform in size, you wouldn't have a couple out growing the other.

I think the breeder was talking about separating the fry in different tanks. The late Wattley claim that the larger fish will release hormones that forces the. smaller not to grow.

[Second Hand Pat]

I'll separate by stress bars then by size. If you separate by size first the females would normally be smaller. Middle size could be male or female. Keep them in a tight tank and they should be all uniform in size, you wouldn't have a couple out growing the other.

I think the breeder was talking about separating the fry in different tanks. The late Wattley claim that the larger fish will release hormones that forces the. smaller not to grow.

Hi Cliff, do you think Jack's W claim merits any reality? In the wild not sure that makes sense as any hormone (I think) would have a minimal effect due to the volume of water.
Pat

[Bart_NL]

Tell us about the pair Bart? What strain are they? Do you have any pics of them? Seems you are doing a good job at raising the fry so far!

The parents are if I remember correctly a Leopard Snakeskin male (not the biggest but the most handsome I have got) and a Batik Sakura female, the grandparents were all imported directly from Tony Tan in Malaysia)

This is my first batch of fry, it took me almost six months as I had as much as four couples forming in my community tank, this was the last couple I moved to the breeding tank to give them a change.

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[Bart_NL]

I'll separate by stress bars then by size. If you separate by size first the females would normally be smaller. Middle size could be male or female. Keep them in a tight tank and they should be all uniform in size, you wouldn't have a couple out growing the other.

I think the breeder was talking about separating the fry in different tanks. The late Wattley claim that the larger fish will release hormones that forces the. smaller not to grow.

Interesting points, so you put the ones showing stress bars apart together with the really small ones ? I plan to visit my breeder friend today or tomorrow to get some foods, I'll discus it (also the hormones matter, now that you mention) with him, I simply had not extra tank to use for this so I came up with this wall, I am not sure either if that is such a great setup, also the load of 50-60 of these monsters on my canister filter is challenging, I need to replace 50% of the (100% tap) water daily.

[Bart_NL]

BTW my breeder friend told me, from his experience, this fry will be either batik or snakeskin, no 'surprise' mixing will occur, i suppose next month I should be able to see the difference...

[brewmaster15]

BTW my breeder friend told me, from his experience, this fry will be either batik or snakeskin, no 'surprise' mixing will occur, i suppose next month I should be able to see the difference...

At this point you already can to a large degree... the snakekins have 14 bars and a finer pattern...

[brewmaster15]

Interesting points, so you put the ones showing stress bars apart together with the really small ones ? I plan to visit my breeder friend today or tomorrow to get some foods, I'll discus it (also the hormones matter, now that you mention) with him, I simply had not extra tank to use for this so I came up with this wall, I am not sure either if that is such a great setup, also the load of 50-60 of these monsters on my canister filter is challenging, I need to replace 50% of the (100% tap) water daily.


As this is your first batch of fry I would advise to do more water changes on that tank than 50%.. if need be do 50% twice aday.

You also really want to think about your goals here.. that tank is going to get over crowded really fast. You will need more tanks to grow that group out... or sell off a bunch to allow growth of the ones you keep. Hobbyists new to breeding tend to keep too many fry or try to raise all the fry too long and as a result the whole batch suffers.

Hth,
Al

[CliffsDiscus]

Hi Cliff, do you think Jack's W claim merits any reality? In the wild not sure that makes sense as any hormone (I think) would have a minimal effect due to the volume of water.
Pat

Hi Pat, I agree with you, not only with the volume of water in the river but there is a continuous flow of water compare to the self contain
aquarium.
J.Wattley made the claim some 40 years ago when tank raise Discus were sold at dime size. I find that if I bought 6 dime size one will be
large and two or three would be medium size and one runt. So I don't know if J. Wattley's claim is accurate, now if I bought 20 and place them in the same size tank 90 percent of the Discus would be the same size.

[CliffsDiscus]

Interesting points, so you put the ones showing stress bars apart together with the really small ones ? I plan to visit my breeder friend today or tomorrow to get some foods, I'll discus it (also the hormones matter, now that you mention) with him, I simply had not extra tank to use for this so I came up with this wall, I am not sure either if that is such a great setup, also the load of 50-60 of these monsters on my canister filter is challenging, I need to replace 50% of the (100% tap) water daily.

By looking at the stress bars you can determine between the snakeskins and non snake just like Al mention. 14 stress bars are snakeskins and 9 stress bars could be leopards, turquoise and any kind of 9 bars Discus. By knowing what type hybrid you might have you can keep the ones you want, remember those LSS takes around 10 to 12 months to color up.

[Red Eye.]

Make a certain size hole in portion/ egg crate.?? Only small fish will go though.

[Bart_NL]

Wow, valuable feedback especially about the stress bar count, I had no idea that indeed makes it very easy to identify them thanks !

This weekend the second tank will become available so the smaller size group can go into it's own tank, and filtering capacity will be much better.

When they have reached the age of three months there will be three options.

1) I will select some that go into the community tank in our living room, which has room for some juniors

2) My breeder friend is willing to sell them for me, if they still look as healthy as they do now (judged by my videos)

3) The remainder I will keep a few months longer, then sell them at a larger size.

[Bart_NL]

Make a certain size hole in portion/ egg crate.?? Only small fish will go though.

That is an interesting idea, but practically once I installed this 'fence' (or second tank) I need to manually transfer fish from one side of the fence to the other, I would need to make a hole in the fence to implement this, are you actually doing it like this yourself ?

[Bart_NL]

So predictable, today I split them over two real tanks, the solution with the fence is just not convenient, the fry seem to enjoy the new space !

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[danotaylor]

Very nice. And they can even see their kin through the tank ends :p

[Bart_NL]

Very nice. And they can even see their kin through the tank ends :p

I am afraid not, there is a layer of polystyrene isolation between the tanks, at some point I had 2 breeding couples in these tanks, which needed the privacy ;-)

[danotaylor]

Oh yea, I see it now :embarassed: It looks as though they are staring at each other in the pics, but just admiring their own flections ;)

[Bart_NL]

Having them in two separate tanks works so much better, I can see now that the mashed beefheart (Stendker - Ruto) and brine shrimp (regular size, deep frozen) I was feeding them is still a bit too large for the smaller half of the population, but it was eaten by the larger half of the population on the other side of the fence.

Now that they are separate I am learning how to feed the smaller ones better, special fry granulate (from Discusfood, germany) and a now growing amount of deep frozen Daphnia, which they did not seem to like at first but they have learned to like it apparently. Any suggestions on feeding 2 month old fry are welcome, it's still a learning experience for me ?

About their size; one half of the fry eat like hyena's and is at least double the size of the other half, could it be that I have mostly separated the males from the females ?