Artificial raising of fry

So I’ve decided to try artificial rearing of my Discus fry. I’ve had 3 pairs successfully carry their fry on their sides so I’ve had that experience. But lately my success has been spotty at best. A couple of weeks ago my S/S female decided to eat her fry after free-swimming for 7 days. She had raised a batch on her own in the past but this time she opted out. Mind you the last time both of my S/S turned black and looked near dead after raising the fry so that may have had something to do with it. I knew that raising fry away from the pair is more work but I figured since I’m home working I might as well give it a try. I got a lot of help from Brewmaster, including sending messages and by reading his site & threads dedicated to this topic.

The next time this pair spawned (02/19/03) I moved the cone to a 10g tank. First I siphoned 10g from the breeding tank into the new tank. Then I quickly moved the cone from tank to tank and replaced it with a new cone in the breeding tank. I kept the temp at 84ºF and added Maroxy to the 10g tank. I find that I have to keep the tank at 86F to get the bowl to stay at 84ºF. Other then that there is just an airstone going to keep the water from being stagnant.

The eggs hatched in a couple of days (02/22/03). After about 12 hours all that were going to hatch had hatched. I immediately removed the wrigglers using a turkey baster and put them in a dish. (I know, pretty nice dish eh?). I had built a stand for the dish using a Pyrex cutting board with legs made of 1.5” black PVC siliconed to the bottom. I sat the dish on this stand, popped an airstone in it and made sure the water level in the 10g tank was about ¼” from the top of the dish. This would keep the temp stable while the air would keep it oxygenated. Since the wrigglers would normally still be attached to the cone they just sunk to the bottom of the dish and lay there in little clumps. I missed some in the tank that had fallen off of the cone but they were caught later when they went free-swimming. Here’s a picture after being moved to the dish.

For feeding I’ve been using the yolk of 1 hard boiled egg & 1 raw egg plus some spirulina powder. I add enough powder to make it fairly stiff but still easy to paint onto the dish with my finger. I figure I add about 1 tsp of powder. I put some on each end of the bowl since the fry congregate at the ends and the middle is pretty empty. The food is kept in the fridge under cellophane and it looks like one batch will easily do for one batch of fry. I’m assuming that I’ll only need to feed this food for 3 or 4 days. I didn’t feed the fry at all the first day they were free-swimming but waited until the next day when they were all at the surface of the water. I add 1 tablet of Furan-2 to a 15ml of RO water and mix that in a small bottle. When I put the fry into a bowl with food I add about 1ml of this med to the water to keep bacteria down.

I find that after at most an hour the food on the sides of the dish has dissolved and the water is pretty murky, both from the food and the Furan-2. So I move the fry to a new bowl. To do that I use the turkey baster and move as many as I can to a cup. Most of the fry go to the bottom so I can siphon most of the water out into another cup. If any fry go with the water I move them back with a smaller eyedropper. I can do this to the point where there’s about ½” of water in the cup. Then I pour this into the new bowl with some fresh water from the 10g tank. I continue this process until I have all of the fry moved. I’m getting pretty quick so I can now move the fry in just a couple of minutes. I leave no food in the bowl at nighttime, and I leave very little light on the bowl, just a bit so they tend to be dormant. During the day I’ve been adding some live bbs to the bowl whenever there is no egg mixture on the sides. I know that they might not be eating it but I’m hoping that some will and it adds some clean food to the mix. So I’ve got the live bbs going… the fry have been free-swimming for almost 4 days now and I’m hoping to be done with the egg yolk by tomorrow. The pair are laying again right now so I’ll be moving the cone tomorrow and prepare to start over again.

This is my first attempt at raising fry on my own. I'm sure I've made some mistakes and that's the reason I'm making this post so early in the process. If anyone has any suggestions please don't hesitate to speak up.

Dave

[Ryan]

Dave,

Thanks for the post. It's good to see others trying it. I don't have any discus fry yet, but I use similar methods with angels. They're hatched in a small tank and I move them back and forth to clean water with an eye dropper. Tedious, time-consuming stuff, but it works. Keep us updated on the progress, it will be fun to watch them grow.

Ryan

[darcy]

great post Dave!!! I do the exact same things you do!!! I also find this works great. I will have a new batch to artificial raise tonight. It's a lot of work but I enjoy it.
Darcy

[Jason]

Looks good Dave,

the only sugestion I can make would be to add bbs too your egg mix.
I've read that Jack Wattley does that, and it worked for me, don't know if it helps growth or helps them accept bbs more readily, but it can't hurt

[flogger426]

friswold - a pioneer on raising fish artificially wrote a great newsletter in the 70's on raising discus artificially - i think wattley incorporated many of his ideas. i've used many of his methods in the past and they work great!

it's one of those things that you get better at each time!

when i was working full time i was feeding the fry 3 times a day with a 10 hour gap between the first and second feeding - the babies did fine.

powdered egg yolks tend to work the best and has the best consistancy - but i've done it with just regular eggs too!

sounds like your doing a great job!

good luck and keep us posted!

[Tyler]

Great post Dave, I got to witness firsthand Al's version of artificial raising...and it looks like you really got it down. Maybe I'll try it this summer :)
Keep us updated

Tyler

[brewmaster15]

Looks great Dave,
I'm glad its working out for you so far!
-al