BIG Thanks for Wigglers

Well, after having some fish which I thought were males and a proven female and not being able to getting them to breed, I thought my luck had run out. Well, I now have wigglers on the pvc, due to become free swimming anytime now. This is only the 2nd spawn ever for the male and the 4th ever for the female. I have to give a HUGE thanks to

CARY of Great Lakes Discus

for sharing some tips and tricks with me and eventually getting my fish to spawn and care for their babies. This is a small brood...only 30 wigglers left, but if they eat these I'm sure the next batch will be much bigger.

[Carol_Roberts]

Congratulations Brad. They may raise all 30 just fine.

Congratulations SeaDiscus

Cary has helped me on seversal occasions and if it weren't for him and Simply I'd probably still have non productive pairs ;)

Good Luck

Beth

They've been freeswimming now for at least 12 hours and I'm yet to see one attach to the sides of the tank. Is this normal?

[Carol_Roberts]

You mean to the parents or are you trying to hand raise them? They wander about for the first day. If they have trouble you've read about lowering the water, turning off the sponge filter, etc. Keep us posted . . .

OK, just making sure it wasn't my filter. I have an emperor 280 that I've had running on the lowest level and I've turned it on and off to see if it helps them out. Here's mom, a free BD that Pat gave to me a while back. Great shape, but she is environmentally stunted a bit. Hopefully the fry will be great.

They're dark for the babies already....

and here's both of them caring for wigglers (on other side of cone).

[Carol_Roberts]

I t will be fun to see the variety of patterns on the babies. I really like the SSxBD crosses

[RandalB]

Hey Brad,
Post the tips Cary gave you to get them going, I'm sure everyone would be interested.

RandalB

Randal, I had been doing waterchanges with colder water to try to get them going and that did nothing. I talked with Cary and he told me to go ahead and turn off all the tank lights and just let light from the other tank and daylight go into their tank. I kept it like this for 2 weeks and the fish did some bowing, but no eggs. Cary then told me to try changing different things, one at a time, and that one of them would most likely set them off. They included water temp, ph, Light, Hardness, Water Change %, Water circulation, and feeding habits. Well, just my luck, the second one I tried was just doing a big water change with the same temp water and then turning the light on in the tank. Immediately they dropped their tubes and laid within 2 hours. They hadn't even been cleaning the tube for the past few days. After the eggs were lain I turned the light back off and just gave them a nightlight.

All in all, Cary said the most important thing was to keep things constant for a while and then change one variable, and that will often times set them off to spawn if they are stubborn.

Has anyone crossed a SS male with a BD female and have pictures? I think most all the ones I've seen are BD males with SS females, but I may be wrong.

[RandalB]

Thanks Brad,
I was talking to Cary right after you and asked the same question. He recommended a big w/c (TDS up slightly, more tap) slightly colder and increasing the temp to 86-87 with the lights off.


RandalB

[Brad NC]

Well the number of fry dropped down to 10-15 when they went free swimming so I decided to suck them up and let the pair start over. Apparently I missed one, who is now still on the parents' backs while they care for their latest batch. We'll see how this works out...