Weird male discus behavior

[EDGE]

The female would clean the cone and do trial passes at the cone /w the male pecking at her and chase her away.

This same male would continue to peck at her while she lay her eggs on the cone. Occasionally, he would do 1 or 2 pass before pecking at her again.

Once she finished laying her eggs, he would start eating the eggs up. To see if they are a true pair, I put a wire mesh around the cone. Most of the eggs fungus up with a few turning black. The male/female is 1 yr 3-5 months old

After I put the wire mesh on, the male rarely look at the eggs and just swim around chasing after the female.

The eggs haven't hatch yet. If they do hatch, it will be sometime tonight till tomorrow morning. The female is not dark in color while the male is fairly dark in color.

Anyone have this weird behavior happen to their discus? Should I just get another male? ???


Thanks for your help.

[Rob]

I am new to breeding discus, but because no one had replied to you yet here goes...

You may have a tempermental male, this appears to be common. Search the messages here, you will find a load of info on similar issues other Discus fans have run into.

Do you see the males tube, and does he make passes with it over the eggs?
How old is your male?
Are you sure it is a male?

What is your water hardness registering? A high hardness can effect egg developement. (search for other msgs related to this)

I had to wait several months over a dozen spawns for my male to be fertile, every time he would make passes over the eggs but none of the eggs were hatching. When I finally had almost given up, the eggs hatched and I now have 50 two month old babies at about quarter to half-dollar size. :-\

[EDGE]

I checked today; there is around 10-15 wigglers on the cone. I had to remove the female today. She was getting beaten up. The other discus isn't accepting her back in the community tank though.

The male rarely pay attention to the wigglers still.


gH and kH is 0 from tap.

I have bred discus a couple years back with success. The other male was a much better parent. I lost the pair when I had to leave town to study.

[Carol_Roberts]

A divider in the breeder tank may be a good idea. Him on one side and her on the other . . . .

[Rod]

Sounds like a dud male to me, maybe he will get better with maturity so worth hanging onto, but in the meantime i would try another male.

Rod