>>>BREEDING EMERGENCY <<<

[breezygrove]

Need help quick!

Our discus have unexpectedly bred for the first time. We had not anticipated this, and as a result, they have laid the eggs on the sponge filter of a tank with several other fish in it. We would like to move our pair, and the sponge filter with the eggs, into a separate tank so we may care for them. How does one go about doing this?

My idea is to first move the sponge filter into the other tank. It would not be taken out of water; instead, we would place a bucket into the tank, and move the filter into the bucket. At that point, we would remove the then full bucket (with water and egg embedded sponge filter) and place it into the second tank. We would then net the two other fish and put them into the second tank.

Will this work? Is it a good or bad thing that the eggs are on the sponge filter? Please look at our pictures and give advice!

Thanks,
BreezyGrove

[breezygrove]

Here is mama discus

It doesn&#039;t really matter how you do it. Eggs can survive with a short time out of water. I just lift it out of water and place the spawning site in the new tank with the same water and net the fish. They will immediately guard and look after the eggs. It&#039;s all depend on the nature of your fish. If they are good parents. Most turks are. You can practically breed them in your kitchen sink so to speak. Nothing can disturb them. On the contrary, an egg eater is always an egg eater. I don&#039;t waste my time on them.
Jimmy.

[breezygrove]

Thank you Jimmy!

We have also heard that hatchlings easily get sucked into the sponge filter. Is this true? If so, what could we do to remedy this? Once we place the sponge filter in the new tank, it would be the only source of biological filtration.

BreezyGrove

That&#039;s very ture for the power filter with an intake tube. A sponge filter has less chances to suck on fry since their body surface area is so tiny. Just reduce the flow.HTH
Jimmy

[breezygrove]

Thanks for the great advice. We have another question regarding tank size. Will it be alright to put the breeding pair and the sponge filter into a ten gallon tank or will this be too small for them?

Thanks again!

BreezyGrove

[Dkarc@Aol.com]

That is way to small for a breeding pair. they need atleast 10 gallons per fish, so a 20 gallon would be the lower limit with a 29 gallon tank being ideal.


-Ryan

There is no clear cut in discus management and some may be controversal. Ryan is absolutely correct and 10 gal is way too small for a breeding tank. Usually a bigger tank is preferred. If you don&#039;t have one available , It may be just fine in your case. 10 gal is good enough for guarding eggs waiting to hatch. I transfer eggs from a nomal breeding 30gal. tank into a 10 gal for fry have problem attach to white parents if I don&#039;t have foster parents available. A small tank is able to keep the fry alive with rotifer and filter feeders even wihtout attachment for 3 days until they are big enough to eat BBS. In a 10 gal. water quality will change quickly due to the low volume. It&#039;s important not to feed the parents to keep the water clean. And as for spawning. A 10 gal. tank may be fine for a smaller female to lay her eggs, but it does not have enough height for the big male to fertilize eggs. Ph crash may be the major threat to the well being of the eggs and the parents.
Once the fry have attached. Care of parents is difficult as you start feeding with high protein food like BH. The best food to use is Tetrabits to maintain the water quality. The parents has to be out when the fry are big enough to take BBS.
Jimmy.

[Howie_W]

Hi BreezyGrove,

Congrats on your pair. Don&#039;t feel bad if you loose the eggs...the fish will spawn again. I&#039;d get the pair in their own 29 gallon along with a sponge filter and a some time of spawing material similar to a spawning cone...many people use flower pots...just as long as it&#039;s slanted vertically to allow the egg laying.

It also helps to set up the tank away from regular household traffic and at eye level to give the fish some privacy while they do their thing.

HTH

Howie

[Barb Newell]

Hi, congratulations on your new pair! It&#039;s fun!!!

It may be the picture/ flash, I&#039;m not sure if the eggs are fertilized, they look white. Is that the colour, or is it the flash?

Barb

[hexed]

Breezy-
Congrats on your first pair! :thumbsup:

I agree with Barb the eggs do look white in both pics :(
Some young discus get it right the first time and some could take up to 20 times before you see fry. I have a young pair that would eat their eggs as they laid them. Last week I had wigglers from that pair, but then they were eaten. Each time they gain more experience. If the eggs are white, don&#039;t worry they will spawn again within the week, males seem to tend to mature slower than females. I would suggest moving them only if the eggs turn black (after 30 hours) to the 10 gallon tank. If they do not turn black the eggs are dead (not fertile) and you would have moved them for nothing. I would then place a new sponge filter into the existing tank for a couple of weeks so it can cycle. Then purchase a 29-30 gallon tank for the pair, set it up and place the old sponge filter into the new Bare Bottom tank because it&#039;s already cycled leaving the new one inside the old tank. Place a flower pot upside down (be sure to block the hole on the bottom of the pot as fry can get lost in there :o and your good to go. I myself have breeding cones, you can get one off aquabid.com or might find one on ebay. I think Al has some but not sure? But just remember to give them time if they did not get it right the first time. 8)

[breezygrove]

Folks,

Thank you for all of your advice. We feel fortunate that they did not eat the eggs their first time around. There are three established sponge filters in our 72 gallon tank, so we will just take one of them out and place it in the smaller tank with the couple. We were able to get a 20 gallon acylic tank from a friend, so it will have to do until we acquire a 29-30 gallon tank.

The eggs still appear to be white, but it has been less than a day. If they do not turn dark by tonight, then we will get rid of them. The breeding cones seem a little hard to come by. There was Rosenthalpottery out of NY, but their cones were upwards of $20. I think that we’ll spend a couple dollars on a terra cotta pot, which should suffice.

Now that we are more prepared, and better informed, maybe our couple will get it right this next time?

Thanks again to everybody!

BreezyGrove

[jeep]

Don&#039;t get rid of the eggs!

Let the parents do their job. They&#039;ll get rid of them when THEY decide to. It&#039;s all part of the learning process...

[breezygrove]

Folks,

We&#039;ve moved the breeding couple into a 20 gallon tank with a plant pot and sponge filter. The eggs that they had laid on the sponge filter yesterday were gone when we got home tonight. We think that the catfish in the tank ate them. :( Some of the eggs seemed to be darker this morning when we saw them. Oh well, hopefully they&#039;ll lay again soon! We have some pictures that we&#039;ll upload that show their new breeding tank!

Thanks!

BreezyGrove

[breezygrove]

Folks,

Since the pair have been moved into the new 20 gallon tank, they haven&#039;t quite been themselves. At first they hid behind the sponge filter which was expected. We kept the tank light off to help them adjust to their new environment and reduce stress. Since they have been moved, they have not been eating at all. We have offered them beefheart several times daily (removing all the uneaten beefheart after each feeding with a fifty percent water change) however they have not touched a morsel. Also, they seem to be swimming against the front of the tank in an effort to get out of it... well that&#039;s what it seems to be.

We have been rigorously testing the water parameters to ensure that they are stable and within the recommended ranges. We are concerned that they seem agitated and that their stress bars are showing. We realize that it has only been a day since the move to the new tank, nevertheless, we feel helpless watching them swim around so uncomfortably.

We are attaching a picture of the tank setup. Please let us know what we may do and if there is anything that we have missed. After reading the following thread on the forum, we have become even more concerned. Thanks for everyone&#039;s help.

http://forum.simplydiscus.com//index.php?board=4;action=display;threadid=19693

Breezygrove

[breezygrove]

Tank setup:

Sponge filter from community tank (on which they originally laid their eggs)
Flower pots for breeding surface
Heater
Barebottom Acrylic 20 gallon tank (brown paper on underside of tank makes it look like there&#039;s sand in the tank, but there isn&#039;t any)

[Barb Newell]

Hi, nice pair.

I&#039;d plug the hole in the top of the clay pot with filter floss or a little piece of a sponge so food doesn&#039;t settle in there.

Barb :)

[hexed]

Hi,
Mine did the same thing for a couple days. The tank that you removed them from does it have a substrate or is it bare bottom?
Mine were in a tank with substrate (and a few plants) and hated the new tank because it was BB with nothing in it. They were swimming into the glass and trying to jump out. What I did to calm them down was to place some plants into small pots and place them inside the tank. They then made the tank thier home. You can see my BB tank under the thread &quot;breeding in a 55 gallon tank&quot; it&#039;s on the next to last page. My pair still do not each much which is common when they are spawning. What they don&#039;t eat is removed next morning, My discus will not eat beefheart at all no matter how hard I try, it just sits there so I feed pellets, flakes and CBW (spawning pair only get live worms before eggs are laid). Give them a few days and try giving them something they are use to as well, it worked for me.

[hexed]

Here is a pic of my BB tank. On the left you can see the 3 small plants I put in the pots. They seem happy now :D
Sorry it&#039;s dark I didn&#039;t want to scare them with the flash.

[breezygrove]

Thank you Hexed for the advice. This morning we put a small piece of driftwood that was in the community tank into the breeding tank. They seem to be more comfortable already. It is the same piece of driftwood that was in front of the sponge filter on which they had lain their eggs.

We&#039;re still looking for a reasonably priced 29+ gallon tank for the two of them. We aren&#039;t fans of this acrylic tank because of the awkward opening at the top through which we access the tank, or the distortion caused by the curved surface of the tank in a few spot that must bother the fish as much as it bothers us!!

We&#039;ll be buying some worms tonight for them. They still haven&#039;t eaten anything since Saturday. We&#039;ll keep you updated.

Breezygrove

[hexed]

Maybe this can help.
My petsmart does price matching on any item they sell. Check online for 29 gallon tanks and if you find a reasonable priced one, print it out and bring it to a Petsmart near you. I found a great price at www.elmersaquarium.com You should be able to purchase one from petsmart for the same price. That&#039;s how I got my 150 gallon tank ;D
Petco does not do any price matching :(