Finally .. another pair ..

[diamond_discus]

Hi everyone .. I am back ..
It's been a tough 9 months for me .. My pair of good PB died after a few successful spawn. Unfortunately, I sold and/or traded away all my frys ... I only have one PB left .. :-(
Since then, I have bad luck with my discus ... many died on disease or for not reason ... one 6 inches discus even jump out of the water while I was at work .. and of course .. it died ...

I have a nice pair of Red Malboro but the male ate the eggs every times ( 5 or 6 times already). I am still trying and hope for this pair ..

Yesterday, I discovered another pair .. not a nice mix ... which is a super red/orange Malboro (female) and a snow white discus ... I am not sure about the sex of this white discus ... but they didn't eat the eggs and both staying close and staring at the egg. I didn't witness the process so I couldn't tell if the white discus is male or female.

I have a 40 gallon tank .. unfortunately .. the female didn't lay eggs on the cone .. Instead .. she lay eggs at the very top of the filter tube ... which prevent me from lowering the water .. I plan to remove the cone, the sponge prefilter .. shut down both of my filters and just have a single sponge filter at the corner. This is if the eggs are still around when I got home tonight.

Anyone has any success with eggs on the filter tube near the top of the water line ?

What would the frys look like for this mix ? If the snow white discus is a female, wouldn't it try to eat the eggs already ?

I don't have much expection from this spawn .. but it's good to see eggs again .. at least not being eaten ... I was almost ready to buy some new fish .. but maybe I should hold off a little .. :-)

[AADiscus]

You could always lay the filter tube on the bottom of the tank and use your other single sponge filter to run the tank. I am thinking you are running more than one???? You might get some interesting looking fry. Were you able to see if there tubes were out?

[diamond_discus]

Well, I came home last night and saw that the pair didn't eat the eggs. Some turn white already but most of them didn't. So I took your advice and lay the tube down on the bottom. Did a 10% water change and took out everything else except the sponge filter. Added some M. Blue to prevent fungus ...

This morning there are approx same amount of white egg but the majority is still brown. The eggs are about 1.5 days old .... I don't see any black dots yet (eye) ... Still don't know if the eggs were fertilized (still don't know if the snow white fish is male).

I also cover up the tank with white paper ...

I did all I can to prepare for the fry .. Let's see what happen tonight ..

[diamond_discus]

Well, at least I can confirm that the snow white discus is a male. There were some wrigglers last night. 1/4 of the eggs turned white. Another 1/3 remained brown .. the rest hatched this morning .. either at the bottom or attached on the tube. The parents are amazing .. they are so busy trying to get the wrigglers back on the tube .. I lowered the water and covered up the tank with paper. Don't have much hope for this batch but I got a pair now and hopefully some frys will survive and it will be interesting to see what kind of mixed frys I would get. Will post some pics if any frys would survive that long.

[diamond_discus]

Well, having the eggs on a tube is not easy .. since I have a bare bottom tank, I don't have anything to keep the tube from following ... so once it fall down to the bottom, the tube will roll from side to side .. with the parent moving nearby ..

Anyway, I got the wrigglers but eventually the parents ate them all ... It wasn't a perfect environment and I didn't have much expectation anyway (especially this is only their 2nd time). I have now moved them into a breeding tank and wait for the next spawn ..

[AADiscus]

Thats good Diamond. Maybe next time they will give you more fry than you can imagine. Remember.....Keep the tank simple. Check your water parameters and temp of the tank. Keep the ppm's under 100 and the temp at 82. Look at your fish and learn the features of them. This will help you later on if you want to breed them with someone else. You will know who is male/female.;)

[diamond_discus]

Is it better to have cooler temperature for breeding ?

The temperature of my tanks goes between 84 to 87.
Should I lower them all to around 82 ?

I use filtered water in one of my breeding tank, pH is around 6.
In my other tanks, I use aged tap water, along with Discus Buffer to have pH around 6.5. I also has some small driftwood in each tank .. trying to lower the pH and soften the water. My discus seems to be okay with these two types of water tank, as I saw female laying in all 3 tanks the past few days.

[AADiscus]

I would lower your tank temp to 82. I would not mess with your ph. But if you are having success then something is working for you.

[Rod]

What would the frys look like for this mix ?

Not too bad at all actually, snow white is dominent over pigeon gene, all the fry will be white based but with red markings on them. ie red whites. f2 will give you a huge variation in the frys.

hth

Rod

[Darren's Discus]

Sorry,
to hear of all your recent bad luck,hope that newly formed pair produce for you keep us updated.

cheers

[diamond_discus]

Hey, I moved my new pair to my "offical" breeding tank .. a couple days ago .. Guess what ? They have another spawn again yesterday ... lots of eggs .. .this morning i only see a few white egg ... Hopefully, this time I will have some frys ...

I have another nice pair of Red/Orange Marboro .. The male is 6+ inch and the female is 5+ inch. It's too bad that the make kept eating the eggs .. Since I don't have enough tanks, I moved them back to my community tank and give room to this newly formed pair, who already are very good parents.

I also move 3 other blue/ocean green discus to another breeding tank. One of them laid eggs the other day and all 3 were gathering around the cone in my community tank. They ate the eggs after the move ... I am anxiouly waiting for another spawn, trying to figure out the exact pair ..

[diamond_discus]

Well, the snow white/Marlboro Red pair made another step .. this time they have about 30/40 wrigglers .. Maybe I got too anxious and disturb them too much .. .or maybe they are not experience enough (only their 3rd time). As soon as the frys go free swimming, the pair eat them .... The frys tried to attach to the mom but she got them off .. maybe she is not used to it yet. Anyway, this morning there were only a few left at the bottom and I expected them to be completely gone by the time I got home ...

Will clean up the team and wait for another spawn. Hopefully next week ... :o

[diamond_discus]

Hey, I got home from work tonight and found out that the pair didn't eat all the frys. Most of them are hidden underneath the breeding cone. Since the color of the cone is darker then the pair, the frys won't attach to the parent. So, I removed the cone and to my surprise, there were still lots of frys left. They instantly attached to the parent, mostly to mommy because its a dark orange compare to the snow white daddy.

I left the pair alone for a few hours .. but the frys seems to be more attach to mom. Dad is trying to stay close and try to get some fry to attach but only a few .. I kept a close eye on them and found out that the dad is slowly eating some of the frys, possibly due to frustration or being jealous ? Anyway, I finally decided to pull the dad. Since there are only ~35 frys ..I think mom should be able to handle it. I know there are not that many frys .. but hey this is only their 3rd times and I am very happy about their progress.

I didn't dare to make any water change because I can't see all the frys from the bottom. I have a tall 40 gallon tank which I lower the water to about 6" the past few days ... I just added 5 gallon of water back ... Maybe I will do some WC tomorrow when I still have some daylight in the living room.

This is exciting .. Hopefully I will get some frys to grow and I can't wait to find out what color mix they will have ... ;)

[diamond_discus]

It's been a while since my last successful batch. I assume this is day 2 after free swimming. I never had success hatching some baby brine shrimp. I have a small in tank device .. I will set it up tomorrow. I also have some first bite powder and very find golden pearl. How soon should I feed the frys ? or should I leave it alone with mom for a few days ?

I also saw some frozen baby brine shrimp from a local Petsmart. It's a bit expensive but I assume it's okay since I don't need a lot and it's only for a few days only .. afterward, I will feed them chopped frozen blood worm.

Any idea ? suggestion ?

[diamond_discus]

Well, so much for the excitement. I woke up this morning .. only to find out that only a few frys still attached to mom. Seems like mom is not used to having frys attached to her and decide to eat them all. She is swimming back and forth .. kinda fast, trying to get the frys off her ... Mabye I should have pull her instead of dad last night. I don't think I would have any fry left when I get home tonight. Will have to wait for next spawn then.