marital problems discus pair

[Dutch dude]

Hi there,

I keep a young pair of discus in a 50 gallon bb tank in an atempt to breed them. They have had several times wigglers and previous week made it to several day's of free swimming fry. They spawned again yesterday and suddenly dad became aggressive towards mom. It is clear they have some marital problems over raising their kids. Dad is over protective towards the eggs and fans them all the time. In the mean time he kept the female in the oposit corner. If she stays there nothing wrong but of course she also wants to take care of the eggs. The male kicked the snot out of her and she ended up with damaged fins and some small injuries on the nostril aria. I'm not woried abouth her becouse she is in good condition and will cure from it. The issue is,....who will be the best parent and who should raise the kids? For now dad is doing the job. I made my disision on his over protective behaviour and he seems to be determined to raise the baby's him selves. Normally parent fan in shifts but he fans a minute with the right pectoral and then a minute with the left. Funny to see, haha! Any way,....I'm a bit concerned as well if I have made the right disision. Previous spawn he sometimes was irritated by the fry biting him (during feeding). Right now he seems to do a great job on his own. I wonder if mom would raise the batch how she would heal. What would you do and on witch sex is overall the better parent?

Ruurd

[kaceyo]

I'd leave them with dad for now, but keep mom in the tank with a divider between them. That way mom can recoup while dad babysits, but the freeswimmers will be able to go back and forth between them and you can remove dad if he decides he doesn't like the feel of fry feeding.
I've seen a parent decimate their spawn after starting out as a great parent, but freak after the fry start to feed on them.

Kacey

[Dutch dude]

Thanks for the responce! I didn't thought of that solution to the problem. Right now mom and dad are separated by a divider made of filter foam so mom and dad can't see each other. I do have some sort of egg crate so that might be a good idea. Hopefully this also lowers the stress on mom. Thanks for the input and I go to work and make a diferent divider right away!

[Dutch dude]

Kacey thank you very much! The stress on mom is lowered right away. She still displays the bars but only slightly. She did checked the divider and looked everywhere to find a gap to go to her eggs. Dad also came to the grid and start flashing. If everything goes well the eggs hatch tomorrow. Some of the wigglers will fall to the tank floor and dad might be very bussy. In case some end up in the compartment with mom I provided her with a cone as well. I turned up the air pump so there is more flow and a higher oxygen level in the tank. I suspect dad alone can't keep up the fanning like a normal pair does. How does this set up look?

http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/2623/dsc02148uii.jpg

[kaceyo]

That will work out fine. One thing though, you don't want very much airflow. Before the wrigglers start to go freeswimming, turn the air way down, or completely off, untill the fry attach. They can't swim against the current very well and the noise of the bubbles sometimes confuses them. Don't worry about dad, he can handle fanning the eggs just fine by himself.
Looks like a nice big group of eggs. Good luck with them,

Kacey

[Dutch dude]

Thanks Kacey. I already planed on lowering the output of the air stone a bit more close to hatching and also reduce the output of the pump. I will only keep a small canister running at around 35 GPH at day 2 of wigglers and shut down the larger pump and keep the air stone close to the surface with only a few small bubbles to break the surface. I will also lower the water level to abouth 10 inch to make it easier for the free swimmers to find mom or dad.

I learned from the previous batch. Quit some things went wrong and now I hope I have solved all the problems,....until mom and dad got marital problems, haha! What do you think,...will the pair have a better bond later on or will they most likely display this behaviour every spawn?

Yeah quit a batch on eggs and so far only a few fungus. Probably only half of them will become wigglers. I have the disadvantage of moderately hard water (GH=9) and a PH=8. Not the best circumstances but so far the young pair does a good job. So dad can do the fanning job by his own? I gues he will get some good biceps from that :p

Thanks for the help.

Ruurd

[kaceyo]

I think you'll have problems running any type of power filter (canister, HOB etc) in a tank with freeswimmers. The fry can't swim well enough to pull away from even a gentle current from a power filter. It's best to use an air powered sponge or an airstone with no filter at all.

Kacey

[Dutch dude]

Right now I don't have a cycled sponge filter availeble. I have the possibility to lower the output of the small canister with valves and I put a block of filter foam on the output so the output will be defuse and don't couse strong currents. I don't expect to much problems with the filter but I agrea an air lift sponge filter would be a better solution. Shut down the canister for a day will kill all the bacteria. So for now lowering the output of the filter and defuse the flow is probably the best choice for now.

I have just set up a breeding tank for the pair of 16x16x20 inch with a sponge filter (still cycling). The agresion issue with this pair might be a problem in such a tight space dough. Some say I should not have separated the pair and they would have worked it out. Not sure abouth that becouse dad is realy agresive towards the female and displays more agresion towards her as to other discus during breeding in the community tank. How do the pro's handle such a situation if one of their pairs act agresive towards each other? Did I made the right disision or should I have gave them the change to work it out? Keep in mind that the agresion towards the female gained during the day and the pectoral fins are shreds, some splittings in the tail and a damaged beak of lip locking.

Right now the eggs are hatching. Abouth 1/3 of the eggs are fungus but I expect that to be coused by the high PH and GH. I have at least 40+ wigglers and still a lot of eggs are half done hatching or not hatched yet. It looks like I will have a nice batch of fry this time. So far dad does a good job on his own. Mom looks better now and stress is reduced a lot.

Ruurd

[Dutch dude]

An other issue comes up. I carefully took picked up a wiggler (eye dropper) and put it in the compartment of the female. She turned it over in her mouth just like with cleaning but in stead of spitting it on the cone she ate it. Should I put in the closed divider made of filter foam close to free swimming or should I take my chance? Right now I feel a close divider might be the best since dad is doing such a good job on his own. Looks like I have to make some dificult decisions.

[kaceyo]

It's probably too late but I'd keep a close eye on her to see how she deals with a few fry before calling it quits on her. How are they doing today?

Kacey

[Dutch dude]

Hi there and thanks for all the help! The fish do fine right now. Dad his agresion decreased but still threatening the female. The female is no longer stressed and started to heal rather fast.

In my previous post I wrote I moved a wiggler over to her side that was eaten right away. The next morning I discovered the female gathered 5 fry over night. The male can't keep up spitting the wigglers back on the cone so a lot of the wigglers are underneath on the bottom of the tank. So it happens that wigglers move around on the tank floor. The wigglers that end up on the female side of the tank are picked up by her and she keeps all of them on the cone. It started off with the 5 I mentioned and I moved a couple (8 or so) over to her side so she has something to take care for. During the last two day's the number is gained to around 30. So after all it might work out OK and I don't have to worry to much abouth the free swimming stage. I'll bet mom collects some more! I have still abouth 80 wigglers in total witch is not bad considering the quarreling pair, the divider and my moderately hard water. I expect the wigglers to become free swimming by Saturday evening. I hope they pull it off this time and I keep my fingers crossed.

[kaceyo]

Sounds like they are off to a good start. I'll keep my fingers crossed for you.

Kacey

[Dutch dude]

It sure looks positive right now and I hope they pull it off this time. Now I hope I don't mess it up, haha! I keep you posted and I want to thank you for your advice so far.

Ruurd

[kaceyo]

Any time Ruud. You are welcome.

Kacey

[Dutch dude]

Yesterday in the evening I did a water change on the tank and this morning an other one. Around 12:00 the fry started to become free swimming. Some were still attached to the cones but most move around. Since then I lost the sight on the wigglers. I see some attach to the black silicone, wall, cone and some swimm around and some snack from mainly mom. I have realy know idea how many fry are left at this stage and I'm sure there are at least 10 but hopefully more. Mom does a great job on gathering fry, cleaning them and inviting them to hump on her sides. Dad is acting weird dough. He isn't paying much attention to the fry and he lost all of his anger towards the female and it looks like he wants to join her. He hangs a lot in front of the egg crate.

I followed the advice that has been given by several people and shut down the small canister. I removed the air stone to the internal filter compartment to keep the bacteria going on. I also lowered the water level to 2 inch abouve the parents. So the next day's will be very exiting! I realy hope there are more as 10 fry left but probably I overlook them. I also hope dad becomes more relaxed and also do this part of brood care.

An other pair in breeding set up has spawned this afternoon. It is a small spawn but still somewhere around 90 eggs.

[Eyecandy]

Hi there Ruurd... Congrats... Sounds like all is going very well.. Pics when you can... Take care Sue:D

[Dutch dude]

Heee Sue! Good to see you here! I will up-date on C-F in a couple of day's.

The pair does fine but it is realy unfortunate they started quarreling in the start. Next time I will try without divider and see how that works out and hopefully their marital problems are coused by them being inexperienced.

I just witnessed something amazing! I could not belive my eyes! The male does have 2/3 of the tank floorspace. I see some fry in his part but not so many. There are much more in the small part of the female. So while I was looking for fry one of them swim right in front of the male and wanted to attach. He shivered and waved it away with his pectoral fin. Then he picked it up, spit it out, picked it up munched on it and,...nothing! Eaten?!?! He went back the the egg crate looked at the female and,...spit the wiggler through the grit into her part of the tank!!! Isn't it amazing!!! This explains why I see much more fry in mom her side of the tank. By the way,...the number is at least 30 and probably more. :)

[mmorris]

spit the wiggler through the grit into her part of the tank!!! Isn't it amazing!!! This explains why I see much more fry in mom her side of the tank. :)

Did you have the game on? :smash:

[Dutch dude]

Hahaha,....mom can't deal with losing the game so she doesn't spit them back:D Right now she is winning!

You might know how males are,...they are fine with kids can be over protective but when it comes to feeding and changing diapers they often take the little stinker to mom. I gues it is the same for my big male discus.

[kaceyo]

That's great. I don't think I've ever seen a parent spit fry to the other parent through eggcrate before. At least he seems to know what they need, even if he's not willing to do it himself.:)

Kacey

[Dutch dude]

Previous spawns he did a great job and no quarreling between the parent's at all. So he know how it should work but this time he became to protective over the eggs. It looks like he wants to join the female right now but I don't want to remove the egg crate with the tiny free swimming fry around. He indeed does seem to know what should be done but the doesn't like the fry to pick on his secretion. He is close to the egg crate for most of the time watching mom.

By the way,...I shut down the air stone in the filter compartment. Abouth 6 fry gathered in front of the glass and it was clear they were attracted by the bubbles. The fry are still swimming a lot around in stead of feeding from mom. I gues they need more time.