Need help on feeding and size 2 weeks old fry

[Dutch dude]

Hi there,

I'm new into breeding discus. I came across some issues around hatching, free swimming and finaly the fish and I succeeded but,....I got a new challenge.

I have two young breeding pairs with fry and an other pair that are poor parents. The curent situation is next.

Pair 1 have around 50 fry (lost some) at the age of 14 days of free swimming. The fry average size is 4/9 inch. They start to become higher bodied and still spend a lot of the time on their parents.

Pair 2 have around 80 fry at the age of 17 days of free swimming. The size of the fry are very diferent. Some are way back in development and are still the size of 9 day old fry while some are already starting to look like discus and are 2/3 inch. The majority is between the 4/9 and 5/9 inch.

I discussed this with a good friend in the hobby and he told me the problem was in the food. So some more info on that.

I started to feed bbs at day 5 of free swimming. I feed 3 times a day a number of bbs they could not eat within 4 to 5 hours. Along the way they ate more and more. I kept on feeding 3 times a day some bbs. I didn't knew I need to heavy feed bbs at that stage! I read that as long the fry were with the parents the bbs and later on crushed flakes and beefheart were just extra and helping them to get used to foods and releasing the pressure at the parents.

I have been told by the friend my larges fish are a moderate size for their age and the smaler fish will be runts. Kind of sad becouse I thought everything went fine until I notised more and more size diference. I obviously underestimated the appetite of the fry along with not knowing the bbs should be main food source by now.

Yesterday I reed some of the pro's feed an amounth of bbs they can eat in 3 hours and feeding them at least 4 times a day. That will be my goal. Please comment if you think this is not OK for what ever reason.

What I like to know is the next.
- what should be considered as normal size for 14 days old and 17 day's old red/turq fry with normal development?
- any one experienced the same and if so did the smaler fry catch up or became runts?
- how do you handle feeding when your at work,....how do you handle the 9 hours you aren't able to feed them?

TIA Ruurd

[mmorris]

Difficult questions! Now you know why so many report eggs or wrigglers, but few report older fry! :) It's tough to judge how much food to give. I feed 6-8 times a day from one week through the juvie stage and hatch out a fresh batch of bbs twice a day. It seems like I heard somewhere the bbs don't live in fresh water more than a half hour or so, when they will begin to pollute the tank. I should test it and see. Maybe someone else knows...I'd cull the small ones. If they're behind this early, I wouldn't hold out too much hope that they will catch up and develop nicely. Much of my work I can do at home but two days a week I'm actually away for more than seven hours so I use an automatic feeder. I'm attaching a time-line I put together a year or two ago.
http://forum.bidka.org/showthread.php?t=4559&highlight=time-line

[Apistomaster]

There are two kinds of beginning Discus breeders.

1. Those who have to work away from home, hopefully full time.

2. Those who don't have to work or are able to work at home.

Obviously, those who have to be gone much of the 24 hour day face a greater challenge in keeping Discus fry well fed during those critical first 3 weeks.

It is possible to raise Discus and still go to work but the difficulty is to make sure all the fry eat their fill as needed.
There is a gray area where Discus fry manage to eat enough to grow well and fairly evenly
and still end up reaching pretty much their full potential growth by the time they are adults.
These Discus may grow only slightly slower than if you can be there all the time and be a power feeder and have Discus growing faster than they would otherwise.

Raising your first successful spawns is necessarily done without any experience. With more experience it becomes easier to judge how adequately your Discus fry are being fed.
This is true of all new breeders. There is a learning curve to raising any species of tropical fish. For the experienced breeder, it can be difficult to convey clearly to the beginner the nuances of feeding Discus fry.

I don't have any job except to breed fish, tie trout flies and not missing my favorite daytime satellite TV shows. Even though I have raised 1000's of Discus over many decades I still have difficulties describing or advising others exactly what to do.

For example:
I have a friend in town who has raised a few Discus spawns with me coaching and we still have misunderstandings about the initial care of the fry. His business and fish are next door so he technically has the opportunity to feed his fish any time they need to be fed. But he also is stubborn.
He wanted to breed and raise his Discus in planted aquariums. His aquariums must look decorative or his wife will object to having a bare tank containing only a pair, cone and filter. He built stands only 18" off the floor to hold his 29H breeding tanks. Discus usually are very nervous when they are kept so low to the floor in the living room where there is a lot of passing foot traffic. It is also his sense of aesthetics that all his aquariums have mirrors glued to the back as his standard background. I think the mirror images make the Discus feel threatened by these illusions of two other Discus always next to their spawning site or fry when he does get a free swimming brood. Only 3 discus spawns have been raised from 2 different pairs over a 3+ year period. He also misunderstood that I fed brine nauplii heavy at first and daily even once they reach the 2-1/2 inch size when I usually sell Discus. It had been so long since he raised his first spawn he forgot how often I fed brine shrimp to very young fry. He stopped feeding them brine shrimp on about the 10th day and was only feeding them brine shrimp 3 times a day in tanks with almost peas sized gravel. Most of the shrimp fell out of the fry's feeding zone and some quite a few fry disappeared between the particles of fine gravel/coarse sand. He began feeding them only blended beef heart at about 10 days old. He wondered why his survival rate was low and why there was such an enormous difference between the sizes of the fry that have survived so far.

It sounds to me like dutchdude has a much better grasp on the needs of his Discus than my hometown buddy.

[Dutch dude]

Hi Martha,

Thanks for the reply. I checked a lot of pages on this section and indeed found only few posts with info on fry of 2 weeks or over. I already detected your post with a link to the time line. For me the point of 19 days free swimming is a good point to see how they are doing compared to yours. This is the first were you report size (9/16 inch SL). That will be a good point for comparison. I have know idea how fast they grow in 2 day's but it looks like the larger fry will reach that size and some might just pas it. I would love to see some pics you added at that post but I can't see them becouse I'm not a member. Do you happen to have those pics?

I can assure you bbs live over 3 hours in fresh water. I detected living bbs after 5 hours in the tank. Those are probably the real die hards ;) The friend I told abouth gave me some real good advice abouth storing hatchet bbs. When the shells and bbs are separated you can store the bbs you don't use immediately in a box in the fridge. The low temp make the bbs less active and slows down all processes. This way the can be fed 24 hours and I tried and again they survived longer than that. The box should have a large surface aria and the water should be fresh salt water at the same solution as the hatch water.

I work 4 or 5 day's a week and are off to work for 9 hours. Once the fry are around 2 inch they will be fine with the longer period but I have know idea abouth the small fry. Maybe someone with a full time job can share his / her method. I do have 2 of those Interribba Nauple Stars in-tank hatcheries. They worked for me with dwarf cichlids but they are smaler, have smaler broods and have a tiny appetite compared to discus. I don't think the in tank hatcheries will make much of a diference (only 1/10 gallon each).

I indeed will cull the ridiculously small fry and maybe some of the smaler as well. I even might want to keep the 80 largest fry of both batches and proceed with them.

How abouth the feeder you use,.....it is one for dry foods? If so I expect it to work just fine with 1 month old fry but I don't think it will help at this age. If it does work on the small 2 weeks old fry I'm curious how.

[Dutch dude]

Good story Larry and very useful for people that are abouth to raise some fry. Like Martha already mentioned there are a lot of posts abouth eggs, wigglers and free swimming fry but only few on nutrition after day 7 of free swimming. I thought the secretion of the parents was enough until the moment they move to a tank on their own around 3 weeks of age. I thought the bbs and other foods were just extra. Now I know the bbs are main food and the secretion of the parents are extra from abouth day 5 to 7 of free swimming.

I realize I'm still in the learning process and thats why I need some help.

Right now I have a good guideline by feeding at least 4 times a day a quantity of bbs that can be eaten in abouth 3 hours. With trial and error I try to accomplish this. Guide lines like that are very useful for people new at breeding. So if one of you can help me out with such a type of guideline I be very grateful.

Right now my major concern is hatching enough bbs. With the help of the friend I told abouth, I made some changes to the hatching set up and by tomorrow I know how successful they are.

[mikel]

Larry, from your story of the stubborn friend....I am actually surprised that he had ANY pairs, let alone spawning pairs and some brood actually hatching!!!!! Just goes to show how resilent these fish are! What a stubborn and ridiculous man with no common sense! Mirrors as a background? Does he also want a disco ball in the middle of the tank too? Why bother trying to breed these fish with that kind of attitude? :p:p:pmike

[Apistomaster]

Mikel,
I have been very blunt with him.

I have told him that to succeed with discus YOU bend to the their needs.

The Discus will not bend to suit your fantasies.

That just causes him to become recalcitrant and say he will just keep them and if they raise some fry, fine, If they don't raise then that is fine too.

It is contradictory. He really does want to raise fry but he will never set the Discus up correctly for breeding.

I have known many fly fishermen who tie a fly out of their imagination and once caught a nice fish on it. The useless fly becomes imbued with magical properties and they will fish it to the exclusion of all other flies actually tied to match the hatch on which the trout are currently feeding. Even if I out fish them 5 to 1 and all mine are much larger fish than their few, they will decline my offer of the fly that is working. Reminds me of slot machine player addicts.

[Rod]

It seems like I heard somewhere the bbs don't live in fresh water more than a half hour or so,


Try it for yourself sometime Martha, bbs live in freshwater for 3+ hours. 1/2 an hour is completely ridiculous and wrong.

[mmorris]

I would love to see some pics you added at that post but I can't see them becouse I'm not a member. Do you happen to have those pics?

How abouth the feeder you use,.....it is one for dry foods?

BIDKA is the forum, and I recommend becoming a member. Besides, it would be a lot easier if you did than for me to fish through all my pics looking for the right ones and figure out the age at time of photo! :D Yes, the feeder is for dry food.

Thanks, guys, for the tip on the longetivity of bbs in fresh water; I had no idea!

[Dutch dude]

Hi Martha,

I became member but did not have the time to check the site. I only seen the pics from your log and they were very useful. Mine larger group of fry are at the same stage as yours were but the majority is just a bit behind but not to bad. They might catch up after all. Abouth 30% of the fry of pair 3 are much to small and considered as lost. I cull those when they get a tank on their own.

[mmorris]

Glad to hear the log was useful, and I'm particularly glad to hear you have some nice fry! So, photo time! :D

[Dutch dude]

The log was indeed helpful. The size and pics at diferent ages make good comparison how they are doing and if I did a proper job on feeding and maintanance. It is a good guideline.

The fry of pair 1 act a little shy and have a smaler appetite as the fry from pair 3. I have a amounth of death bbs on the tank floor so I feed enough, maybe to much.

The fry of pair 3 are eager eaters. Abouth 15 fry are 1 inch TL or slightly over and abouth 25 fry just under 1 inch. Those I consider as average developed and a good group to work with. A group of 20 fish is 4/5 inch,....to small and a doubtful size but with proper care they might catch up so those I will give a chance and see how things defelop. The remaining 25 fish I will cull without a doubt becouse they are to small or deformed. So I do have 40 good fry to work with from pair 3.

The fry of pair 1 do have some size diference but not as bad as the fish from pair 3. The next couple of day's it will become clear if they catch up or also will defelop the large size diference.

If I have time I will make some pics so you can see the huge size diference between the fry. I have also a post running on www.cichlid-forum.com and I'm doing up-dates on there frequently. The last couple of weeks not as often as I would like to but I am to bussy right now. Here a link to my thread over there.

http://www.cichlid-forum.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=191575

[Apistomaster]

Dutch dude,

Show us the fish!
You sound like you have very nice fish to most here but I have followed your thread on cichlid-forum and already know how nice of Stendker Red Turquoise specimens they are. But post a few photos of your pairs and their fry here when you can. You have some very nice Discus and have gotten off to a much better start than most first time Discus breeders.
You have definitely been doing the right things.

[Dutch dude]

Hahaha,....OK! More recent pics have to be taken so I post later on pics of the curent batch of fry. And by the way,....they are not perfect discus at all but nice healthy specimens. One of the goals is to get better qualety fish from my own home breed fry ;)

Thanks for the nice words abouth first time breeding. I was lucky to have a good very knowledgeble friend who help me out with tons of advice. So most credits should go to him.

Male pair 3 (female in the back) in breeding set up

http://img44.imageshack.us/img44/1461/dsc02146f.jpg

Pair 3 with curent batch of fry at day 10 of free swimming

http://img170.imageshack.us/img170/6492/dsc02163l.jpg

Pair 1 with the ooooh so wrong previous breeding cone. never buy a cone like this becouse fry will get lost!

http://img246.imageshack.us/img246/5561/dsc02111u.jpg

All 6 discus in a communety set up just before the paired up a couple of months ago. Two fish to the left is pair 3, fish in the midle is female of pair 1, fish in the top right corner facing forward is male pair 1, two fish to the right swimming so close are pair 2. Pair 2 look like a cross between alenquer and RT. I like their looks and they have a nice shape.

http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/3964/dsc01876u.jpg

This is the fish I like the best,....just over 6 1/2 inch male of pair 1. The female unfortunately does have a deformaty in the dorsal.

http://img242.imageshack.us/img242/1820/dsc01794w.jpg

[Dutch dude]

Pair 3 with fry at day 20 of free swimming. Largest fish are 1 inch TL and most of them are 4/5 inch.

http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/125/dsc02177v.jpg

Camera shy male of pair 1 with fry at day 17 of free swimming (male showing stress bars becouse of the camera and cloudiness are bbs)

http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/8489/dsc02180a.jpg

[mmorris]

Well done! Fry look great! :)

[Dutch dude]

Thanks Martha. :)