Thin fem able to breed? smaller male with bigger fem?

[henward]

ok
i know that many will say that what i did is a NO NO lol
i know its a no no, but unfortunately, in nz, we have alimited amount of stock.

only a handful of snow leopards cam ein, many died, many are in such bad shape.
i got the last two that i believed looked good.
a tad small, 18 months old, but .... the male does not look too shabby at all, not a bad shape, though a little small.

the female on the other hand, is thin and not as active as other discus i have had, i have seen it eat of course. though after introing both of them on saturday morning, i have not seen them eat much yet.
the female is now starting to pick at food from the floor and leaves and male chasing bits of food but ignoring them after because its not used to eating discus bio gold and bh mix - raised and fed on Colour bits.

anyways, i digress.

a thin female - here are questions

of course i know she wont grow much bigger
1) in theory, can i fatten her up in time?
2) is it possible for her to still lay?

another bunch of ?
1) if the male is smaller than the female, will they be able to pair up and breed?

reason i ask, is that i have a snow white, female, lays frequently, once a week lol
if the snow leopard female does not lay etc, cani TRY to pair up the snow white fem and snow leopard male? even if the male is smaller

[DiscusKev]

1a) 'Beef' her up with some high quality beefheart mix, no appetite? Well you could increase her appetite by increasing the temperature to 29-31C or feeding her adult brine shrimp (after some HUFA enrichment program if you want to increase the nutrition value). It may take a few week(s) to 'beef' her up, so you may not be abe to get her looking more 'tunk', good results takes time and patients.

1b) I doubt she won't be stressed if her batch of fry feed off her 'discus milk', parents require a lot of nutrition in order to produce high quality mucus to feed its brood.

2a) Its just better to have a bigger male than female, as a male provides his role of protecting the spawn (off course, the female will too), but this way it will provide the female a sense of protection. There are in some cases that the female is larger than the male, still breed but in general, it is better to have a bigger male than a bigger female.

[henward]

yeah, she has just been intro'd lol just saturday morning. so it takes abit longer usually i found to get them eating.
she was eating at the breeders place. made sure of it.

yeah i have a nice beef heart mix i use. she almost went for it but proably unfamiliar with the smell, but ate a few pieces of hikari discus gold.

i wont plan on breeder her for another 4 to 6 months anyways. i am just wondering, if a thin female can be bought up to a 'beefed' up thickness and strength and get her breeding i guess lol

as for the smaller male, just a back up, if its possible the i feel good.
i hav ea back up, im determined to breed snow leopards you see.
i have an albino snow white to breed with a female leopard. OR a male leopard to breed with a horny female snow white.
but prefer if they parents are already snow leopards.

in saying that, understand fully that they n eed strength to produce milk.

im struggling to bring up my comm discus tank to 29 to 30, the room is toooo cold,
but, i am about to insulate the room, that will enable tme to heat up the tanks to 29/30 ish

[DiscusKev]

Yes, I have read that thread about the outcomes through different crossings.

You could always add another heater within the tank to duo the power, not sure if that would help as you said your room is 'toooo cold'.

Hope all goes well,

[henward]

thanks
i cannot add more heaters, as it will just suck the power,
more efficiently, doing the figures is to insulate the room wtih thick polystyrene walls, ceilings with thick 50mm sheets.
that will insulate the room from outside, also stop drafts of wind from coming in under the door.
then the tanks will heat up.

during summer, i only had 3 300x jager heaters.
now i have 4! and it still struggles.

[mmorris]

I'd worm them.

[kaceyo]

I'd worm them.

Ditto!
Also, now isn't the time to switch them onto a new food. Get some TetraBits if that's what they will eat and wait untill they are in better shape to try out new foods on them. Keep trying the new foods, but make sure they are eating plenty of what they like too.