Lifestyle Fashion

Discus Breeding (Part 1-3)

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The first thing to understand is that you are not in complete control. If Discus doesn’t want to pair, there’s nothing you can do about it. All you can do is provide the right conditions to make them more likely to mate.

If you have a sexual partner and they are the only discs in the tank, chances are about 70% that they will eventually mate if left together for a long period of time.

To hasten our potential young lovers, we provide the conditions for suspicious love. We put seven mature discus in a 125 gallon tank and let them acclimate for two weeks. We then start making some sudden changes to tank conditions to encourage courtship. Some of the changes we made are:

• Change the water temperature to 78 degrees for a few days and then turn it up to 88 degrees for about 12 hours and then leave it at 88 degrees for the rest of a week.

• Let the tank get a little dirty, skip the daily water changes for a few days, and then do an 80% water change.

• Feed them abundantly for a few days and then stop feeding for two days, followed by feeding them live food for three days.

• Perform two 60% water changes four hours apart, where the pH goes from 6.5 to 7.0 on the first change and then 7.0 to 7.5 on the second change.

• Leave the tank in the dark for two full days and then turn the lights on for two full days.

If we’ve tried all of the above and after two months they still haven’t paired, we swap out four of those drives and start the process over with four new drives along with the remaining three.

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The spawning process is the pinnacle of Discus keeping. This has always been my favorite part of discus breeding and I still find it fascinating 30 years after my first spawning.

The first sign that your discus is preparing to spawn will be their obsession with cleaning a rock, filter tube, or the side of the aquarium. Once you see both of them doing this, spawning will usually follow within a day or two. You will also see them start to do the mating dance. They will swim towards each other at a slightly upward angle. Once they are next to each other, they will glow and then swim away from each other at a slightly lower angle. The most spectacular aspect of the spawn will be the colors of your disk. Whatever its color, it will become MUCH more intense and vibrant during spawning. This will be the most beautiful record you will see in your life. They will also become aggressive towards other fish, including discus, at this time. They will aggressively defend the hatchery from all trespassers, including you.

Sometime after your Discus starts doing all of the above, she will actually lay the eggs. It will start with the female rubbing her belly and her brood tube against the surface they have cleaned. She will always lie down in an upward motion. The total length of the spawning run will be between ½ and three inches. She will lay between 1 and 12 eggs per spawning cycle. Her male discus will usually follow directly behind her with the same basic movement spraying the eggs. Usually she can’t see the actual cloud. The entire process can take anywhere from one to five hours.

This is when the fun ends and the frustration can begin. The first two problems you will face are ingestion of the eggs, especially by the male, and infertility.

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Now we’ll go over what to expect after the eggs have been laid. This is where the frustration begins. The first two problems you will face are ingestion of the eggs, especially by the male, and infertility. First we’ll go over how eggs are eaten. We will go over fertility in the next part of the series.

The number one problem, and the one you need to overcome, with disc playback is the parents eating the eggs. While both parents will eat the eggs, the male does so more frequently. This is often done when they spawn and there is very little you can do if this occurs during spawning. The female will go on her egg-laying run and then the male, instead of following her with a fertilizing run, will follow her and eat the string of eggs. This behavior is more common in new couples. Most new discus pairs will eat their eggs. Fortunately, they will often stop this behavior as they become a more mature breeding pair. If you’re lucky and they don’t eat the eggs when they spawn, there’s a good chance they’ll eat them before they hatch. Fortunately, if you make it this far, there is something you can do. At this point you can either scoop out the eggs and raise them artificially or you can take a mesh screen (home soffit screen works great) and place it directly over the eggs. This will allow the disk to still blow on the eggs and bond with them, but will prevent them from being eaten. Obviously, you will need to have planned the spawn and have created the screen before the actual spawn. If the eggs are not eaten and are fertile, they should hatch in three days and be free-swimming in about six days.

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