Discus laid eggs in with my other fish (question)

[fsirico]

My discus paired and laid eggs in my 240 gal. i have 4 other discus in the same tank. is there a chance the fry will survive? has anyone had the same thing happen? any sucsess?

[Dean Hougen]

With 240 gallons there should be enough space for the pair to keep the other four discus at bay. However, if your discus are many generations from wild caught, they may not have many parenting instincts left, as many discus breeders breed them in tanks with no other tank mates, raise the fry away from the parents, and select strongly for other traits like color and body shape.

Are there other fish besides the six discus in there?


Dean

[Lisachromis]

I saw a heavily planted 75g tank that had 6-7 large discus, tetras, loaches, and a few other smaller cichlids in it. There was a pair in there guarding a leaf with wrigglers on it. I would think that once the fry were free swimming they were food for the other fish, but they had done quite well with guarding them until that point. So well in fact, the owner didn't even know he had wrigglers in the tank.

[eyecandy]

Hi... When I had my 120 gallon setup as a planted discus tank, I had two pairs spawning at the same time.. They would spawn and the eggs get fertilized and then usually the eggs would get eaten by the other fish, including the discus.. There were eight adult discus in the tank plus some rummynoses... You would be amazed how fast those rummynose could get to the eggs and eat them.. like a swarm of locusts.. I did have them get to the wriggler stage and then even free swimming a few times... but eventually the babies all got eaten .. It's just too hard for even the best of parents to guard them against fish wanting a little caviar.. Good luck with yours.. Sue

[Dean Hougen]

Yeah, a breeding discus can hold off another discus without problem but the tiny fish are always the worst at sneaking in and getting a snack of fry. Or, maybe they are the best, if there aren't too many. After all, if all the fry survive they can really pick the parents to shreds, so thinning out the fry population can be a good thing.


Dean

[apistomaster]

Some Discus pairs may have problems with producing sufficient fry food mucous and even then they may only have this trouble occasionally.
My best ever brood was from a wild pair of Brown S. haraldi which raised 147 fry. The pair happened to be in a 125 gal tank by themselves so I left the fry with the parents for 6 weeks. The young Discus supplemented their feeding with parental mucous during their first 3 weeks of free swimming and the adults suffered not at all. Since they were wild caught Discus I believe this case was representative of what they do in the wild.

[Dean Hougen]

What were you feeding the fry during this time? How much and how often?


Dean

PS. 147 is a small fraction of the eggs that a discus can lay in a single brood.

[apistomaster]

What were you feeding the fry during this time? How much and how often?


Dean

PS. 147 is a small fraction of the eggs that a discus can lay in a single brood.

Hi Dean,
I feed baby Discus newly hatched brine shrimp(bbs) primarily, especially many decades ago when I mainly bred wild fish.
Now I introduce them to earth worm flakes crumbled up some at 10 days and since I blend beef heart mix after I grind during preparation, the fry can often begin eating that quite early from what I feed the adults. But I believe in keeping feeding bbs as long as they are less than 3 cm at least once a day.
I am currently only trying to breed some wild Nhamunda Blue Discus.

I know that some pairs lay a huge number of eggs but the largest single spawn I have raised which was from a pair of wild browns, was 147.
Most of my Domestic spawns have resulted in less than 100 fry. I only count the number of fry I actually raise and not how many eggs were laid.