This will conclude our series on breeding Discus Fish.

Please see all of the Discus Fish For Sale at https://www.somethingsphishy.com .

Growing out fry is easy.  The Sawning Pair does all of the work for you. Discus fry eat the slime off the parent’s side for the first 10 days to three weeks. This slime is very high in protein and contains antibodies that help the babies fight off disease. Discus raised with the parents have a stronger immune system thatn those that are artificailly raised. When the fry become free swimming, they will instinctively go to the sides of the parents side to feed. They will change back and forth, usually in groups, between the male and female parents. They do not show any preference for the father or mother Discus. There is little more beautiful in the fish world than a pair of Discus Fish, in full spawning coloration, swimming with a school of small Discus Fry at their side.

There are some things you should remember. First, the fry will be small and weak, so you will want to turn off all filtration, except for a sponge filter. One of the biggest mistakes that you can make is to do any water change in this aquarium with water that is not EXACTLY the same temperature. Discus babies are extremely sensitive to temperature changes and will die if you do a water change with water that is more than a few degrees different in temperature. With that said, Discus Fry are also very sensitive to ammonia burn, so you will want to do daily partial water changes. We like to keep our grow out Discus tanks, until they reach about 1.5 inches, at a temperature of 88 degrees, as the high temperature does increase their metabolism and leads to rapid growth.

After about 10 days, you will want to add a small amount of live baby brine shrimp to the tank. By the end of one month, they will be about one half an inch and will be eating baby brine shrimp exclusively. At this point they are much more hardy and you are pretty much out of the woods. Your Discus fry should reach 1 inch in approximately 2 months and will reach 2 inches in about 4 months. At about 1.5 inches, you can start adding in a flake food and freeze-dried food. We recommend Flake Beef Heart and Freeze Dried Blood Worms, to their food and slowly convert them over to a diet of primarily flake food. This is good for them health wise and will save you a lot of money in the long run. It is also much, much more convenient.

In our last installment for breeding Discus we went over how to raise the fry artificially. We will now go over raising the fry naturally as Discus do in the Wild. Then we will go over growing out the baby Discus to be healthy and grow fast.

Growing out the Discus babies requires very little work on your part. The breeder pair will do all of the work for you. One problem is that it is very common for the parents to eat the babies. If your pair easts the fry you should consider artificially raise the fry. There are advantages to naturally raising the fry over and above that it is much easier. Discus fry eat the slime off the parent’s side for the first 10-30 days. This slime is very high in protein and contains disease resistant antibodies that help the fry fight off diseases, particularily bacterial infections. Naturally raised fry will grow much faster at first and will have much more resistance to disease throughout their lives.

Once the fry get to the point where they are free swimming, they will instinctively go to the sides of both of the parents to feed. They will go back and forth, usually in groups between the male and female breeder pair. They do not show a preference for father or mother, but the male is more likely to eat them. There is nothing more beautiful in the fish world than a pair of Discus, in full spawning coloration, swimming with a school of small babies at their side.

There are things you should remember. First, the fry will be very small and weak, so you will need to turn off all filtration, except for a sponge filter. The biggest mistake that you can make is to do a water change in this aquarium with water that is not EXACTLY the same temperature. This is the one place where many hobbyist have the breeding go wrong and lose their Discus babies.  Discus fry are extremely sensitive to temperature shock and will die if you do a water change with water that is more than just a few degrees different in temperature. With that said, Discus fry are also very sensitive to ammonia burn, so you will need to do daily partial water changes.  You just need to make sure the water temperatures are the same in the replacement water and the fry tank.

After 10 days, start adding a small amount of live baby brine shrimp to the tank, dripping it over the babies. By the end of one month, they will be about ½ inch and will be eating baby brine shrimp exclusively. At this point they are much more hardy and you are pretty much out of the woods.

We went over your options with raising the new fry once they become free swimming in our last post. We will now go over how to artificially raise the fry. In the next Post we will go over raising the fry naturally.

The keys to artificially raising the fry, which is what you have been waiting to read, are below. This is where the few who have gotten to this point successfully will usually fail.  It is very important that you do everything below and do not leave anything out or take shortcuts.  Artificially raising the fry is difficult and time consuming, but only those that are willing to do everything will succeed.

There are two keys to raising the fry artificially: Cleanliness is one of the key things to do and changing the water with water that is the same temperature is the other key.

Step 1: Use a 1 gallon glass jar or beaker, fill it with the tank water the parents (& eggs) tank. Then put the eggs, and what they were laid on, into the jar.
Step 2: Place the jar in a 5 gallon tank filled with water at 84f (50w heater is required). Also put a Sponge Filter in the 5 gallon tank and turn it on. This will keep the jar warm and allow the tank to cycle. I always have filters in my 5 gallon tank so they are cycled.
Step 3: Add an air stone or bubbler to the jar. Turn it on medium so that there is a good current in the jar.
Step 4: Add three drops of methylene blue. Three drops will work well and allows you to observe the eggs.
Step 5: The eggs will begin hatching in two days.
Step 6: They will become free swimming in three days.
Step 7: within 12 hours of the fry becoming free swimming, give them their first feeding. Use artificial plankton and rotifers (a.p.r.) used for feeding marine filter feeders. Add only a small amount.
Step 8: Four hours later remove the jar from the 5 gallon tank and float a small plastic tub in the 5 gallon tank. Place the airstone in the tub (the airstone should be off). Use a baster to move the fry to the little tub. Fill the tub with the jar water 75% and 5g tank 25% until the tub is almost full. Turn the airstone on to a small trickle, enough to keep the surface of the water in the tub broken. Keep the tank with the tub covered to avoid cooling or evaporation or drafting on the tub.
Step 9: Add the same small amount of food.
Step 10: Four hours later do a 50% water change of tub water using the baster. I go from the baster to another small tub before I dump the water in case I suck up some fry (so I don’t dump them out). Replace the tub water with the tank water (Hey, notice the tank water is the same temp as the tub water!). Feed same small amount.
Step 11: 4-6 hrs later do a 90% change using the above method. (NOTE: eventually the 5g starts to get low. NEVER (REPEAT VERY LOUDLY, NEVER EVER) fill the 5g until the tub water has been changed and refilled. If you do fill the 5g tank prior to filling the tub, the temp may not be exactly the same and when you fill the tub afterwards you might watch the babies go into shock…they WILL NOT recover! (This cost me A LOT of fry to figure this out!).
Step 12: Repeat 90% water change and feeding every 4-6 hrs. (8 at the most so you can sleep, I’ve gone 10 before, but don’t recommend it unless there is nothing you can do about it).
Step 13: On the second day of free swimming, add a tiny amount (VERY TINY) amount of NEWLY HATCHED baby brine shrimp (b.b.s.) with every feeding. Don’t stop using the a.p.r. at this point. A.p.r. shows up gray in the fry bellies, b.b.s. shows up pink in the fry bellies.
Step 14: Continue feeding a.p.r. and b.b.s. for one week. All fry bellies should show pink by end of week.
Step 15: Once all fry bellies show pink, discontinue the a.p.r. and continue the b.b.s. Keep performing step 12.
Step 16: One week later you should have lots of fry the size of baby angelfish. Let them go into the 5g tank and feed them there from now on. Keep the tank clean and watch the water and temperature. Once a day water changes are good. 

Previously we detailed Discus fry prior to them being free swimming. Now we will go over what to do once they become free swimming. At the next article, we will go over Discus fry after they become free swimming.

Now the most difficult part of Discus breeding starts. This is where the few individuals have gotten to this point successfully will usually fail. You now have to make a an important decision. Do you let the Discus raise their own fry naturally or do you take the Discus fry out and artificially raise them.  There are advantages and disadvantages no matter which way you decide to go. We will briefly discuss the advantages and disadvantages of both methods.

The biggest advantage to letting the Discus raise their own fry is that it is MUCH less work. Other than keeping the water ultra clean via water changes, as you will not be able to run any filters except a sponge filter, there is not much to be done differently to what you normally do in keeping the fish. There is another advantage to naturally raising the fry that most people tend to forget. Fry that feed off the natural slime of the parents Discus receive antibodies from their parents, thereby making them much more resistant to disease later in their life. On the other side, the large disadvantage is that the parents will eat the fry the vast majority of the time. They will do it very quickly in just a few minutes, you will not know they are eating them and there is really nothing you can do to prevent it. 

Conversely, the advantages and disadvantages to artificially raising the Discus fry is just the opposite. There will be three weeks of caring for your fry every few hours, 24 hours a day. As most people cannot be available ever few hours, this option is really not a workable option.  If there are 2 people taking care of the Discus fry, it becomes more doable.  The positive side, your chances of getting the fry past this stage is greatly increased.

We have gone over the problem of Discus eating their eggs while spawning or shortly thereafter in a previous posting. Now we will go over fertility. We will go over what happens once the eggs hatch, but before the fry are free swimming next.

Fertility is an issue with Discus Fish and will significantly vary between different pairs. Some pairs will be totally infertile; other pairs will be infertile at first and then will become less fertile over time. On pairs that are fertile, the percentage of fertile eggs will range from 10%, in this scenario, about 80% fertility.

There are three typical causes of infertility for Discus. The first one is caused by the male not doing his job and not fertilizing the eggs. The second and third are biological and are due to either the eggs or sperm being genetically or chemically infertile.

When Discus lay eggs, the male should follow the female on a fertilizing run after she does an egg laying run. Some males only make the run after every few egg laying runs. It is my experience that these males tend to have a lower fertility rate. Some males will not fertilize at all. These tend to be the males that also are most aggressive on eating the eggs. There is very little you can do to change these males.

Some Discus Fish are infertile because of water chemistry. To optimize fertility, water temps should be kept constant between 84 and 88 degrees. Ph should be kept constant at 6.5. TDS should be low at 18 or less.  Heavy filtration, if possible, is a big plus. I try and avoid doing water changes when they have spawned.

Discus that are genetically infertile will never be fertile. Keeping water temperatures above 96 degrees for over a week will usually result in the permanent infertility of Discus. Some Discus Fish breeders have been known to purposefully sterilize the discus they sell to keep others from being able to breed the strains they have developed. We would never do this.

We will now go over what you can expect after the eggs have been laid on the breeding surface by the female Discus. This is where the frustration starts. The first two issues that you must overcome  are the parents eating of the eggs, especially by the male.  You will also have to deal with infertility. We will go over the eating of the eggs first. We will go over fertility in the part 4 of the series.

The number one problem, and the one you must get past, with breeding Discus is the eating of the eggs by the parents. While both parents will eat the eggs, the male does it more often. This is often done as they spawn with the male following the female as she lays the eggs and then the male immediately eats the eggs.  There is very little you can do if this occurs while spawning. The female will make her egg-laying run and then the male, instead of following her with a fertilizing run, will follow her and eat the row of eggs. This behavior is very common in new breeding pairs of Discus. A majority of new Discus pairs will eat their eggs. Fortunately, they will often stop this behavior as they become a more mature spawning pair. If you get lucky and they do not eat their eggs when spawning, there is a very good chance that they will eat them before they hatch. The good news is, if you get this far, there is something you can do. You can take the eggs out and artificially raise them or you can take a mesh screen (house soffit screen works very well) and fit it directly over the eggs. This will allow the Discus to still blow on the eggs and bond with them, but it will keep them from eating the eggs. You will need to have planned for the spawning and will need to have created the screen prior to the actual spawn. If the eggs do not get eaten and are fertile, they should hatch out in three days and become free swimming in about six days.  This is the hardest step in the process of breeding Discus.

The spawning process is the best part of breeding Discus. This has always been my favorite part of Discus keeping and I still, 40 years after my first Discus spawn, find it fascinating.

The first indication that your Discus are getting ready to spawn will be their obsession with cleaning a rock, breeding cone, filter tube or side of the aquarium. Once you see both of them doing this, spawning will usually follow within a couple of days. You will soon see them start to do the mating dance. They will swim towards each other at a slightly upward angle. Once they get next to each other, they will shimmy and then swim away from each other at a slightly lowered angle. The most spectacular part of the spawning process will be the colors of your Discus. Whatever their color prior to spawning, it will become MUCH more intense and vibrant during spawning. This will be the most beautiful you will ever see your Discus. They will also become aggressive toward other fish, including Discus, at this time. They will aggressively chase away other fish from the breeding site from all intruders, including you.  The male Discus will be the one that is most aggressive.

After your Discus start doing all of the above, they will actually start laying the eggs. It will begin with the female rubbing her belly, and her breeding tube, against the surface that they have cleaned. She will always lay in an upwards motion. The total length of the spawning run will be between ½ and three inches. Some Discus will have extremely orderly patterns of laying the eggs.  Others will look haphazard.  She will lay between 1 and 12 eggs per spawning run. The male Discus will usually then follow directly behind her in the same basic motion spraying the eggs. You usually cannot see the actual cloud. The entire process can take between one and five hours.

This is when the fun ends the frustration starts. The first two issues that you will be confronted with are eating of the eggs, especially by the male, and infertility.