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.

Acclimation Instructions

Your new fish should be kept in a separate, bare, isolation tank for 2 weeks.

If you do not have a separate isolation tank, any other large container, such as a bucket or tub, that is free of chemicals may be used. Make sure that you put a heater and bubbler (a new sponge filter is best) in the temporary tank. Remember, this is only for two weeks. The temporary isolation tank should be a bare bottom tank with nothing in it other than the aeration and a heater (no plants, snails, fake plants, gravel, driftwood, decorations or other fish).  Make sure everything in the isolation tank is completely sterile or new. After two weeks, When the fish are showing no signs of stress or disease, they can be moved to their permanent aquarium.

CHANGE 40 PERCENT OF THE WATER DAILY FOR THE FIRST WEEK AND THEN EVERY OTHER DAY FOR THE SECOND WEEK.  MAKE SURE THAT YOU USE TREATED TAP WATER, DISTILLED WATER OR SPRING WATER.  DO NOT USE CYCLED WATER OR WATER FROM OTHER TANKS.

It is urgent that you unpack your fish as soon as possible. Float the bag in the isolation aquarium where they are going to stay. DO NOT open the bag at this time! You may find that you need to remove some of the aquarium water to prevent it from overflowing when the bags are placed in the aquarium. If necessary, remove some aquarium water into a clean plastic bucket or other food safe receptacle. Be sure the container for excess water does not have any reside from household cleaners or other potentially toxic chemicals, as you will use this water to refill the aquarium later.

Allow the bags to float in the temporary tank for at least 45 minutes to allow temperatures to slowly equalize (longer if necessary). Open the fish bags only when you are ready to immediately put them into your aquarium and the temperature of the bag water and the tank water are the same. DO NOT put any water from your aquariums into the bags or vice-versa! Avoid netting as much as possible.  Gently pour off most of the water from the bag thru a net. Then release the fish from the bag directly into the aquarium. Another good method uses a smooth plastic spaghetti strainer with small holes. Gently scoop or release the fish into the receptacle, drain the water and place the fish immediately into the aquarium. Large specimens can often be simply hand placed into the aquarium. If these methods are not applicable, place a large net over the top of a clean bucket with enough water to cover approximately a third of the bottom of the net. Open the bag and carefully pour some of the fish into the net and immediately place them directly into the aquarium. Try to avoid a net full of fish as they will ball up in the net, and the ones underneath can be damaged from compression and friction. Remember that water from the bag may react with the water from the aquarium, and could be very harmful. Never mix bag and aquarium water!

Sometimes during shipping, fish lie at the bottom of the bag and appear dead. “Playing opossum” is a common animal stress behavior. Carbon dioxide also acts to tranquilize the fish. Even if the fish look like they are mostly dead, put them into an aquarium as outlined above. Watch their mouths and gills for 5 minutes.  If there is no movement of the mouth or gills for a full 5 minutes, it is dead.  Leave the aquarium lights off to further reduce stress, and leave them alone. You will be amazed how clean water and stress reduction help!

Like other animals, fish produce carbon dioxide as they breathe. When carbon dioxide is dissolved in water, an acid is formed, lowering the pH of the water just like in a carbonated beverage. Fish also produce ammonia, which can be very damaging. Ammonia is present in water as NH3 or as NH4+, or as a combination of these forms. The toxic form of ammonia is NH3. The proportion of NH3 versus NH4+ is dependent on pH. The lower the pH, the lower the amount of NH3, and the greater the proportion of the less damaging NH4+. In the wild, freshwater fish naturally experience wide changes in pH.

One of the reasons fish can be shipped long distances in closed bags is because the pH in the shipping water drops, making the ammonia non-toxic. The carbon dioxide acts as a tranquilizer. When the bag is opened, and exposed to the outside air, carbon dioxide escapes, the pH of the water immediately begins to rise, and ammonia becomes deadly. Fish skin and gill damage will then occur very quickly. NEVER add water from a shipping bag into your aquarium, as you do not want all that harmful ammonia in your aquarium. NEVER add water from your aquarium into the shipping bag. 

Introduction: Columnaris is a very common type of bacterial infection in Discus. It responds differently than other Bacterial Infections and affects the skin, gills and sometimes it also infects the internal organs causing sepsis. It is always associated with fish that are very stressed. The most common origins of stress are shipping, overcrowding, low oxygen, poor water conditions (improper Ph, Hard Water and water that is too cold). Most fish have the disease in a dormant state. It will occur in fish that have their immune system weakened due to stress or that are exposed to high levels of the bacteria from other infected fish. As it is dormant and can become inflamed when stressed, it is very important to quarantine newly shipped fish in a sterile tank after the stress of shipping. If a healthy, but newly stressed fish from shipping is exposed to other fish in an established tank that does not have pristine water conditions, the tank can quickly become infected. A healthy fish that it is exposed to an infected tank, even if it is dormant in some of the other fish, it will quickly become infected.

Pathology: Columnaris starts as a bacterial infection of the skin. Within 14 hours, it will often move to infect gills and within 24-48 hours it can infect the inner organs. Columnaris can become lethal as quickly as 18 hours and untreated it will be lethal in 50-90 percent of the fish within a week. The most common cause of death is infection of the gills, making it impossible for the infected fish to diffuse enough oxygen through the gill membranes. It is like the fish getting Pneumonia and suffocating. These seriously infected fish will usually die within 72 hours of becoming infected. Fish that are able to ward of the infection of the gills might still die from internal organ infections. The two most common types of inner organ infections is liver failure leading to the fish dying from a buildup of toxins and sepsis, which is a total infection of all of the inner organs that will often lead to heart failure.

Symptoms: Columnaris in the early stages is difficult to tell from other Bacterial Skin Infections. Like Bacterial Skin Infections, Columnaris first shows up as a dulling of the coloration in the Discus and in some strains will lead to the fish getting dark. Infected fish will huddle in the corners of the tank and will clamp their fins. The respiration rate of infected fish will increase significantly. As the infection develops, and unlike most bacterial skin infections, some fish will develop white patchy wounds and will also have frayed fins with white fuzzy edges. The fish will typically lose most of their appetite. In the final stages, the fish will become very emaciated and then will often lie on their side at the bottom of the tank.

Treatment: Columnaris is a gram negative bacterium. It can be treated with a gram negative antibiotic. We have found that the most effective antibiotic is the old standard Tetracycline (which is effective against both gram positive and gram negative bacterium) We use OxyTetracycline which is more water soluble than Tetracycline. when caught early, most fish still have some appetite left and the most effective way to administer the antibiotic is with treated food. We sell the medicated food, please go to this link: https://www.somethingsphishy.com/flake-fish-food-with-oxytetracycline-p-1360.html   The most effective treatment of Columnaris is with Potassium Permanganate. You should be EXTREMELY CAREFUL with the dosage of the Potassium Permanganate. In even slightly higher dosages than those we list below, Potassium Permanganate is lethal within an hour. We use it to sterilize tanks when they are empty before we add fish. If you research the treatment of fish with Potassium Permanganate, you will likely get very confused. Most treatments state the dosage in parts per million and other terms that the average hobbyists will have difficulty translating into a useable treatment dosage. We have described it below in terms that most aquarist will have no trouble in using. We recommend starting with a premix of 30 grams per 1.5 liters of water. You can use a food or medication scale, that can be bought at any grocery store, to weigh it out. You can also purchase the Potassium Permanganate powder at the Florida Tropical Fish Farmers Coop website.
http://ftffacoop.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=57&products_id=498

Once you have created the premix solution, you should treat the tank with 7 ml of the premix per 10 gallons of distilled water. You can buy a syringe that uses milliliters at any pharmacy. You will see that the tank turns purple to brown, depending on how much biological material is free floating in the tank. The coloration will slowly turn clear (tan in severely infected tanks). After 24 hours, do a 50% water change and add the water back in treated at 3 ml of Premix per 10 gallons. Repeat this every day for seven days. If you mistakenly over dose the tank, you can neutralize it using Hydrogen Peroxide.

Prevention: Discus tanks should have UV filtration/sterilization. UV Filtration is the most important first line of defense. As Columnaris is brought on by stress, any causes of stress should be eliminated. The most common stressors are overcrowding with fish and/or plants and poor water conditions. We cannot overemphasize the importance of quarantining newly shipped fish in a separate, sterile isolation tank for at least two weeks. This should be a bare bottom tank with no other fish (other than the ones received), plants, snails, gravel, driftwood or ornaments. It should only have a filter, heater and aeration, all of which have been sterilized.