Discus Egg Percentage-Yield

[Cameronb_01]

Hi Guys,

My discus recently spawned, (around three days ago).

This time round, when I came to the tank and saw that the eggs had been laid, I covered the spawning cone with a makeshift cone-guard made from gutter-mesh. I also added a half dose of myxazin to the tank to try and get as many of the eggs as possible to survive. [The point at which I added the myxazin / cone-guard could have been up to 12 hours after they originally spawned].

However, a day or so later, I noticed that the vast majority of the eggs had died and turned white. Of the few hundred eggs laid there were a little fewer than 50 fertilised black ones.

Is this kind of ratio normal or should I hope to see a greater proportion of the eggs survive and get fertilised?

If this yield is low:

• Could the reason for the myxazin not working as desired be because it was dosed too late?

• Does anyone have any suggestions as to how I might be able to increase the survival rate of the eggs?

All the best,

Cameron

 

[mikey11]

Is this kind of ratio normal or should I hope to see a greater proportion of the eggs survive and get fertilised?

not normal at all in my experience......

i would say at least 90% of the eggs mine lay at least get to the "wiggler" stage

are these the SAME TWO who bred last time?.....sometimes the fertilization and survival rate will increase the more and more a pair breeds.....they kind of get better at it the more they do it.....

i think you probably "spooked" them messing around with the breeding area and water,

when i see mine starting to "do their thing" i leave them alone......i leave the tank light on, but try to make the room as dark as possible.....if its night time i turn all the lights off in that room, and close the door

when i check on them i just peek in, and try to stay as far away from the tank as possible walking and moving very slowly

 

[Cameronb_01]

They are indeed the same two who bred last time.

Last time I only got 20 fully-fledged wrigglers, (bordering on free-swimming - pic attached), so I guess this yield represents a 100% increase compared to last time.

Previously, I allowed them to eat the bad eggs though so that could have made a difference as well as their just improving like you said.

I tried my best not too spook them this time round: no water changes or scrubbing etc. just dropped food through a slot in the roof and syringed in 6ml of myxazin.

Are there any other possible explanations for such a low rate of successful fertilisation?

 

[mikey11]

how many of your wigglers survived last time? do you still have any?

sometimes i pick off the white eggs with a pair of tweezers after i have removed the parents from the tank,

the white eggs can kill good eggs near by

 

[Cameronb_01]

Of the 20 fully-fledged wrigglers around 10 of them successfully became free-swimming and latched onto their parents sides and were pecking at their mucus coat etc.

Unfortunately, in my stupidity I turned off filtration for a while because the free-swimmers were hiding behind the filter and I wanted to lower the water level to make it easier for the parents to collect their fry and get them feeding off their mucus coat etc.

The intake pipe of the filter didn't reach right to the bottom so if I wanted to lower the water level I had to switch off filtration. Additionally, I thought that removing the pre-filter would be one less distraction for the fry / an object to hide behind.

About 17 hours later when all the fry were attached to the parents: I performed a water change and scrubbed the tank and then fed the parents some gamma blisters and resumed filtration.

All this activity must have either spooked the parents and caused them to eat the free-swimmers or stressed the fry so much that they died.

 

[mikey11]

what type of filter are you using?

 

[Cameronb_01]

what type of filter are you using?

Eheim 4+ 250 with the Eheim pre-filter attached to the end of the intake pipe

 

[Colin_T]

too much water movement washing the sperm away before they can join with the eggs.
male is too far away from the eggs when fertilising them.
male is shooting blanks.
male might be young and inexperienced and still trying to work out where the eggs are compared to his blank.
If it's their second batch, let them try a few more times, practice makes perfect.

Don't bother with medication unless you see fungus on the actual eggs.

Lots of young pairs of discus and cichlids in general, take time to work out what to do. They can't watch television or read up on it so need to experiment a bit before they figure it out.

Make sure the adults are fed really well (3 or 4 times a day) for several weeks before they breed and let nature take its course.