Rearing Discus Fry Artificially

[mark4785]

My Discus has now laid 3 batches of eggs on various surfaces in the aquarium. Each of the 3 times a minority of the fry become free swimming and they attach to the parents. Due to only a small amount attaching, the parents lose interest and show behaviour that suggests they want to spawn afresh. Consequently they dont stay still enough to keep the fry attached.

I would like to therefore artificially raise the discus fry myself when they reach the free-swimming stage, using the bowl method seen here:

.

It is suggested that egg yolk is used as a food source which is smeared on a white bowl containing the fry. Does anybody here know if I would add anything else to the yolk to make it more appealing to the fry?

Any fry that survive I would be willing to give away for free. The parents are from Chens.

 

[itiwhetu]

Discus fry need the mucus from the adult fish to survive, once they get big enough and are free from the parents you can then feed them using the method below. Are the Discus alone or in a community tank.

First food

This most probably has been done before but here goes again. The best possible first food for egg layers especially gouramis and tetras etc is boiled egg yolk. First hard boil an egg, take only the yolk, put into a piece of cotton cloth like a handkerchief . Push it through into the tank. You...

www.fishforums.net

 

[mark4785]

Discus fry need the mucus from the adult fish to survive, once they get big enough and are free from the parents you can then feed them using the method below. Are the Discus alone or in a community tank.

First food

This most probably has been done before but here goes again. The best possible first food for egg layers especially gouramis and tetras etc is boiled egg yolk. First hard boil an egg, take only the yolk, put into a piece of cotton cloth like a handkerchief . Push it through into the tank. You...

www.fishforums.net

It is probably not worth me pursuing this then as the fry do not attach properly to their parents. I was hoping that when they became free-swimming that I could scoop them up and offer them the egg yolk without them attaching to the parents.

The parents are in a community aquarium but I put a dividing net in so the parents are segregated from the rest when they are spawning.

 

[itiwhetu]

Personally I would give it a go, feed them by creating a cloud of egg yolk in the water as described in the link, you have nothing to loose. I don't think they will attach to an object tho. The cloud means that they have to feed as they will swim through it.

 

[mark4785]

Personally I would give it a go, feed them by creating a cloud of egg yolk in the water as described in the link, you have nothing to loose. I don't think they will attach to an object tho. The cloud means that they have to feed as they will swim through it.

Ok I will give it a go. It's 2 more days until they hatch.

So just to confirm, you are saying the fry can eat particles from the yolk cloud without needing to eat the parents' slime coat beforehand?

 

[itiwhetu]

Ok I will give it a go. It's 2 more days until they hatch.

So just to confirm, you are saying the fry can eat particles from the yolk cloud without needing to eat the parents' slime coat beforehand?

I would try, I have known people who have used this method. I had a friend who's young Discus weren't interested in Mum and Dad, and he raised his this way. Didn't raise as many as he would like to have, but got some to survive. The cloud is important, the yolk particles need to be so fine that you can hardly see them with the naked eye. Push the yolk through some fine cotton material.

 

[Colin_T]

The reason discus don't look after their fry like they should is because of people artificially rearing them in captivity. The babies don't learn from their parents and end up being bad parents. Blame the discus breeders from the last 30 years.

If you persist with letting the parents care for them, eventually most prs do look after the young but it might take 5 or 6 attempts.