# I Have Brand New Baby Discus



## sangpeiris (Jan 14, 2006)

My discus are pairing and laying eggs like crazy. Already two pairs have formed and layed eggs in the main planted tank. I sperated a pair out into an 29G tank and now I have babies. Believe it or not, there was no use of R/O water. pH is as it comes out of the tap in Dallas around 7.8 or 8.0 and TDS is around 300 ppm. Not sure how this is possible given that everything that I read says you need pH of 6.5 and more importantly Carbonate Hardness at 40 to 60 ppm. Do I have a strain of Discus that have evolved to live in the aquarium conditions rather than insist on Amazonian conditions? I guess stranger things have happend before.

Let's hope at a least a few of the babies will survive... then everyone can have free discus at the next meeting!!!!

Off to the LFS to buy another 29G tank for the second pair...


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## milalic (Aug 26, 2005)

sangpeiris said:


> My discus are pairing and laying eggs like crazy. Already two pairs have formed and layed eggs in the main planted tank. I sperated a pair out into an 29G tank and now I have babies. Believe it or not, there was no use of R/O water. pH is as it comes out of the tap in Dallas around 7.8 or 8.0 and TDS is around 300 ppm. Not sure how this is possible given that everything that I read says you need pH of 6.5 and more importantly Carbonate Hardness at 40 to 60 ppm. Do I have a strain of Discus that have evolved to live in the aquarium conditions rather than insist on Amazonian conditions? I guess stranger things have happend before.
> 
> Let's hope at a least a few of the babies will survive... then everyone can have free discus at the next meeting!!!!
> 
> Off to the LFS to buy another 29G tank for the second pair...


[email protected]!I've read and heard that people have breed them in higher ph than 7.0

-Pedro


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## gibmaker (Jan 3, 2007)

Congrats. just make sure to feed them about 3 to 5 times a day!!!!!


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## Kjm (May 27, 2005)

I'm quite surprised! I've never heard of anybody getting fry to hatch with TDS that high. I have to use an R/O mix and get the TDS lowered to under 100 to get any hatch rate at all. Mine will lay eggs all over the place in the higher TDS but they never hatch because the egg casings harden before they can be fertilized.

That's awesome...congrats! What strain are they?


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## niko (Jan 28, 2004)

These must be descendant of the Russian discus that I read about in the early 80's. They were laying eggs in a tank with a rusty metal frame that was gradualy falling apart... rust was literally falling in chunks in the tank.

Congratulations and hope that many babies survive... and you have many tanks in your house! 

--Nikolay


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## blyxa (Jan 1, 2007)

You need to keep the parents in there to feed the babies. The parents secrete slime on their sides to feed the babies. Once the fry become free swimming they will hang out on their parent's side. Leave them in there for 2 weeks (after becoming free swimming), no longer or the fry will do damage to the parent's scales. You should start feeding them live brine shrimp in 5 days. The mucous is a great way to start of the fry.



Good Luck!!


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## CrownMan (Sep 12, 2005)

Congratulations Sang. Do you remember the 4 albino cories you traded me for those Cherry shrimp and plants? Well they have spawned 3 times (last spawn has not hatched yet). I have some 1/4 to 1/2 " albino babies (about 35-40) growing well. Do you need some? They're not quite ready but they are growing fast.

The second batch is about 6 days old now and I split the free swimmers into 2 cherry shrimp tank.

Mike


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## sangpeiris (Jan 14, 2006)

Five babies survived... but, I travel everyweek from monday morning to thursday evening... now, I'm killing babies every week. Since then, I've got myself an R/O unit and running the two breeding tanks at 70 ppm, pH 6.5, and 88F.

The last batch of eggs had no babies... or they were born and died before I got back


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## Catherine (Feb 22, 2006)

First of all, turn down the temperature! It should be 82f for breeding. Too warm, and the eggs develop too quickly and you get weak fry. When you next get eggs, this will be your timeline: 3 days to wigglers, then the parents will move them to a second site. Next day they may move them again, sucking them in and spitting them at the spot they want them to stay. When they go freeswimming, lower the tank water to just above the parents fins. The babies go to the darkest thing in the tank, so make sure filter inputs are covered. Let the babies feed off the parents for as long as possible.. I leave them for 3 weeks. HOWEVER, treat the babies at one week of age with Quick Cure, or the babies will die of gill flukes.
Catherine.


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