More manuals over the years have been written about keeping and breeding discus fish then any other exotic fish. This is because they are very popular with pet owners. Discus fish are very sensitive creatures, if you want to keep long lasting discus fish you need to be aware of there preferred living conditions and feeding and breeding habits.
Discus is a native of the calm and warm Amazon River Keeping discus fish requires the pet owner to have the right information about what to expect and what to offer them to make these exotic creatures happy. Discus fish keeps changing their behavior according to the environmental factors.
They are generally shy but if your planning to keep discus fish you will notice that they become quite aggressive to there own kind this is because of breeding territory protection. In this type of situation only the strong discus will survive and the week get attacked. Its best to keep to keep discus fish in groups of minimum six individuals is considered ideal. By keeping them in groups it will increase confidence in group members and lower the risk of misbehavior. Keeping discus fish can bring lots of challenges and rewards at the same time too.
Here are some quick tips for you...
Pairing: Discus fish really don't take well to arrange marriages, the best way to get a pair to gather is to buy a group of young unrelated fish of the same colour type and let them pair up themselves. This might happen from when the fish are half grown, spawning usually occurs when there ¾ of their adult size. The fish will usually remain a pair until the remainder of there lives.
Spawning: Discus will choose a near vertical smooth site, which they clean and then the female will lay any ware from 80-400 eggs and then the male fertilises them. It can take between 50-60 hours for the eggs to hatch and another 36-48 hours until their swimming freely.
Breeding Tank: It’s best to keep the breeding tanks simple and to have a simple air powered filtration, spawning sites (terracotta cones, broad leafed plants or slate) and no substrate. The water needs to be very soft so the eggs can develop properly. The quality of the water needs to be excellent and have a temperature of about 84-88F. Also a suitable tank size is 24x18x18.
Feeding and Conditioning: The parents will need a good and varied diet not just to condition them to spawn, but to provide nutrition when they are feeding their fry. Large water changes, a temperature rise and heavy feeding is often a good spawning trigger.
Fry Rearing: It's a good idea to give the fry additional feedings of small foods such as (BBS) baby brine shrimp whilst with parents. You will notice after about 3-6 weeks the parents will be exhausted, also the fry will be growing fast it's a good idea to remove them. This is where lots of tanks and water changes are needed to achieve a decent growth rate. I used to grow circa. 40 fry to just under 2" in a 55G tank, and this required heavy water changing. The discus market is saturated with fish, so it best to grow 20-50 excellent fry than 80 runts. Growth is reasonable, but not spectacular.
So if you're thinking about breeding discus fish I hope these quick tips have been of some use to you.
Remember it pays to do your research. You can learn everything you need to know at discus fish secrets.
