Discus fry
Muruk
I have recently uploaded a file showing a few of the new discus fry
and to let you know how they are all doing, I have counted 34 of them
and to date I have not lost any since seperating out the parents.
They certainly have gained a gram or two in weight and are starting to
develop the discus body shape. I think It is now week 4 from egg
laying and the parents have been seperated out now for just over a
week. The photo is a bit darker than I would like but without dencent
lighting over the tank it is the best I could get.
I hope you like them.
Cheers
Greg
Mister Gardener
cichlids, evolving into the discoid shape at a very early age.
MG
Marksfish
Mark
Marksfish
Mark
Muruk
will post them tonight for your perusal. Because I am looking at them
every day I cant see progress in growth but when I went back to the
pictures, yep they have changed.
I almost had to throw one out the other day, I thought it was dead as
it was on it's side on the bottom of the tank for a while and not
moving. When I brought the net in to scoop it out, it took off like a
rocket and hasn't laid down since. I am not sure what it was doing
but it hasn't done it since.
Muruk
Hi everyone,
As promised two more pictures uploaded, I have discovered today that
one of the babies must have become stuck behind the filters as it was
on the bottom of the tank when I got home and it was looking rather
moldy with fungus so it had been dead for more than a day but I
certainly couldn't see it yesterday. So I guess that is approx 33 to
go :-(. Hopefully that will be the last loss in that manner.
Cheers
Greg
Mister Gardener
> >it was on it's side on the bottom of the tank for a while and not
> >moving. When I brought the net in to scoop it out, it took off like a
> >rocket and hasn't laid down since. I am not sure what it was doing
> >but it hasn't done it since.
Mark, what you are describing is commonly known as "belly sliders" in the
angelfish world. The belly slider is sometimes able to right itself and swim
away when threatened by a net, but eventually it will return to its slider
attitude. Your fish may only belly slide occasionally, or maybe never again,
but keep an eye on it. Belly sliders are culled as soon as the disorder is
recognized. It's generally accepted that these fish will never be right,
even if they manage to grow to nickel size and larger, they will always have
a tendency to belly slide. A quick search on the angelfish forums will
usually bring dozens of messages, and you will see that opinions vary on the
precise cause of this condition. The most accepted cause is bacterial
infection, possibly leading to swim bladder problems. Bacterial infection is
a constant threat in fry tanks because of the accumulation of uneaten food,
dead baby brine shrimp being especially dangerous. Some believe that
genetics plays a role as well. Or developmental flaws. I've read of entire
hatches producing belly sliders; without actually watching a fishkeeper's
daily routine, it's impossible to tell if the problem is genetics or
inadequate hygiene. Bacteria colonize on the gravel or bare bottom of a
tank, and that's where most cichlids spend the first couple of weeks, at
least, of their free swimming lives. They continue to peck food from the
bottom for a long time. Some believe that belly sliding is less likely to
occur in a gravel substrated tank than a bare bottom tank. Somewhere along
the line, I began wiping the bottom of my bare bottomed fry tanks with a
paper towel, just a couple of good swipes, each time I do a water change. I
doesn't hurt, and it may help. No fishkeeper likes to admit s/he has a
problem caused by poor maintenance, but I will confess that I have had some
belly sliders in two of my broods. The first time was with 4 or 5 belly
sliders, from a brood of 300. Small percentage, easy to live with, but I
took it as a warning sign and re-evaluated each step of my maintenance
routines. That's when I began the paper towel wiping routine. The second
time was in a brood that I know I kept in too small of a tank before moving
them to a large growout tank. It was a small brood, less than a hundred, so
every feeding of live baby brine shrimp was a gross overfeed, and the
bacteria multiplied at a phenomenal rate. I had to cull about a dozen babies
from that gang. Another lesson learned. I can't recall if you are using a
bare bottomed tank, but if so, wipe your finger across the tank bottom and
feel the slimey bacteria - usually friendly bacteria, but sometimes not.
And once again I must add the disclaimer that all I know about discus is
that they are similar to angelfish in many ways.
MG
Mister Gardener
MG
Marksfish
now? What are you managing to feed them on at the moment? The problem
with the babies is that little and often is the preferred way to go. A
breeder I knew (who has now moved to the US from Holland) used to feed
them up to 12 times a day!! One of the best foods he said was frozen
lobster eggs, although not for too long as the young may think of eggs
as food in later life. Frozen cyclopeeze would be quite good too I
imagine, I know someone that used to feed the freeze dried stuff, but
it floats too much.
Mark
Muruk
fry closely as you can imagine and there seems to have always been a
couple of runts and a couple that seem to get about by swimming along
close to the bottom of the tank and they "glide" to a stop on the
glass. I thought these ones may require culling but have put it off
as it seems to be occurring less and of a night all of the fry hang in
the water at various levels. I haven't seen that one that was on it's
side do that again but I will certainly watch out for it.
As far as the feeding goes Mark, I started off looking for the fry
food in the LFS and when I read the contents of the containers I had
serious doubts that it was worth mucking around with. So I have been
taking decent flake food (hopefully decent), freeze dried brine shrimp
and blood worms and grinding up a weeks worth at a time in a pestle
and mortar reducing it all to the finest powder. This powder slowly
sinks through the water column and gets eaten with relish. To
supplement this I was using bbs which I was getting hatched with
varying degrees of success. As the fry got larger I introduced micro
pellets which are as small as a pin head. The feeding regime has been
a tad slack I guess by what I have read, I have been slack as the
feeding has been morning and night, I have been wary about feeding an
extra feed late at night as the fry seem to take a while to consume
the feed.
I am running the sponge filter and a trickle filter to try and keep
the water as safe as possible for them and do regular water changes.
The one fish I have lost, I am pretty sure it became stuck somewhere
and was dislodged during the day as it was pretty slimy and moldy so I
guess it was dead for a couple of days to get to that state. I am
guessing that it was lodged behind the sponge filter as I had both of
them pointing vertically and the gap behind them and the glass was
almost non existent.
The size of the fry varies between 3/4" to 1" total length so they
seem to be growing quite well. I dont know if they would be bigger if
I did more changes of water and more frequent feedings in samller
amounts but due to work commitments I really cant see how I can
effectively change my patterns. All I can do is hope for the best and
take remedial action if things start to go wrong and learn by them.
Cheers
Greg
Mister Gardener
Greg - the underlying note in my comments on belly sliders is that yes, it
is a real phenomenon, and no, there is not complete agreement on the cause
and treatment, if any. Your belly slider may grow up to be a perfectly
normal adult, regardless of the odds. I hate it when I find a condition that
is relatively well known but for which there exists little, if any,
scientific information for me to digest. My best guess, based on the
information I've been able to find, is that there is no single cause of the
disorder, just as there is no single cause for ascites, or "dropsy", to use
the old fashioned name. I don't think fish keeping will ever become an exact
science, there are simply too many variables; the health and disposition of
the parent fish, the development of each individual fry, the water quality
and the personal style of the fishkeeper, which is heavily influenced by the
resources available to the fishkeeper, like access to tools, (money), and
allocation of time, which the fishkeeper has only so much control over. When
I do my reading and learning by doing, I am increasingly impressed by the
inexactness of my breeding venture as well as my overall husbandry in my
community tanks. I try and weed out the irrelevant and inaccurate writings,
TFA is a great place to double check questionable advice, and I seek to find
the "gold standard" of breeding. I think most of us seek that gold standard
and use it as a goal in our husbandry, modifying it to our individual
abilities and resources. Few, if any, truly meet that 100% standard of
perfection, but I find it helpful to keep it in front of me as I make
decisions in my day to day maintenance planning. The same goes for you and
your hobby. I think your discus adventures are very exciting; I'm reminded
of the first spawns from my angel fish 20 years ago. I lost more fry than I
raised back then, but over the years I picked up some valuable lessons, and
I've finally reached a point in my life where I have the time to really
invest in angel breeding - maybe someday you will be running a top notch
discus breeding operation. I hope so.
Regarding great food for tiny fish, frozen daphnia and frozen Cyclops are
taken eagerly by my very youngest fry on those occasions when I have a bad
brine shrimp hatch. When the fry are ready for flake or crumbles, I've found
that among the foods commonly available at pet sites and stores, Ocean
Nutrition's Formula One is 50% protein and 11.5% fat, and it crushes very
easily into bite sized bits for small fry. I've not seen numbers that high
on any other commercial brands. It's labeled for marine fish, but no one
told my angels about that. It's a terrific growth food. I can't afford to
feed it to my hundreds, I feed a house brand flake that is packaged by the
pound - but I always keep a can of Formula One on hand, just in case.
MG
Javadan
On Jul 31, 7:38 am, "Mister Gardener" <mistergarde...@email.toast.net>
wrote:
When the fry are ready for flake or crumbles, I've found
> that among the foods commonly available at pet sites and stores, Ocean
> Nutrition's Formula One is 50% protein and 11.5% fat, and it crushes very
> easily into bite sized bits for small fry. I've not seen numbers that high
> on any other commercial brands. It's labeled for marine fish, but no one
> told my angels about that. It's a terrific growth food.
Just a side note here. It might be a new label, but Formula One is
now labeled 'for all marine and freshwater tropical fish'. I did find
it in the marine fish food section, though.
I really like those discus fry. Enjoying the discussions about them &
the angels. Didn't even know that they could be raised without
feeding off of the parents. All the best to both of you in your fish
breeding endeavors.
Dan
NetMax
Was that actually done? I had the impression that they were parent-
fed for about 3 weeks. That doesn't sound like an unreasonable
weening interval. I can check with a local Discus breeder if you
wanted more recent-experience feedback, though there's probably lots
of info on the web, and I also have a book at home which has a chapter
on Discus breeding.
~~
Javadan
realized anyway from the size of the fry in the pics. Glad you picked
that up right away. Thanks NetMax.
Dan
> > Dan- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
NetMax
supposed to do ;~)
It sure would have peaked my interest if the fry had been raised
without parents though.
~~
> > - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -
Muruk
to be on holidays when and if that happens. The parent fish seem to
be quite good with a few losses along the way but on the whole they
seem quite good. I envy the availability of frozen daphnia and
cyclops you seem to enjoy. Here the shops only seem to stock frozen
brine shrimp and blood worms (plus another unholy mix of beef heart
and what ever that comes out in a glutinous blob when defrosted, the
fish wont touch that stuff) They must be stocking to appeal to the
masses as even the specialist LFS dont carry quantities or varieties
of frozen foods. It is possibly different down in Sydney and
Melbourne but Brisbane is still a bit "Countryish" in a lot of ways.
I will certainly look into the Ocean nutitions brands as a source of
high protien, the little guys deserve what I can get and really as
there are only approx 33 of them I reckon a bit of hight quality flake
wont break the bank.
As for the sliders, there are definitely two fry that are
substantially smaller than the others and they both seem to exhibit
traits of extremely vigourous tail moving to propel themselves
anywhere and they adopt a heads up attitiude with the tails fanning
rapidly to hold position so I guess they must have under developed
swim bladders. I will try and take of photo of them in particular
soon to show what I mean.
I will have to dispose of them before long because if I keep them
around too long and my wife notices them she will "adopt" the "poor
little things" and pop them somewhere safe or take other steps to
protect them!! :-)
Mister Gardener
> >The parent fish seem to
> >be quite good with a few losses along the way but on the whole they
> >seem quite good.
My decision to leave the new eggs with the wonderful parents last night
resulted in a humbling experience when I discovered this morning that
someone had eaten all the eggs. Oh well, at least I got some good video from
it. And 10 days from now they'll spawn again and I'll raise them
"artificially." I have to be a bit mercenary, those tie dye babies are in
great demand.
> > I envy the availability of frozen daphnia and
> >cyclops you seem to enjoy. Here the shops only seem to stock frozen
> >brine shrimp and blood worms (plus another unholy mix of beef heart
> >and what ever that comes out in a glutinous blob when defrosted, the
> >fish wont touch that stuff) They must be stocking to appeal to the
> >masses as even the specialist LFS dont carry quantities or varieties
> >of frozen foods.
That's a bummer. Daphnia and Cyclops are a relatively new item at lfs's in
my area - within the past year. Maybe your request for them will add enough
to the pile of requests to get the lfs to rethink their strategy. Are
aquarists in your part of the world all do-it-yourselfers, preferring to
capture their own live food? (I just had an image of Crocodile Dundee
shooting wild Cyclops - sorry, stereotypes are hard to shake.)
> >I will certainly look into the Ocean nutitions brands as a source of
> >high protien, the little guys deserve what I can get and really as
> >there are only approx 33 of them I reckon a bit of hight quality flake
> >wont break the bank.
Actually, Ocean Nutrition's products are priced the same as everyone else's
around here. I discovered them when I learned that one particular pet
store's manager declared they would use Ocean Nutrition products in all of
their tanks. Maybe they got a good deal from the distributor to get their
product name in front of the public. The other lfs's I know of feed a pretty
basic flake from Wardley's. BTW - Wardley's all purpose marine flake is very
close to their freshwater flake in ingredients, but the marine flake has a
lot more "smell attractant" - I can certainly tell the difference and my
community fish in the past have gone for it much better than the freshwater
flake.
> >As for the sliders . . .
> >I will have to dispose of them before long because if I keep them
> >around too long and my wife notices them she will "adopt" the "poor
> >little things" and pop them somewhere safe or take other steps to
> >protect them!! :-)
I hear you loud and clear. A major defect in angel fish is a dorsal fin bent
at a 90 degree angle. It can come from water quality, overcrowding, or
genetics, but however it happens, it makes the fish unsellable. And a
candidate for culling. And it usually doesn't show up until the fish is at
least a couple of months old and of good size. I don't get them often, but
it happens. I have one that is the size of a quarter that Missus Gardener
has become quite attached to. It's useless to me as a breeder or as a
seller, but it will probably live to old age if Missus G has her way.
MG