Breeding Discus: by RV Archer

Forward:

In this article, I will try and explain the methods we use to breed discus. Over the years I have been fortunate to have bred different strains and colour variations and I will try to explain how we do it and what works for us.

There has been a lot written about breeding Discus, however some frustrated hobbyists think there is a secret to it. We find its attention to detail, observation and knowing the animal.  It also helps if you have experience breeding other types of fish which gives you an understanding of the basics, how to hatch brine shrimp for example and the general housekeeping requirements when dealing with small fry. 

The secret to breeding Discus;   

1)      You need healthy discus that have not been exposed to hormones or harmful colour enhancers.

2)      You need discus that they themselves fed off the backs of their parents so parenting instincts are strong.  Research has shown that older fish, Tuna for example, pass on knowledge to their offspring so there is no reason to doubt this may be true in other fish like discus.

3)      You need good water quality, medium soft water, good filtration and low nitrates the result of frequent water changes.

4)      You need a good balanced nutritious diet; like a good quality vitamin and mineral enhanced beef-heart seafood mix and the occasional feeding of white worm. (see our page on nutrition)

5)      You don’t need harmful pathogens, like internal and external worms, that may be present or carried by the discus pair as these will be passed on to the fry with devastating results. There are number of bacteria as well that can cause fin deformity in fry.  So if your discus are not healthy your success will be limited. 

Food;

As I have stated previously, water quality and nutrition are extremely important in keeping your discus healthy.  Feeding live or frozen foods such as bloodworm, black worm or any other fresh water aquatic foods should be avoided.  This is not just me talking there are a number of breeders and authors that state this as well. People choose these types of inferior foods, because it’s convenient, cheaper and there really isn’t a good frozen beef heart seafood mix on the market, certainly not in our area of Toronto Canada.  These poor quality foods expose your fish to malnutrition and disease.  Having to constantly de-worm and medicate will shorten the life of your discus. It will cost you for medication and eventually the replacement of your fish prematurely, likely due to liver and kidney failure from all the medications you used.

Why isn’t there a good frozen beef heart and seafood formula available commercially?

There are likely a number of reasons;

1)      It costs too much to manufacture, primarily because of labour costs of cleaning the hearts of fat and sinew which is necessary to ensure fish don’t ingest a piece of cartilage or fat and block the intestine.

2)       The ingredient cost, vitamins including spirulina and fresh foods such as salmon are expensive.

3)       Retail markups that can be as high as 300% puts the products price out of reach of most hobbyists.

4)       Since the product contains beef, some countries will not allow beef to be imported for fear of disease such as mad cow disease.

Whatever the reason, hobbyists need to learn how to make their own discus food.   A good understanding of nutrition as well as supplying the nutritional needs of your discus will go a long way to your breeding success. (See our page on nutrition for further information on nutritional needs and how to make a good food formula)

Water;

Water hardness – the water shouldn’t be too hard for breeding.  This is to ensure fertilization of the eggs is maximized.  It is a myth that you need really soft water ; most strains including some wild pairs can be bred in basically tap water 220 to 350 microsemens.  I am presently breeding most of my discus (including a wild pair of Solomon’s) in Lake Ontario, City of Whitby tap water. The water is approximately 320 microsemens which I call medium soft.  I alter my pH to approximately 6.4 utilizing phosphoric acid and let the water stand for 24 hours, in my 300 gallon water reservoir, so the natural water buffers have a chance to stabilize the pH. The slightly harder water helps provide the necessary minerals for proper and consistent growth. 

The only advantages of really soft water would be to trigger a pair to spawn and it can help the fertilization process.  However , for you the hobbyist,  the small increase in fertile eggs is not worth the trouble.  Very soft (50 to 150 microsemens) water, because of its lack of buffering capacity, makes it difficult to maintain a constant pH and the lack of minerals in the water can impact the growth and development of your fry.  

I have a Wattley Turquoise pair presently producing and carrying over 250 fry in my tap water. My wild Solomon pair has presently 150 fry on the back so enough said on soft vs. medium soft, it can be done.

Tanks for the breeding pairs;

I use custom 30 gallon tanks that are 18“wide 24” deep and 16” high. I keep my breeder tanks elevated in racks of 5 approximately 5 feet off the ground. I have my two racks of 5 facing each other so the discus pairs can see each other with a 5 foot aisle in between. Discus,  being social animals, are more relaxed when they can see other discus in the room. I place the tanks so you are viewing through the end allowing the pair a full 24 inches of depth. I wrap the tanks in white construction paper, back, bottom and the back half on the sides. Why white? This will help provide a good contrast to the parents and help the fry find the parents during the initial stages of free swimming. Leaving the front half of the sides without construction paper allows the pairs to see each other at the front of the tank which helps to develop and maintain the natural parenting instincts defending their turf against the neighbors. The back half of the tank, since it is covered in white construction paper, provides a pocket or secure area where the breeding cone resides. I keep the filter at the front for easier maintenance and to keep water circulation at a minimum near the breeding cone.

My fry and grow out tanks;

Note:  Crowding fry will result in poor quality discus with such defects as short gill plates and the body being oval or football shaped and stunted, where the eyes are larger proportionate to the body.

My fry and grow out tanks are various sizes; as the fry grow they need to graduate to larger tanks fairly quickly.

We use the long 20 gal tanks initially, for about a week or so to ensure they are eating and searching out food properly now that they are away from their parents. 

We then move the fry to a 30 gallon tank for another week or two; at this point they should be starting on a very fine scraping (almost a frost) of our frozen beef heart seafood mix.

Finally, at about 4 weeks of age the fry are large enough to graduate to a 65 gallon tank.  As the fry grow you continue to split the babies up into other 65 gallon tanks.  A bank of 4 or 5, 65 gallon tanks will do nicely to grow out the fry, and we are talking one spawn with an average number of fry, approximately 125 to 150.

So, as you can see, many tanks are needed for proper growth and to maintain good quality, especially if you want to do several spawns at a time. Keep in mind, the more tanks you have the more you have to clean and water change and if you are a “one man band” so to speak, you will have very long days.

Managing water quality for very small fry is far more important than water quality for the adult.  Water changes of 50 to 60% should be done twice a day morning and night to maintain low nitrate and bacteria levels.  The water should be the exact temperature and pH; you do not want to shock small fry. 

Uneaten brine shrimp that is left in a tank can present a major health hazard to your babies and quickly turn the water bad.  So there is a delicate balance of feeding the right amount and over feeding something you will get accustomed to by watching the fry and their tiny orange bellies. They must be kept full at this stage without overfeeding.   

All our tanks are individual glass bottom using sponge filters for filtration.  In the past we have used; large central filter systems, ozone, nitrate resin beds and wet dry filters. However, this time in this hatchery, we have elected to keep it simple and limit the number of tanks and the amount of fry we want to produce at any one time.  It is better to stay small and focus on quality than to produce fry that are of poor quality that have little or no market value. 

Generally speaking Discus keepers today are more knowledgeable about quality and look for the home bred discus as they are usually healthier. We also work with the "new discus keeper" providing guidance and support every step of the way, much the way the little “Ma and Pop” fish stores operated “back in the day” when I started out, many years ago.

Selecting your discus

It is important to select, especially when starting out, some of the strains that will be easier for you to breed.

Success in breeding discus takes practice the more spawns you experience the better you get, which can also be said of the breeding pair. Also, it is much easier to breed some of the standard strains like red turquoise then say the Albino Leopard or even the Albino.  Talk to your local breeder and select fish that have been themselves raised on the back of their parents. This will ensure that the parenting instincts are strong and that it has not been erased over generations of “artificial raising.”  The fish you select should never have been exposed to the virus as their fry will eventually get the virus from the parents and die, unless continuously submerged in antibiotics. This will also be a problem when you go to sell your fish as the virus will be passed along.

Your future breeding pair should be pathogen free and never have been exposed to hormones.  In nearly all cases exposure to hormones will sterilize the males or give your males a very low sperm production. 

The use of hormones goes back many years. I am told by the guppy breeders that they use to, “back in the day”, hormone their female guppies to see early colour so they could keep the best and sell the rest.  
In the same way, to hormone Discus you bring out the early colour which actually accelerates the reproductive maturity of the fish, giving you it’s early mating colour and making the fish more sellable to the unknowing hobbyist.  It is also said that certain breeders or discus farms hormone their fish so the competition can’t breed that particular strain or at least making it very difficult, ensuring that they the original breeder have future sales. This happens with other species of fish as well; unfortunately it is a fairly common practice.

So in other words, stay away from young 2.5 inch fish that are lit up with colour, as this is not natural and will cause you a lot of frustration trying to breed them. The use of hormones, it is said and generally known, shortens the life of discus due to damage to the internal organs during treatment.

The best way to get a good quality breeding pair of discus is to select 6 to 8 young 2 to 3 inch Discus from a local breeder that you know and trust.  From One brood, select a few large ones, as these are usually males, and a few of the medium to smaller ones, as they are usually females. Always look for a round body and high fin.  The eye size should be proportionate to the size of the fish.  A stunted fish will have larger eyes because the eyes continue to grow even if there isn’t enough nutrition for the body to keep up. 
Also if the body is oval or football shaped it can indicate; a lack of nutrition, overcrowding or it could possibly be genetic. Have a look at the parents and talk to the breeder.  If all his fish are football shaped than the breeder’s methods may be the problem. 

Now that you have selected your babies, place them in a bare 65 gallon tank with just a couple of sponge filters and maintain a constant temperature of 30 C or 86 F.  Feed the babies a minimum 3 feedings of your beef heart seafood mix with an optional tetra bits or flake food as the fourth. I like the frozen “Hakari spirulina adult brine” as a 4th feeding.  If you miss the 4th feeding from time to time don’t worry, as it is the three beef heart seafood mix formula that gives you all the growth.  Careful not to over feed; the bellies should be swollen but not to the point where there could be damage to internal organs. Discus can overeat and die, so it is good to keep a close eye on their bellies, you will soon figure out the correct proportion to feed. Remove any uneaten food after 30 minutes, which should be nothing unless you are over feeding.  

For better growth, spread the feedings out as far as you can. We feed 7:30 am 1:30pm and 7:30pm with an optional light feeding at 12 midnight (if I can stay awakeJ)

Maintain your water quality through frequent water changes. I suggest daily water changes, at least initially, and monitor your nitrates, they should be between 5 and 10 ppm not to exceed 20ppm  for optimum growth and development. Monitoring your nitrates will tell you how much water you need to change and how often. 
It's a delicate balance; feeding a high protein diet creates more nitrates which in turn require more water change.  After a while you will get the hang of it. Remember this knowledge will apply down the road when you have fry from your future breeding pair.

As the discus start to mature at around 9 months; the females will start to show interest in the males trying to attract them to a spawning site possibly a heater, a filter,  or even a corner of the tank where she plans to spawn on the glass.  The males are a little reluctant not really knowing what’s going on. Females may be seen fighting with other females for a male’s attention.

Now, it has been suggested to separate the females and males to stop the females from spawning as the females will stop growing once they are in spawning mode. It is more likely, the nutritional needs of producing Rowe (eggs) consumes all the nutrition which was channeled to the fish’s growth.  Whatever the case, it will not hurt to delay things a little, so I suggest separating them for a few months.

Males tend to mature later around 12 to 14 months, while females can be ready to spawn around 9 to 10 months. The difference is nature’s way of brother and sister not mating, keeping the gene pool strong, since the female sources an older male from another brood.

I find the best pairs are usually around 2 to 3 years of age; maturity does make a difference to a pairs overall breeding success. Discus usually continues to grow until they are about 2 years of age and can live over 12 years if properly cared for.  I have bred discus that were 6 years of age and raised the young successfully but this is definitely the upper age for breeding.

Now, after about 14 to 18 months of age, we place the females and males back together and place a couple of spawning cones in the tank as well.  You will soon begin to see a lot of action. An alpha pair will soon appear, the male and female will do a little dance, nodding, wiggling and saluting each other.  Once a pair is formed the two work as a team fighting off intruders watching each other’s back.  The pair will have selected one of the spawning cones pushing all intruders (tank mates) away from their territory.  

Once I see a pair cleaning the cone preparing to spawn and chasing all intruders away as a team, I then remove the pair and the spawning cone into a breeder tank.  This move I feel is necessary so no one gets hurt, a breeding pair can be quite vicious and can easily hurt one of the tank mates. 

After the move the pair usually takes a week or two or even longer to get used to their new surroundings. Once comfortable they will spawn, so show some patience. Most spawns happen late afternoon so give them their privacy. The prelude to the spawn is heavy cleaning you may even see their spawning tubes drop down. At this point I will turn the air flow down on their sponge filter to maximize the fertilization of the eggs and leave the room.  Sticking your face into it will only distract the male and result in infertile eggs.  If the male seems distracted by the neighbors lunging at the glass in prelude to the spawn I will slide white cardboard down each side so they have more privacy.

Once the spawn has taken place I slide white cardboard down each side, if I haven’t done so already, so the fry have a better chance of finding the parents once they are free swimming on day 4.

The following day, after the eggs are laid, you should see the pair fanning their eggs taking turns, as well as guarding the front of the tank.  At this point I siphon the feces etc. lowering the water level gradually over the next couple of days.  Lowering the water level helps the fry find and attach to the parents. I have had a lot of success with the fry attaching to the parents by placing white cardboard on the front of the tank as well and I use a 2 watt blue LED light over the eggs and fry and leave it on continuously. 

After a couple of days when I know the fry are on the backs of their parents I remove the cardboard and on day 4 or 5 I will start feeding a small amount of newly hatched brine shrimp by squirting it over the parents. I also will siphon the tank and slowly replace the water that is siphoned out.  After a week or so the water level is raised to normal heights and daily water changes are done adding the water back slowly as to not disrupt the fry and water chemistry. The water change water should be near the same temperature or slightly warmer and of course the same pH.  I also remove the spawning cone especially if I see fry trying to feed from it in the early stages of attachment.    

As for cleaning the tank through this whole process, it really depends on the strain or colour variation you are working with.  I have some pairs that could care less whether I change the water; these are usually very good parents like my Wattley and my wild Solomon’s. However the Albinos and Albino Leopards or even the blue diamond, I find a water change can send the female to want to lay eggs again and go to what they call a short cycle of 5 days instead of 10 eating the fry first.  So it’s important to realize and observe what’s triggering the parents when they abort their eggs or fry and sometimes it can be triggered by a water change.

I have a theory;

That parenting skills are lost on some of the strains and colour variations over generations of “artificial raising fry”.  It is done on a very large scale on discus farms overseas. Why? It’s the most productive way to produce fry. The pairs produce eggs every 10 days so you have the potential of a 200 to 300% increase in fry production.  We have talked to a number of breeders that agree to this point after experiencing the same issues with fish from certain farms.

We did, years ago, raised the majority of our discus artificially for the same reason, we could produce thousands very quickly. However, now we encourage “parent raising” even on the more difficult strains and colour variations, it’s more of challenge but we find it more interesting and as stated earlier we are not as interested in quantiy in our present smaller operation. 

At this point I leave the fry with the parents.  I am sensitive to the parents losing their fry that they have worked so hard to raise. I feel just yanking the fry out of the tank when they the parents are not ready can cause bonding issues and may even cause fighting among the parents and they may even stop breeding.  I had one pair stop eating once when I took their babies too soon.

When I see the pair are starting to get uncomfortable with the fry and the fry are all over the tank usually around the 10 to 14 day; I remove the fry thoroughly cleaning the tank with a very large 50 to 60% water change, clean the cone and you now are ready for them to spawn again.

A sure sign they need to be removed is the female is seen staring at the cone wanting to spawn again. Some of my really large spawns I remove part of the fry at about the 7th or 8th day to a 20 gal tank making sure the water and temperature is the same and I continue feeding newly hatched brine shrimp every 4 to 5 hours. Overnight I stretch to 6 to 7 hours leaving the lights on.  I usually let the pairs spawn for 2 or 3 times than I place the pair back into a community discus situation or a larger tank to try and shut them down and rest them.   I believe, and I have read, the continuous breeding of the pair will eventually weaken and shorten their life. 

Note: Another point to think about; is there a market, in your local area, for the fry if you were to continue  breeding the pair?  Also, how many grow out tanks will you need so you don’t crowd the fry making them worthless to sell. Depending on your market continuous breeding the same colour variation will leave you with a lot of mouths to feed, a lot of work with water changes and nowhere to sell them. You have to think it through.

Now once we have the fry in the 20 gallon tank they usually hide out in the corner. Lighting is important at this point the light should be left on continuously, but it should not be too intense that the fry are blinded by it. We feed every 4 to 5 hours newly hatched brine shrimp for about two weeks depending on the size of the spawn, you may need to move them to a larger tank say a 30 gallon.  Another trick is to place them in a large tank like a 55 gal long but only fill it half way initially and as the fry become larger add more water gradually raising the water level. 

At this point you need to siphon off any uneaten brine shrimp from over feeding (eventually you get to know how much to feed so cleanup is not necessary after feeding).

After they are nearly 3 weeks of age we start to introduce, along with the brine shrimp, a very fine almost a frost off the frozen block of our food mix. Initially, they peck away at it one at a time and soon start to devour it. After the 4th week they have graduated to the beef heart seafood mix with the occasional brine shrimp feeding.

Careful not to overfeed, monitor their bellies they should be full and swollen but not bursting. Daily water changes are continued and filters cleaned often, using the aquarium water, the sponge filters are squeezed  a few times then placed back in the tank. We find we have to do this every few days with the larger spawns.

It is at this age we start to look at the product and see what fish are not meeting the standards and the first cull should take place. I look for any deformities fins missing and extreme miss shapes and of course the belly sliders those that are not swimming properly as their swim bladder did not develop properly.  Don’t get to concerned about shape at this point as they still have some growing to do.  Place the selected into a plastic bag with a cup or 2 of the aquarium water and tie off with an elastic trapping air, we use oxygen, and place in the freezer. The fish are cold blooded and basically their metabolism slows as the temperature drops and they go peacefully.  
I realize this is a difficult procedure for a lot of hobbyists but it is better to euthanize early than later and be stuck with fish that nobody wants and you don’t have the tank space to keep.

Note: Dumping fish to the stores that should be culled is very inhumane as they will just sit in the stores, nobody will buy them because of their deformities and they will slowly waste away.  

I cull again at around 6 to 8 weeks this time I am looking for shape and the parrot beak anything that would in my opinion prevent a sale. Discus are usually ready to sell around 10 to 12 weeks of age and at this point they should be 2.5 inches in size.

 One final note;

We don't sell to stores and wholesalers that do not respect the discus by not providing the necessary support for the hobbyist and the animal; resulting in not allowing our discus a chance to survive.

It is no secret that the vast majority of discus don’t make it to adult hood because of the lack of knowledge and respect.  We feel the future is selling directly to the hobbyist and the breeder providing the support required for the success and long term survival of the animal.  We feel that this noble and intelligent animal deserves better than what the chain stores can provide. We hope you agree.

So this concludes this article, if you have any further questions or require clarification to this article please email me at archer@rogers.com and I will be glad to help. I will be following up shortly with another article updating artificial raising utilizing the improvements we have made utilizing our new artificial hatchery which eliminates the bowl method and makes it much easier to raise fry artificially if you so desire.  We also talk about utilizing surrogate parenting what works and what doesn’t. Talk to you soon.

Regards

v