In a note a couple months ago from Stan Pearson, V.P. of Swansea Aquarium Club, he reported that Doug Campbell, a member of that club, was spawning discus very successfully, with an average spawn of 145 to 180.   So I asked Stan if he would get some pictures of the discus and interview, Doug regarding this "first" in Canada.

Just before going to press with this issue, I received these photos, the interview with Doug and the following note from Stan, which will give you, the reader, an example of the risks it sometimes takes to bring you the latest news, and first rate editorial material:

"Dear Earl: Here are the pictures of the discus, along with my interview.   It was difficult to get good shots of the discus because Doug has a refrigerator liner cut in half with a glass in the front.   The liner is 20" X 20" X 20" --- shown in the picture where I'm interviewing Doug.   We had a big lamp on top of two pieces of slate on top of the glass, and the glass broke from the heat, and a piece of glass about 15" X 15" fell into the tank and the female discus was under it --- flat on the gravel.   Doug reached in and slowly took out the glass, while I quickly turned off the lamp.   We left them alone for about 15 minutes before continuing taking pictures.   This must be an outstanding pair --- I went back to Doug's the next day and there must have been 200 young feeding off the sides of the parents, but I had no film left! I'm going to take an 8-mm film --- a few feet each day --- of the next spawn until they are free swimming. Stan."  

Doug's Information

Sunday, September 2, 1962 I went to the home of a hobbyist in our area to look at a pair of discus (S. axelrodi), which, according to the owner had been spawning every 6 days for almost a year. I had seen a spawn of eggs previously so there was no reason to doubt the owner's claims.   As the discus were in excellent condition, I bought the fish and an hour later they were set up in a 29-gallon tank in my basement.

Three days later the discus spawned for the first time in my home.  I immediately removed the adults to another aquarium.  I removed some of the eggs and put them in small jars with different types of water, and added 10 drops of methylene blue to the aquarium.   On the following day all of the eggs had fungused without showing any signs of development.   Only a few eggs in a jar of very acidic water looked like they were developing, but on the following day these also fungused.

Six days later the discus spawned again...and this time I witnessed the complete procedure.  I could see that the male did his duty only under protest.   It was obvious to me that the 6 day spawning period of the female was too short --- most cichlids average 10 to 18 days between spawns.   Without waiting to see the result of the spawn, I separated the discus with a plastic screen.   Six days later the female spawned by herself and 24 hours later she ate the spawn.   On her next spawning date, which would have been Sunday, Sept. 23, the female showed her prettiest colours and tried to woo the male on the other side of the plastic screen, however, she did not attempt to spawn.   I was sure this was important --- I had succeeded in breaking her 6-day spawning routine!

I kept this discus separated for another 3 weeks, during which I had collected 150 gallons of rain water, which was only 2 DH and slightly acid 6.8.   Sunday Oct. 14, I took 3/4's of the water out of the discus tank and replaced it with the rain water, which had been filtered with bone charcoal and was crystal clear.   I added 10 drops of phosphoric acid to the aquarium, put in a box filter full of peat moss inside, cleaned the outside filter and replaced the charcoal.  I then removed the partition which separated the pair.  Three hours later I went downstairs to turn out the lights and found that the discus had already spawned.  I was sure the eggs were fertile.  I checked the water and found the pH was approximately 5.6 and the DH of 2.

Of the 49 eggs laid only 6 fungased, and the remaining 43 hatched on Wednesday morning (hatching period of 60 hours at 84 F).  The young ones were moved to another piece of slate in the tank and the fungased eggs were eaten.   The parents showed magnificent colours and were very friendly.  They moved the young 3 times on the first day and twice on the second day.  On the third day the young were moving around all by themselves and the parents had to continually pick young from the gravel and after a slight chewing motion would spit the young back on the slate.   In the evening, the fry were already making trips to the parents' sides for the slime-food secreted by the parents....but always returned after a few minutes.

Ten minutes after turning on the lights the next morning all the babies were swimming and soon started eating off the parents' bodies.   The parents were chocolate brown, almost black in colour, with light-yellow heads.   Each parent "fed" the young for a period of 5 minutes then signaled to the other parent to take over, if the other parent was to slow in coming, the parent with the babies would swim slowly towards the other taking the babies with it, and when close enough would swim away at high speed, leaving the babies in mid water.   From the third day until the 7th or 8th day the parents showed brilliant colours only in the morning; and towards the end of the day would become quite short-tempered with each other.  It was obvious that feeding the young was quite hard on the parents.  From the 5th day on, the diet of the young was supplemented with micro worms and baby brine shrimp...and on the 8th day the parents would chew their beef-heart and spit out a cloud of dust-fine particles which the youngsters ate.   From the 9th day on, the youngsters were always looking for food and would even chase large daphnia and tear them to pieces. The young did not eat much from the parents' bodies now and the parents returned to their beautiful colours again.  

I removed the young after 10 days; and after 3 weeks on a diet of daphnia, baby brine shrimp and beef-heart they were the size of a quarter.

Regarding the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th spawns:

When I removed the young, half of the water in the breeding tank was taken with them.   Every day, I siphoned off 5 gallons of water from the parents tank and replaced it with rain water.   Four days later the discus would spawn again.   This time the pH was 6 and the DH was 6.   Out of approximately 150 eggs per spawn, about 3 per spawn would fungas.   The water temperature was 86 F, slightly higher than on the initial spawn, which resulted in the eggs hatching in 45 hours instead of 60.

I have sold 670 young discus to dealers from the first 4 spawns, and I would like to add that the 4th spawn was kept with the parents for one month instead of 10 days, and at the end of the month they were already twice the size of the 3rd spawn.   So, in the future, all spawns will be kept with the parents for this extra length of time. I have kept six young from each spawn in reserve as future breeders.