breeding treatment

[bridlington]

Is there a thread on how to treat your discus before putting the pair into there breeding tank.
thanks John

[apistodiscus]

why would you want to treat them? Just make sure the filter in the breeding tank is cycled. pH anywhere from5-6.5, conductivity around 120 microSiemens and that's pretty much it.
Or were you talking about conditioning food? White worms are great to get them into the mood

[the german]

white worms are good bat there make discus fat,way better are black mozzi larve,heaps of good hormons.

you can give them a salt bath before i read somwhere,i think it was in schmidt-fockes book but i never tried that.

michael

[apistodiscus]

No need for a salt bath. The fish aren't sick. Mosquito larvae can carry diseases if caught in a pond or lake that also has fish in it. White worm fed thrice weekly will do no harm and you have the added advantage that you can add vitamins, astaxanthin, etc. to the worm's food and they in term will pass that on to your fiosh once they get eaten.

[the german]

:D :D frozen my friend.

so your discus are from a parasite free strain?????

i know that this strains are very popular in germany.


michael

[apistodiscus]

Even frozen larvae can transit disease since most bacteria will survive being frozen. You will only kill flukes and worms (and not even all off them since their eggs can survive) by freezing food.

The strains yoiu are referring to are unnaturally 'clean' for the lack of a better word. And I don't agree with the way they are made parasite free (but that is an entirely other subject) All fish carry some pathogens and can live with them once they are only occuring in managable numbers. But I still wouldn't feed them with stuff that potentially could carry disease. Mine one don't get any bloodworm either

[the german]

i agree in all what you say,i just said what some of the pionners in discus breeding do.

[apistodiscus]

Schmidt-Focke is dead for some time now and a lot of what he wrote is somewhat dated at this stage. You will aslo have to remember that he dealt mostly with wild fish. They tend to carry some parasites and in Schmidt-Fockes time a lot of medications we have today weren't available.

I'm not rying to put Schmidt-Focke down but time has moved on. Most of the fish we buy today are bred in Sout East Asia, Germany or Eastern Europe. Schmidt-Focke did great work to stabilize the red turquoise strain of fish and the fish he bred should still be regarded as the standard all breeders should strive for.