Fry not feeding off parents

Hi,
I have a pair of Discus that are spawning every 7-9 days. Until recently I was not sure if I had a male or not because all of the eggs would go white and finally get eaten. I assumed that they were not being fertilised.

The last two spawns however have produced results. Both parents have been very protective of the eggs which had tails poking out after about 60hrs. Three to four days after hatching they became free swimming. The first batch of fry just spread out in all directions and seemed to make no effort to get together or find their parents. The parents themselves only seemed to make a token effort to get them together grabbing the odd one or two, mouthing them, spitting them out, mouthing and spitting back out a few times. I switched the aerator and filter off to stop any current hoping that the still water would help, and went away for a couple of hours. When I returned they were all gone.

The second batch started free swimming either at night or early in the morning. I had turned the aerator and filter off and left a night light on before going to bed, anticipating them breaking free and hopeing to give them a fighting chance. When I rose this morning there was only two left. One was obviously on its last legs and the other swimming around madly. The parents only showed interest in the swimmer when it swam past their faces at which time they would grab it and spit it back out repeatedly. The wriggler made numerous attempts to feed off either parent but when it approached it was hit with a fin,tail or simply shrugged off. It slowly ran out of energy and died.

Niether of my parent fish appear to have any slimy stuff on them and do not seem to know what to do with their young once they become free. Subsequently I don't know what to do.

I was wondering if anybody else had experienced this problem or has any knowledge of why these fish cannot/will not feed their young? Any ideas would be gratefully appreciated.

Try lowering the water level once the wrigglers are free swimming, also have you been giving mum and dad a higher protein diet?

pictures ?

I have photo's of the individual fish but not the spawn.

Diet. No, I have not altered their diet which consists primaraily of frozen blood worms. I have tried them on a dry food, 'Sera' Discus Granules and a frozen 'Cichlid' dinner which contains frozen brine shrinp and beef heart, but they will not eat either. They were readily eating beef heart by itself but my wife accidentally disposed of it and I have not been able to locate a source in Darwin since.

Just tried to attach the pictures but the files are to large. I will post them as soon as I can work out how to reduce to 128KB.

pics of breeding tank and fish would help

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Three little fish

my wife accidentally disposed of it

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ha ha they have a habit of "accidentally" disposing of things. In my case all the hard to get antibiotics :x

ok what is your PH i am guessing you dont have a UV the if you have the PH above 6 the bacterial load will be to high and the fish will often just eat the young try droping the PH to 5.5 you wont hurt them we breed ours as low as 4 for some finiky ones. i know ths will be my be critisised by some but just try it you might be supprised

Ok here are some pics.

Samir

I originally set up the tank as a show tank (hence the plants etc)with 4 beautiful fish and did not realise that the pair of snake skins would be such prolific breeders. The tank as seen is only half of the original after dividing to separate the two pairs. I realise that the ideal breeding tank is a bare one and I would probably make life easier for myself by making it so, but it appeared to me that the wrigglers and parents were able to find each other in this environment but that the problem was the parents not wanting/able to feed them. Please correct me if I have made a wrong assumption.

Discus World

My PH at the moment is 7.0, Carbonate Hardness 2dKH or 35.8ppmKH and General Hardness 6dGH or 107.4ppmGH.
I do not have a UV and please excuse my ignorance because I don't even know what that is :oops: I will try lowering the PH as you suggest. Is it best to use peat or is there a better method?

not ideal for a breeding tank, lowering the ph will help with the slime. let them have a few goes, hopefully they will get it right eventually, otherwise you may need to move them to a smaller bare bottom tank.

Ok, they have another batch of eggs already. I will try lowering the PH and see how they go this time. Thanks for your advice.

Can you tell me the safest/best way of achieving the correct PH ?

Pull the plants ect out.
Put half a hand full of salt in the tank.
Waters geat don't bother playing with it.

brad

Thanks Crocky, I appreciate any advice I can get but also need to understand. Can you explain the benefit of the salt?

Cant put my finger on it .
If I have a spawn that dosen't attach i put some salt in the tank. next time I dont have any problems.Works in my water.

Well I have bitten the bullet and set up a bare tank. On second spawn in new tank I have at last had some success and have a cloud of wrigglers swarming around parents HOORAY ! Thank you everyone for your help.

Now for the next stage-turning wrigglers into small fish.

At this stage my babies have only been free swimming for approx 12 hrs or so but it appears that they are getting some nutrition from their parents. I guess the next 24 hrs or so will confirm or prove otherwise. I have read in this forum that I should wait till 5th day of free swimming before feeding brine shrimp.
My question is....is it best to leave the fry with their parents when feeding or is it best to set up their own tank?

Congratulations on your successful spawn :P

Leave the fry in with mum and dad for at least two or three weeks, or even longer if the parents are still happy and looking after the fry well.

Thank you Merrilyn. I wll heed your advice.

I think I have suffered some losses overnight but after 24hrs of free swim there is still a core of healthy looking fry.

well done tlf.im having similar problems but mine are due to a community tank.what size tank did you put your pair in.
cheers boydie

I have read posts by Samir and others recommending 2ft x 2ft as ideal but a 3ft x 1.5ft tank was available to me at the time so I went with that.

I made up an internal barrier to divide the tank in half and put it in just prior to free swimming to make the area smaller. Lowering the water level helped as well I think.

On this occasion I also noticed that the parents were a lot more proactive and seemed to position themselves to allow or encourage better access by the fry.

Perhaps they learn and become a little better with each spawn.