Hatching Discus Fry

After about 60 hours (dependent on water temperature), the eggs hatch. The young will be placed, by the parents, on a different place of the breeding medium, until they can swim on their own. After 48 – 60 hours, the first young will already swim free. At this moment, a large deposit of skin excretion is formed on the parents. Quickly after the first strokes the young fish will swim in the direction of the parents, to feed on the skin excretion. This excretion is the only means of food the young fish will eat in the next few days.

Spawn

Pigeon Blood discus fry sometimes have difficulty attaching to their parents. This can be caused by a of couple things. Pigeon Bloods have reduced slime production and they cannot darken. If you are having trouble getting your Pigeon Blood fry to attach, you can try the following techniques:

• Line the tank with white paper
• Shut down or greatly reduce filtration to minimize disturbances in the water
• Drop the water level to the actual height of the fish
• Leave the light on

While the discus fry are freeing from their parents in the first few days, there is very little you need to do. As long as you keep the parents well-fed and you perform frequent water changes to keep the water healthy, your job is done.

At four or five days, you can start feeding the fry newly hatched brine shrimp. To feed them the shrimp, you will need to squirt the baby shrimp underwater toward the fry. Instinctively the baby fish will turn away from their parents to eat. This will give the parents a 15 – 30 minute rest from the babies. You want to start with very small amounts of shrimp; otherwise, your water will become contaminated. The babies will still eat from the side of their parents for at least another two or three weeks, but this shrimp is a supplement and will start them on other foods.

While discus fish know how to care for their fry, parents will sometimes fight. This fighting can cause damage to the fry. If you find that the parents are fighting, it is OK to remove one of the parents from the tank because the fry will get what they need from just the remaining parent. You can also put an egg crate divider in the tank. This will separate the adults and the fry can move through it if they want to feed off of both parents.

Discus fish need to learn how to breed and take care of their fry. A lot of times, discus will eat the first eggs they produce. Also, if the eggs are not fertilized properly, they will get moldy.

Blue Panda Discus with Fry

Learning how to create and care for their fry is a self-taught process parent discus must go through. However, just be patience and give your discus time and they will figure it out.

QUESTIONS

• How can you make your tank a suitable environment for discus eggs to hatch?
• How can you keep your discus’ eggs in a healthy environment?
• How can you help your discus’ fry to thrive?