Lemondiscus 30 Gallon Tank - Discus Breeder

The parents darken but the problem is my make cannot darken due to the strain he is... So in the wild the male would not existed as he is a man made strain

 

Well... BAD parents... they ate the wigglers today... I came home from VA Beach and there was nothing left.... we will see what they do next spawn.... at least she is laying eggs now

 

Like I told you... Sometimes it takes a few tries for them to get it right... My Angels took about 4 spawns to be great parents...

 

Same here... I think it will be 2 or 3 more before the discus get it right...

 

Its alright... I kind of expected it... hopefully next time and that should not be too long now

 

Added some play sand to the mix... my substrate is 2" in the front now and 4" in the back...

I still like the sand... I now have a mix of 33% Play Sand... 33% Pool Filter Sand and 33% Pea Gravel

 

No... they are not new... they get moved around because well... I dont like them anymore. I have REALLY gotten into wild discus and they look so unnatural IMO. Yes they pop but I want a natural look to this tank and they dont really fit.

They lived in my 55 for a while but I moved all the discus back to the same tank because I was having issues with pecking order with just the ones I do like because there were only 6 in a 125 gallon tank... So I brought the reds back down to the 125 to bring the colony up in size...

Maybe one day I will have a tank of 15-30 wilds/captive bred wilds (I want to captive breed some wilds)

I am getting 2-4 more wilds in another few weeks (probably 2) but it is a 2 hour drive and will cost me $100 for 2 of them... MUCH cheaper than the $69-$89 they charge for 1! You can tell they just want to move the fish....

 

The red ones are annoying and unnatural looking

My opinion though... I have turned into a Wild Discus freak over the years of keeping them... I used to like the red ones but they kind of grew old to me... my taste in Discus is more "refined" now over the years... I now can see the difference in a low quality discus and a high quality one!

When you first keep discus you dont really see what is good and what is bad... you dont even realize the things you do yourself to destroy the health of a growing discus (yes this is IME the BIGGEST mistake that Discus keepers make! They dont change the water enough, dont provide good enough foods, dont clean the substrate well enough, use too small of a tank, dont add enough discus and bite off more than they can chew by attempting a planted discus tank - a whole nother topic in and of itself, maybe I will do a writeup on it one day )

It takes a while to see what a GOOD discus looks like compared to a BAD one... colorations are different, eye size, body shape, fin condition and shape, belly size, personality, personal preference and SO much more....

Personally I would rather work with wilds than domesticated versions... Wilds are MUCH harder to keep but exhibit behavior you DONT see in domesticated varieties such as eating plant matter... They also behave in a different manner than the domestics... I really cant describe it but when you see a domestic and a wild in the same tank, even as bland as the wilds look, there is something that will draw your attention to the wilds EVEN WITH a bright red discus next to it screaming for attention!

 

6 MINIMUM if you get into them... I CANNOT stress that enough to ANYONE!!!

I have a nice writeup I did here on Discus and the requirements that I have experienced... I wrote this on a combo of my reading research AND past experiences melded together

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ANY Domesticated Strain will be fine! Stay away from wilds as a first time... also I recommend to pay the $10-$30 extra and get one 4" or larger! Smaller ones will cause A LOT of problems and headaches to a new Discus keeper!

 

Yup... pretty much all discus are those 2 colors...

Wild Discus carry 3 colors... The undercolor (usually reddish-brown) The overcolor (usually blue ) and Black (stress bars)..... All discus were bred to bring out the undercolor and the overcolors resulting in fish with only 1 color (the undercolor) which are Diamonds, fish that have a brighter red undercolor and a brighter blue overcolor than wilds and also exhibit the black stress bars (cobalts and turquoises) and variations without the stress bars but an undercolor and an overcolor (could be any color and they are Pigeon Bloods).

Unlike Goldfish, Discus have only been "domesticated" for around 35 years... They dont have the hundreds of years of morphs and oddballs thrown out and selectively bred that the Goldfish have... even though they come in a variety of colors, almost all characteristics can be traced back to the wild strains!

That is why I like the wilds is after about 3 generation of selective breeding you can make almost any of the strains that have already been made with a bit of luck (some do take 6-7 generations though).... The bit of luck is actually running across that odd-ball baby here and there to create some strains such as an albino or one that was born without the black stress bars etc which according to my research does happen fairly frequently per spawn but only about 3-10 fry display the odd characteristics... then you have to grow those out and breed them hoping they are not one of the weak fish that die before adulthood....