Discus Care for Breeding Fish is Quite Simple
It is very common that after you successfully raise discus fish for some
time, you decide to extend your discus care to breeding these beautiful
fish. Or perhaps, with the discus care that you provided you had some
unexpected success with breeding your fish already. There are a few things
that you should know about discus breeding however.
When discus fish were discovered in the 1940’s, fish enthusiasts began
breeding discus in order to create more fish for commercial purposes.
However, despite their best efforts, they could not provide the proper
discus care to have much success with reproduction. There was no success
until the late 1950’s because it was thought that discus, like other
cichlids needed to be separated from their parents.
It is now known that when you are providing discus care in order to
reproduce the fish, the parent fish must be kept with the young fry. This is
because the parent fish produces mucus that becomes the fry’s only food
source after hatching.
When discus fish are ready to breed, they will pair off from other fish and
may even become aggressive. The female will then lay the eggs with the male
following closely to fertilize them. Both parents will guard the eggs until
they hatch which is usually in two and a half to three days. Discus care
should remain the same during this time.
Once the eggs hatch the discus care for their young by sucking the larvae
out of the wrapping and placing them elsewhere. After about three days, the
larvae will start swimming around. During this time, the larvae’s only food
source is from the parent fish which has produced mucus on its scales. The
fry feed off of this mucus almost exclusively until they are approximately
three or four weeks old. After this time, they should be separated from the
parent fish.
Breeding discus is quite simple if you know how to provide the proper discus
care. Because it is impossible to accurately sex discus fish, if you are
interested in breeding discus than the easiest way is to put many in a tank
and wait until they pair off.
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