My first discus fry batch

[Flavius]

At month and a week, my fry started to eat solid foods. Most of them have orange stripes, except one that has black spots on the fin area. One of them is double in size compared to the rest.

Some flashing can still be observed.

Also had an unfortunate accident this morning when I siphoned out one of the fry. As I ran to stop the faucet I dropped the hose, so the poor guy ended up on the floor as the water flushed back from the hose. It only took me a couple of seconds to put him back into the tank, so no harm done. After a short while of catching his breath on the bottom, he soon rushed back to peck on beef mix. By the evening he still looks fine, so I'm positive this was just life experience.

 

[Star_Rider]

keep it up!! :thm:

 

[Flavius]

So my last 5 remaining fry died at age 2.5 month right after I removed the parents. Reason unknown, they just stopped feeding. For the bulk of them that died in the first weeks, I might've lost them to something as stupid as bad aeration, as I realized later.

Then I had a couple of batches that I couldn't save with the holiday madness, so they all got eaten up at different stages. A bit of holiday treat I guess.

Now I have another batch of about 100, less than one week old. They are all attached and had no accidental fatalities this time. Latest additions were a background under the tank (neon pink was the only color I found) and a breeding cone (instead of the drift wood I had before). Very few fall off the cone, easy to spot by parents and move back to the breeding site. No sliders either this time.

Airstone is also back, just in case the spash isn't enough.

I also realized it is better to feed the parents with large artemia instead of beefheart that gets all mushy on the bottom, sometimes trapping the fry.

So I'm all set now, bottom nice and clean, everyone swimming happily. Let's see how it goes, feels much better than the first time. Both parents and breeder are much more experienced, so fingers crossed.