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The first thing to understand is that you are not in full control. If Discus doesn’t want to mate, there’s nothing you can do about it. The only thing you can do is provide the right conditions to make them more likely to mate.
If you have a sexed partner and they are the only discus in the tank, there is a 70% chance that they will eventually mate if left together for a long period of time.
To rush our young potential lovers, we provide the conditions for suspicious love. We put seven mature discus in a 125 gallon tank and let them acclimate for two weeks. We then started to make some sudden changes in tank conditions to stimulate courtship. Some of the changes we made are:
• Change the water temperature to 78 degrees for a few days and then turn it up to 88 degrees for about 12 hours and then leave it at 88 degrees for the rest of a week.
• Let the tank get a little dirty, skip daily water changes for a few days, then do an 80% water change.
• Feed them heavily for a few days and then stop feeding for two days, followed by feeding live foods for three days.
• Do two 60% water changes four hours apart, where the pH goes from 6.5 to 7.0 in the first change and then from 7.0 to 7.5 in the second change.
• Leave the tank in the dark for two full days, then turn on the lights for two full days.
If we’ve tried all of the above and after two months they still haven’t paired, we swap out four of those drives and start the process again with four new drives along with the remaining three.
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The spawning process is the pinnacle of Discus maintenance. This has always been my favorite part of discus farming and still, 30 years after my first spawn, I find it fascinating.
The first sign that your discus is getting ready to spawn will be its obsession with cleaning a rock, a filter tube, or the side of the aquarium. Once you see them both doing this, spawning will usually follow within a day or two. You will also see them start to do the mating dance. They will swim toward each other at a slightly upward angle. Once they are next to each other, they will glow and then swim away from each other at a slightly lower angle. The most spectacular aspect of spawning will be the colors of your discus. Whatever its color, it will become MUCH more intense and vibrant during spawning. This will be the most beautiful album you will see in your life. They will also become aggressive towards other fish, including discus, at this time. They will aggressively defend the hatchery from all intruders, including you.
At some point after your Discus starts doing all of the above, it will actually lay eggs. It will start with the female rubbing her belly and her brood tube against the surface they have cleaned. She will always lie down in an upward motion. The total length of the spawning run will be between ½ and three inches. She will lay between 1 and 12 eggs per spawning cycle. Her male discus will usually follow directly behind her with the same basic motion spraying the eggs. Usually she can’t see the actual cloud. The entire process can take between one and five hours.
This is when the fun ends and the frustration can begin. The first two problems you will face are ingestion of the eggs, especially by the male, and infertility.
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We will now go over what to expect after the eggs have been laid. This is where the frustration begins. The first two problems you will face are ingestion of the eggs, especially by the male, and infertility. First we will review how eggs are eaten. We will review fertility in the next part of the series.
The number one problem, and the one to overcome, with disc playback is the parents eating the eggs. While both parents will eat the eggs, the male does so more often. This is often done when they are spawning and there is very little you can do if this happens during spawning. The female will do her egg-laying run and then the male, instead of following her with a fertilization run, will follow her and eat the row of eggs. This behavior is more common in new couples. Most of the new discus pairs will eat their eggs. Fortunately, they will often stop this behavior as they become a more mature breeding pair. If you’re lucky and they don’t eat the eggs when they spawn, there’s a good chance they’ll eat them before they hatch. Fortunately, if you get this far, there is something you can do. At this point you can either remove the eggs and artificially rear them or you can take a mesh screen (house soffit screen works great) and place it directly over the eggs. This will allow the puck to still blow over the eggs and bond with them, but will prevent them from being eaten. Obviously you will need to have planned the spawn and you will need to have created the screen before the actual spawning. If the eggs are not eaten and are fertile, they should hatch in three days and be free-swimming in about six days.