Discus Fish Breeding

Are you here for the e-guide? Simply click here. A guide is a very useful tool to have if you're serious about keeping and/or breeding discus fish. You can unfortunately lose a lot of money if you don't know what you're doing. It's definitely a good and cheap tool for both beginners and advanced. I think there's another discus guide floating around the net, but it costs way too much (around 70 dollars if my memory serves me right).

The Discus is a large cichlid from the Amazon River, its tributaries and flood planes, in South America. More and more people are choosing to keep Discus Aquarium Fish over other fish and care for it. By becoming more popular more money is going into the industry which assists the funding for research and the development of products and different strains of Discus Aquarium Fish.

Most of the discus fish you encounter today are captive bred colour variants. At this time the list of described colour variants is nearly endless. Some of the discus colour variants have lost their stripes and therefore their natural ability to communicate in the school. But as always these new variants are finding their way to the aquarium hobbyist quickly for exceptionally high prices and this will stimulate the breeders to try to find a new one. One of the advantages of the captive bred discus is that they are now much easier, not easy, to maintain as the imported ones. They are much more tolerant concerning water conditions.

It is getting increasingly easier to keep Discus Aquarium Fish with new technology to improve water quality and Discus Fish health which could be the cause of the rise in demand. New dealers and breeders are growing rapidly and even small aquatic shops are stocking a range of Discus.

They are beautiful but yet still remain a challenge to keep and breed with the later been very rewarding and will even pay for the hobby. Most people that keep Discus will at some stage want to breed them as it is a great experience.

The discus is a social fish and lives in large groups in their native waters, and has a very advanced social behaviour; they are one of the few real schooling cichlids. Remember to keep this in mind when starting care for discus; always purchase a group of animals. They need the social interaction to develop their character to its best potential.

There are many factors that you need to master in order to care for Discus fish:
-Size of the tank
-The substrate (the thing you add at the bottom of the tank, like gravel)
-Presence of plants
-The general decoration
-The position of the tank
-Filtration
-The water (pH, hardness, temperature, preparation)
-Water change / Tank cleaning
-etc.

This is where having a guide or knowing a professional is absolutely required. The electronic guide I personally use which is probably the most popular one is called Discus Fish Secrets. The first time I checked out their website I was telling myself "Oh great, another scam site... Just check how the page looks like". Well I eventually bought it knowing that I could get a refund anyways and I was very pleasantly surprised. I actually still use it constantly. Having a guide around is very useful if you want to keep and especially breed Discus fish. I read it fully at first, but it's the kind of thing you go back to every now and then when you need it. Discus fish breeding is not always easy so you need the good tools to minimize time and money wasted.

All these factors I listed above also greatly depend on if you want to simply keep your Discus fish or if you want to breed them. For example, when it comes to the substrate, it's recommended to use gravel for keeping and to keep it empty for breeding for better cleaning.

Now as for Discus Fish Secrets, here's part of what you can learn from it and why it's so useful:

-The best size tank to keep discus in. Get this wrong and your discus could be permanently stunted
-The quick check list of everything you must have before you even think about buying your discus
-Which filter most discus fish prefer and why
-How to get the right water your discus fish will thrive in
-The basics of water chemistry
-The advantages and disadvantages of adding plants
-How to know when the tank is ready for fish
-Quick tips on how to pick the best discus in the shop... do this wrong and you'll have problems from the start
-What size discus you should buy and the best size for beginners
-Questions you must ask the seller, this alone will help you loads
-How picking the wrong strain of discus can be a disaster
-The truth about what discus should be fed and how often
-How to keep your discus happy for a long time
-How well your discus should grow and what to do if they are not
-The early signs that you can see that tells you that their ready to breed
-Quick little tricks that will have your discus breeding Immediately
-An overview of the spawning process
-The right way to look after fry for the first few weeks
-How to grow young discus on to the best quality adults around
-How to overcome the most common problems you will encounter

If you actually took the time to read those points, you can realise how it basically tells you everything from A to Z when it comes to Discus keeping and/or breeding. It personally acts as my little Discus bible. I took one of their banners and put it to the right side just here (I'm starting to get good with html!). You can click on the banner and it will take you to their website if you want.

Discus fish breeding is an awesome and rewarding hobby. Not only can you make money out of it if you want (I personally didn't try that route yet), but it simply feels great to see and discover what the results will look like. You always feel proud too.

Here are some photos of different Discus fish that have been bred: