How to breed and raise Discus

Water quality is the most important element when it comes to the raising and breeding of Discus.



Water chemistry: Water quality is the most important element when it comes to the raising and breeding of Discus. Soft and acid is a must. PH should be 5.8 - 6.4. The softness can be measured with a hardness test kit. Unfortunately, there won't be much in the way of chemicals that you can use in order to make the water softer if it is reading too hard. (I've tried water softening pillows and chemicals with no success.) No problem, I figured out a way to create perfect Discus water without spending hundreds of dollars on a conditioning system that you have to hook up to the plumbing of your house! What is this secret water formula? Bottled distilled water that you buy by the gallon and mix with tap water! Distilled water PH is acid enough and since the water by being distilled is void of any minerals which would add hardness, it's soft as Charmin! Bottled spring water is usually of right quality also but you better test it first, just to be sure. As an added bonus, distilled and spring water doesn't have any chlorine in it! This water mixture is perfect for Discus right out of the bottle!

Mixing perfect Discus water: Mix one part spring water and one part distilled water. Use this mixture for all water changes!

Selecting breeders: Selecting Discus breeders is very similar to selecting Angelfish pairs.

What's the best way to pair Discus? The best way to pair Discus off is to place a dozen or so young adults with a body size of a silver dollar into a 75 gallon tank or larger, feed them three times a day with high quality fish food such as frozen blood worms, Tetramin flakes and live brine shrimp etc... for about 18 months.(Discus take a long time to reach maturity. They won't breed until they are at least two years old.) They will select their own mate buy this time and you will see them pair off. Just keep conditioning them with fine food until you see a pair acting territorial by protecting an area of the tank from the other fish.

Setting up the breeding tank: For the breeding tank you will only need a few basic things. A 30 gallon high tank, 150 watt aquarium heater, sponge filter (the kind that has suction cups that hold it to the side of the tank), small vibrator pump, lid(you don't want the fish jumping out) and a flat piece of slate which is placed at a 45 degree angle from the bottom of the tank to the one top side of the tank. If you can't find a flat piece of slate you could buy a big piece of PVC plumbing pipe (a pipe joint works great) and just stand it on the bottom of the tank. That's all you need for the pair. You don't need or want any gravel on the bottom so that you can make water changes, keep the tank clean etc...

Now that you have your breeding tank set up, pop your pair in there. A good idea would be to place the pair in a small tank (10 gallons) with the water from your pair off tank and then acclimate them to the breeding tank water by taking a quart out at a time over a period of an hour, replacing it with breeding tank water.

Now the process starts: It will take a month or so for the pair to get used to their breeding tank. Just keep feeding them three times a day with high quality fish food such as frozen blood worms, Tetramin flakes and live brine shrimp etc..

Now we will get these baby's to breed! To stimulate the pair to breed, start changing 10% of the water in the tank once a day. Keep the temperature at 82 degrees for two days. After two days increase the temperature to 84 degrees. The third day 86 degrees and the fourth day to 88.(Discus can take temperatures in the mid 90's so don't be worried that the water at 88 degrees F is too high) After the fourth day, lower the temperature 2 degrees per day down to 82 degrees, repeat the two day temperature changes from 82-88 degrees up and down. Keep changing 10% of the water until they lay eggs. If it is a pair, they are mature enough and are a male and female, they will breed! Once they have laid their eggs, keep the temperature stable at the point where the eggs were laid and keep it there!

You have eggs, now what? Eggs will not be taken away from the Discus parents to be artificially hatched. The fry need the parents to take care of them for one critical reason. When the fry start free swimming in about 10 days and have absorbed their egg sacks, the first food that they must eat in order survive is a sort of mothers milk that both the male and female parent secretes that is produced in their body slime. The fry feed on this slime on both parents for about three weeks before you can start feeding them live or frozen baby brine shrimp. You should make a special effort to supply them with live baby brine for the first week after they have absorbed their egg sacks. If you can't provide them with live shrimp, turn up an air stone to a medium slow bubble when feeding frozen baby brine in order to simulate them being live. Once the baby Discus accept the frozen brine, you are in good shape. After 4 weeks you can start feeding them high grade fine flake food. You are on your way!

For about 4 weeks, the fry will be constantly feeding of the slime of both parents and won't go anywhere on there own. Keep the fry with the parents for about 6 weeks or when the fry start wandering around the tank, far away from the parents. Then, you can transfer the parents into another tank for a rest or another set-up breeding tank. If the parents start bickering for any reason, separate them with a piece of glass. In three months you will have Discus fry the body size of a dime.

Other tips:
Keep Discus with Discus.
Do not place a light on the top of the tank.
No power filters or anything that makes the water move fast. (Discus like calm water)
Don't try to hatch eggs away from the parents, you'll fail.
No gravel or live plants, just the slate or PVC pipes.
Siphon as much dirt as you can from the bottom of the tank while making water changes.

by Jeff O' Corbett
Article Copyright 2007

Video of Discus Spawning

How to breed and raise Zebrafish

You will loose your marbles when I tell you the secret tricks to breeding Zebra Fish.



Water chemistry: Zebera danios are very tolerant of water conditions and temperature. For breeding purposes, we will go with a PH of 6.6 - 6.8, temperature of 78-82 degrees F.

Sexing Zebrafish: Zebra fish are easy to sex if you know what to look for. The males are more streamlined in appearance that the females and the females have a more compressed looking body, not to mention the extra girth that they have at their abdomen when loaded with eggs after conditioning. Take a look at the picture at the top left of this article. The Zebra in the picture on top is a male. The one below is a female. Study the shape of these two fish for a while and you'll get it. Piece of cake!

Selecting and conditioning the breeders: Place about a dozen mature (about the size of 1 1/2 inches) Zebrafish in a 10 gallon or larger aquarium. Make the PH 7.0 or neutral at this point and temperature at 72-74 degrees F.(We will lower the PH and raise the temperature when we are ready to breed them.)

For conditioning, feed them a variety of frozen and flake food 3-5 times a day until you see that the females load up with eggs and can surely tell males from females. This should take 2-3 weeks.

Setting up the breeding tank: For breeding purposes we will need a 5 1/2 gallon tank, 25 watt submersible heater, air stone supplied with air from a vibrator pump (we won't set up the air stone until the fish have laid eggs) and enough marbles to place on the bottom of the tank to a depth of 2 1/2 inches deep across the whole tank bed.

Fill the 5 1/2 gallon tank with a water line about 2 - 2 1/2 inches higher than the marble substrate. Set the PH at 6.6 with a water temperature of 78 degrees F. Keep it there!

Now we will get these baby's to breed! Since Zebra fish breed in schools, select two or three trios of breeders, 2 males to one egg rich female. Having this ratio of males to females will ensure the fertilization of the eggs and stimulate the breeding process by males and females ready to spawn turning on the other breeders to spawn.

Once in the breeding tank if properly conditioned, the fish should breed within a few days. If they don't, raise the temperature a few degrees to 80 degrees F and change 5% of the water. Wait another day, change another 5% of the water and raise the temperature to 82 degrees. The third day and there after just do the 5% water change.

Keep feeding them 4-5 times a day until they spawn.

The mating process: Once the fish are in breeding mode, the whole school spawns! The eggs are dropped by the females and the males fertilize them as they drop. Where do they drop? Into the marbles baby! Since Zebrafish will consume there on eggs while breeding, the marbles and the low water line are there to prevent them from doing so. The eggs will drop down through the marbles, bouncing their way down to the bottom of the tank off the marbles where the adult breeders can't get them.

You have eggs, now what? Once they start breeding it only takes an hour or so for the females to noticeably look thin and streamlined due to dropping their eggs. No rush to pull the breeders out for a few hours, the eggs are protected by the layer of marbles.

Once you are satisfied that the fish are done breeding and the females have no more eggs, net the breeders out and place them back into the conditioning tank, place an airstone in the tank set to slow bubble and 2 drops per gallon of methlene blue or acraflavin fungicide.

It will take about 10 days for the eggs to hatch and fry to become free swimming. They will find there way through the marbles on their own so just watch and wait. When you see them swimming around, add 1/2 quart of water a day of same quality and temperature to the tank to a normal 5 1/2 gallon water level. This will take a few days. When you reach the right water level, add a sponge filter. Change no more than 5% water a day to keep things fresh.

Feeding the fry: For a few days after the fry become free swimming, they won't need to be fed. They are supplied by nature with an egg sack of which they derive nourishment for a few days to get a head start in life. When the egg sack in the belly region disappears, it's dinner time!

Zebra Danio fry are too small to eat any kind of commercial fish food, there mouths are too small. Then what do they eat? Microscopic live organisms or Infusoria. You can buy Infusoria tablets at your aquarium shop. You just drop a tablet in the tank and in a few hours, your tank will be infested with live microscopic live fish food for the fry. I would pop a few of these tabs in the tank while the fry still have their egg sacks. Buy the time they are ready to eat, they got food! Another thing you could do is place a 2x2 inch piece of lettuce in the tank at the egg sack stage. This will also produce live food for the fry. In about two weeks time they will be ready to eat live or frozen baby brine shrimp and fine flake food.

Raising the fry: Wait about a month after the free swimming stage, then transfer them into a 20 gallon rearing tank. Feed them everything!

by Jeff O' Corbett
Article Copyright 2007

How to breed and raise Betta Fish

Bettas (Siamese fighting fish) are a little tricky when it comes to breeding and raising their fry.



Water chemistry: Siamese fighting fish (Bettas) are not as sensitive to lack of oxygen in the water as other fish due to a special anatomical breathing apparatus on the top of their head that allows them to convert oxygen to their bloodstream directly from the atmosphere, as well as through water that passes over their gills. This doesn't mean that they are indestructible however and prefer a stable water PH of 6.5 - 7.0. For breeding purposes, we will go slightly acidic with a PH of 6.5 - 6.8. What ever PH you select, keep it as constant as possible.

Betta temperament: Betta males don't get along so well and will kill each other if placed in the same tank. Females get along with each other and can be kept and raised together. Males and females in the same tank are not a good idea because the male will always be after the female to breed. If she isn't ready, he will beat here up or worse, kill her.

Sexing Bettas: Males have long flowing colorful fins and females have short fins and are not as colorful.

Selecting breeders: Siamese fighting fish males are not particular. Any female will do as long as she is loaded with eggs and ready to breed.

Setting up the breeding tank: For breeding purposes we will need a 5 gallon tank, 25 watt submersible heater, air stone supplied with air from a vibrator pump and a piece of glass.

The piece of glass will be used to separate the male and female for a few weeks. During this time we condition the female for breeding, let them court each other and give the male time to build his bubble nest. Yes, as time goes by and the male gets in the mood, he builds a bubble nest by coating air with his saliva to create bubbles that float on the surface of the tank. Betta males use these bubbles constructed together in large numbers to create a nest at the surface of the tank. The nest could be the size of about four inches in circumference (round) x two inches high above the water line.

Fill the 5 gallon tank 2/3 water with a PH of 6.6 and a temperature of 78 degrees F. Keep it there! Place the piece of glass diagonally across the tank. If you do it this way, the glass will stay there and be easy to lift out when you are ready to put the male and female together for breeding. Now put a mature male in the tank on one side of the glass partition and a mature female on the other side.

Conditioning for the spawn: Conditioning the pair serves two functions. One is to give the female time to produce and load up with eggs. The other is to give the male time to build a solid bubble nest. This process takes about two - three weeks.

Feed them 4 - 5 times a day with a variety of high quality food. Frozen or live adult Brine Shrimp, frozen blood worms, flake food etc.....

Water changes are not needed often unless the water gets cloudy from feeding. If you want, syphon about 10% of the water from the females side of the tank (you don't want to disturb the males bubble nest if one is there) every other day. Replace it with water of the same chemical quality and temperature. After they have spawned, you won't be changing any water for weeks. The male won't be feeding while he is tending to the eggs and the fry will be too delicate for any water chemistry or temperature changes.

Now we will get these baby's to breed! After about two weeks or sooner, the male will be busy building his bubble nest and you will notice the females abdominal area increase in size. She's loading up with eggs!

Once the bubble nest is about 3-4 inches round, 1-2 inches high and the female looks like she is about to explode with eggs, it's time to try and put them together.

Lift the glass gently out of the tank as to not disturb the bubble nest. If the bubble nest is attached to the piece of glass, you have a little problem but it's not the end of the world. Most of the nest might stay intact if you are lucky and just float around. After they mate, the male will repair it. At this point, he is more interested in mating with the female than toying with a bubble nest.

The mating process: The male will chase the female around the tank notifying her that it is breeding time. If the female is properly conditioned and succumbs to the males overtures, the male will wrap his body around hers, eggs will be dropped and then fertilized by the male. This process repeats several times. After each batch of dropped eggs, the male will go to the bottom of the tank, pick up the eggs and blow them into his bubble nest. If all goes well, after a few hours or less, they will be finished breeding. As soon as you know that they are finished, remove the female from the tank as soon as you can so that the male doesn't kill her. As soon as the breeding is over, the male chases the female away. He takes sole responsibility for taking care of the young.

If after placing them together for let's say an hour and they haven't mated or the female is getting beat up, separate them again for 3-4 more days. You'll have to try again.

You have eggs, now what? Now that the eggs are laid and the female is not around, the male gets to work. Until the fry are free swimming in about 10-12 days, the male attends to his fry by making sure the bubble nest is always being updated with fresh bubbles, fetching eggs that fall out of the nest, then blowing them back into the nest. During this period of time there is no need to feed the male, he probably wouldn't eat anyway. When the fry start free swimming in about 10- 12 days, the male will be ready to eat. As soon as the fry are free swimming, remove the male. He's going to be hungry!

Feeding the fry: For a few days after the fry become free swimming, they won't need to be fed. They are supplied by nature with an egg sack of which they derive nourishment for a few days to get a head start in life. When the egg sack in the belly region disappears, it's dinner time!

Betta fry are too small to eat any kind of commercial fish food, there mouths are too small. Then what do they eat? Microscopic live organisms or infusoria. You can buy infusoria tablets at your aquarium shop. You just drop a tablet in the tank and in a few hours, your tank will be infested with live microscopic live fish food for the fry. I would pop a few of these tabs in the tank while the fry still have their egg sacks. Buy the time they are ready to eat, they got food! Another thing you could do is place a 2x2 inch piece of lettuce in the tank at the egg sack stage. This will also produce live food for the fry. In about two weeks time they will be ready to eat live or frozen baby brine shrimp and fine flake food.

At this point you can hook up your air stone and set it on slow bubble. Change no more than 2% of the water every other day for about 2 weeks, then you can change 5% a day if you want to keep the water clean as long as you have conditioned water on hand that matches the chemistry and temperature of the fry tank. You could also add a sponge filter after 2 weeks. Fry can't get hurt with a sponge filter.

Raising the fry: Wait about a month after the free swimming stage, then transfer them into a 10 or 15 gallon rearing tank. In approximately 8 weeks you should be able to tell the sexes. The males will start developing longer fins and have allot more color. This is about the right time to separate all fish into separate Betta bowls. Mason jars are perfect. Six to eight months later, you'll have some nice Bettas to either sell or give away to your friends.

by Jeff O' Corbett
Article Copyright 2007

Video of Bettas spawning

How to set up a fish tank, Part I

Setting up your aquarium requires patience and diligence. A lot of people usually brush off this important step and thus do a bad job creating a healthy and comfortable environment for their fish. So, if you do a good job, your fish will thrive and live a long and healthy life! Here is how you should set up your fresh water aquarium.

Clean out your fish tank with warm water. Do not use any chemicals as this will poison your fish. Place your fish tank in a room that gets a lot of naturally light. Positioning your tank in front of a window will definitely stimulate great plant growth.

Hook up your filtration system, lighting and under gravel filter. Make sure you connect everything correctly and that your gravel filter is clean.

Thoroughly rinse the sand. I usually pour the sand into a big bucket and rinse the sand with running water. Use your hand or a stick to circulate the sand so that all the dust and dirt can float to the surface and out of the bucket. Once the water in the bucket is clean, you can pour the sand into your tank.

Soak your driftwood for a few days and change the water regularly. Failing to clean your driftwood will color your tank.

If you have plastic plants, place them in boiling water and leave them there for a few minutes. This cleans the plants and revitalizes the plastic.

Scrub any rocks that you are planning to use in your tank. Make sure that you do some research before choosing the rocks. You cannot simply go outside in your garden and pick up some rocks as these may contain metals. I suggest that you go down to your nearest pet store and buy your rocks there. These rocks are usually safe to use.


Part II is coming soon. In the meantime, check out this video... hopefully it will serve as some inspiration.

How to breed and raise Angelfish

Breeding Angelfish can be accomplished very easily. I will give you all the information that you need in order to breed and raise their fry.



Water chemistry: Angelfish breed in slightly acidic water, PH of 6.8 or a little lower is fine. The tank temperature should be from 74 - 78 degrees F. Get a Ph test kit with chemicals to adjust the PH. Sodium Bicarbonate (baking soda) makes the water more alkaline, Sodium Biphosphate makes the water more acid.

Selecting breeders: You will need a pair of breeders consisting of a male and female Angelfish. LOL! Actually, there are instances where two females will pair up and lay eggs! Of course the eggs will be infertile, turn white and fungus up. Eggs that are fertile are clear colored for more that a few hours. If eggs turn white, they are dead. (We will talk more about eggs later on in this article) Now how do we tell that a pair(male +female) is a pair? Can you sex (tell the difference between male and female) a pair? Yes! One sure fire way to sex Angelfish is to identify their breeding tubes. Breeding tubes are found just in back of the anal area. The females tube is blunt and round, the Males is long and pointed. These tubes protrude from the fish about a week or so before they are ready to lay eggs. Another way to sex angelfish is to look at the abdominal area of the fish. Even when Angelfish aren't in breeding mode, the females always have a certain amount of eggs ready for breeding. If you look at their stomach area, they will have a little extra girth than the males. The males will have a very flat abdominal area. Of course we are talking about mature fish at least one year old. Can't sex them as juveniles.

What's the best way to pair Angelfish? The best way to pair Angelfish off is to place a dozen or so young adults with a body size of a silver dollar into a 55 gallon tank or larger, feed them three times a day with high quality fish food such as frozen blood worms, Tetramin flakes and live brine shrimp etc... for about 6 months. They will select their own mate buy this time or even sooner and you will see them pair off. Just keep conditioning them with fine food until you see a pair acting territorial by protecting an area of the tank from the other fish. You might notice them hanging around a rock or plant and cleaning it off or pecking at the area. This pair is getting ready to breed! Now is the time to separate them from the other fish by placing them in a 20 gallon high tank. This is the breeding tank baby!

Setting up the breeding tank: For the breeding tank you will only need a few basic things. The 20 gallon high tank, 100 watt aquarium heater, sponge filter(the kind that has suction cups that hold it to the side of the tank), small vibrator pump, lid(you don't want the fish jumping out) and a flat piece of slate which is placed at a 45 degree angle from the bottom of the tank to the one top side of the tank. If you can't find a flat piece of slate you could buy a big piece of PVC plumbing pipe(a pipe joint works great) and just stand it on the bottom of the tank. That's all you need for the pair. You don't need or want any gravel on the bottom so that you can make water changes, keep the tank clean etc...

Now that you have your breeding tank set up, pop your pair in there. A good idea would be to place the pair in a small tank (2 1/2 gallons) with the water from your pair off tank and then acclimate them to the breeding tank water by taking a cup out at a time over a period of a half hour, replacing it with breeding tank water.

Now the process starts: It will take a week or so for the pair to get used to their breeding tank. Just keep feeding them three times a day with high quality fish food such as frozen blood worms, Tetramin flakes and live brine shrimp etc..

Now we will get these baby's to breed! To stimulate the pair to breed, start changing 10% of the water in the tank once a day. Keep the temperature at 74 degrees for two days. After two days increase the temperature to 76 degrees. The third day 78 degrees and the fourth day to 80. After the fourth day, lower the temperature 2 degrees per day down to 74 degrees, repeat the temperature changes from 74-80 degrees up and down. Keep changing 10% of the water until they lay eggs. If it is a pair, they are mature enough and are a male and female, they will breed! Once they have laid their eggs, keep the temperature stable at the point where the eggs were laid and keep it there.

You have eggs, now what? The fish will lay their eggs on the piece of slate or pipe that you placed in there. If you see them in the process of laying the eggs, wait until they are finished and you are sure that they are finished, Wait a few hours. Set up a 2 1/2 gallon tank with just a 25 watt heater, vibrator air pump and an air stone. Gently siphon water into your egg tank from your breeding tank, then take the slate or pipe out of the breeding tank and place it into your egg hatching tank. Adjust your heater to the same temperature as the breeding tank, set the air stone up next to the eggs at a slow speed. You want the bubbles to gently flow over the eggs or real close to them. This will keep dirt away from them and artificially stimulate them, taking the place of what the parent fish would do. One other important thing. You must get a fungicide such as acraflavin or methylene blue. 2-3 drops a gallon should do it. If the water starts getting cloudy you can change not more than 5% a day with water of the same PH and temperature. Cloudy doesn't mean blue or green, that's the color of the fungicide.

Video of Angelfish spawning on slate:



Note about the parents: Keep an eye on the parents, they might blame each other for loosing the eggs. If they start fighting, separate them with a piece of glass for a few days until they calm down. This doesn't always happen but it can. Once they get used to you taking away the eggs a few times, they should be alright. If they won't stop fighting or you can't put them back together for some reason, try putting them into the pair off tank. Having other fish around will distract them from fighting and possibly strengthen their relationship enough to try breeding them again. Another reason why they might start fighting after they lay eggs is that either the eggs weren't fertile, or one of them ate the eggs. One would blame the other. Doesn't happen often but it happens. Just keep an eye on them.

Now that you have your 100-600 eggs in the hatching tank there is nothing to do but wait and watch. The eggs should be an clear to amber color if fertile. Ones that aren't fertile will turn white. You should take an eye dropper and separate them from the fertile ones to keep the healthy eggs from attracting fungus. If all the eggs turn white or a good number of them turn white don't panic. The first time or two you breed a pair of Angel fish they are inexperienced and might not get it right. No problem. If the pair aren't fighting and you don't have to separate them, they will breed every 10 or so days for a few months! That's what they call breeding cycle. Once they finish this cycle, they will take a month or so off and start breeding again! You better buy some more tanks because you're going to have Angelfish everywhere! If after numerous breedings a pair only produces white eggs, you'll have to go back to the drawing board and try another pair. Bummer!

Eggs will hatch in about 3 days: You'll just see a tail growing out of the egg that jiggles. At about 5 days, they will fall of the slate or pipe, develop and jiggle. In 10 days they should be free swimming. You'll notice a little egg sack that gets smaller every day. When the egg sack is gone, you are ready to feed them. Live hatched baby Brine Shrimp is best for a few weeks. If you can't hatch your own, they will take frozen baby brine if you turn up the air stone so that the frozen brine is moving. After two weeks you can supplement the brine shrimp with high protein flake food.

Raising the fry: Wait a week after they are free swimming then move them into a 5 gallon tank with the same water conditions as the hatching tank. Add a sponge filter. In two weeks, move them into a 10 gallon tank. Move them into a 55 gallon tank in another two weeks. In about 14 weeks total, you will have Angelfish with the body size of about a dime. You are in business!

Note about water changes and conditions: Change 5% of the water in rearing tanks every other day as long as you change it with water that has the same PH and temperature. Once the fry are large enough after a month or so, you can also add a conventional outside filter to the tank.

by Jeff O' Corbett
Article Copyright 2007