it's time we start breeding the discus now to be fair i did give them a chance
i did set them up in a natural aquarium i let them spawn what was it a dozen times and they
kept eating their eggs i tried a few different things but it's time that you know i'm gonna have
to step in a little bit with specifically these guys right here i'm going to move them over first
now the last time they laid eggs was about a week ago uh so they're probably ready to do it again
and i kind of waited until we moved them tanks because that could potentially trigger
some spawning you'll also remember we got this pair over here a pair of pigeon bloods uh and
quite large they haven't done anything in the tank just yet so i might just give them a shot in here
and kind of see where that goes but we already have a couple of breeder aquariums
or breeder sized aquariums and let's go ahead and convert one of them first
and then we'll go from there i think we're going to give this a quick rinse first first
luckily this is just a window tint that was on
it before so not a lot of efforts and i need to go into removing it
i'm going with a basic white spray paint which i typically never do
uh because it's the messiest method of painting a tank and the hardest to get up and removed but
this is just a breeding tank so i don't really care plus it looks like i might just
need one coat i don't care if it's blotchy or anything this is going to be that's good enough
i'm doing all the sides except the front viewing panel this is the back of the tank
so again i'm not really too concerned if i hit the trim but if with that concern
it's gonna get messy no matter what i do so
typically i'll roll paint on but when you're being lazy and you don't really care about the
overall results because it's a breeder tank it's quarantine tank it's whatever she's spraying let
that dry and move on to building the breeding tone right there i guess it doesn't gotta be perfect
you just need this to go up like eighty percent of the tank height you'll see what i'm talking about
in a minute but i gotta figure out how to stand it up right so if i take this sponge filter apart
i was just messing with these earlier because i'm going to be filtering the quarantines with sponges
that are already pre-cycled so why not but if i take them apart they have these weighted bases
if i can attach this somehow i'd already have a weighted base with a pvc pipe but it doesn't fit
on it's just slightly too big so take a little heat gun cheap one i think it's from walmart
and we'll heat up the end just to get it flexible enough to kind of fit over the uh weighted um
sponge filter base a lot of times if i'm building something i always try to reuse
stuff that i already have i have to let that dry that's good enough heck maybe i could put like a
little bit of uh i'll let this dry and maybe i'll put a little bit of weld on there so it sticks up
sticks on there good enough let me just test it in the tank yeah that's perfect let's go
to finger width away from the top which will allow me to still put the lids on i don't know
if i'll need anything to hold this guy yeah i might just leave it as is pretty cool right
okay so that's done and now set up uh before we get to this i'll show you something else i've been
kind of messing around with you guys remember that we turned this 100 gallon cylinder tank
into a fluidized filter it looks like it has far more media but the water level is simply dropped
and i'll show you what i've done up here and you might find this out rather interesting
i'm just messing around out here i kind of like to do this sort of thing but
it's a tiny well it's not that tiny but it's a uh just a rubbermaid tote i'm gonna get a clear one
this is just a spare one i had i was just testing some things water is coming in i now have two
pumps in it feeding about 5000 or 5500 gallons an hour which obviously goes through this filter sock
and then through all of this media where the air is kind of bubbling up through it
i drilled a bunch of holes in the bottom of this so it could freely flow through
which enters exits at the bottom so it's being mechanically as well as biologically and then even
more biologically filtered before it's actually returned to the aquarium this is just a test i
might get the same dimensions of bucket but make it deeper so we can drop the water level even more
like maybe even to here and then fill this up with a tremendous amount of biological media
because right now we only have one layer of these biological blocks which are
submerged and aerated it actually looks really cool and it's going to be incredibly functional
now i just got to clean this every once in a while but to be fair this was never the initial plan
i just didn't have enough of this large fluidized media to make it function properly and believe it
or not i cannot get it anywhere in canada anymore the last few years you guys know everything seems
to be out of stock and resupplies are incredibly difficult etc i did want to use that media because
it's been sitting here for five years unused and kind of came up with this plan but i'm having fun
just trying different things you know i didn't film this of course i just come out here and
play around like little projects and stuff but i definitely gotta start bringing you guys along for
it so this is now the breeder aquarium of course we are only running it with two sponge filters
the this will give the fish as well as a place to it's not only gonna filter the aquarium but it'll
give the uh discus somewheres to hide behind uh as well as uh no fry fryer gonna get sucked
up into the filter uh and they might even you know kind of chow down on some of it now you
might be able to see his face there but uh there he is right there kyle's back there in one of
the quarantine tanks just the top one uh keeping these filters cycled we have to figure out a place
for him but that's likely up there is likely where we'll end up putting the pigeon bloods
now why go with this cone here they typically do like to lay their eggs on a cone of some
sort you'll see discus laying them on the heaters and or filter inputs of canister filters or even
hang on the backs uh so i'm giving them that in case they want to do it however they also will
potentially lay them on the on the floor the sides of the tank why no substrate why nothing else they
don't need it and it's only going to lead to a lot of maintenance and a lot of hands in the tank and
when it comes to a discus breeding tank it's a lot of times you want to be hands off so water
changes will have to be quite substantial setting up this tank was remarkably simple of course added
the cycled sponges filled it up with mostly fresh water and then i took water from their existing
aquarium and kind of topped it up by 25 and i only did that for a specific reason if i add these
cycled filters into a tank with absolutely no fish in it uh no waste just clean water the bacteria is
going to starve to death and i wanted to make sure this tank was up and running for a few
days before i did this so some cycled not cycled you don't cycle water but water with uh nitrates
and ammonia and uh dissolved organics and whatnot just to keep everything up and going the tank is
white for a specific reason discus have adhesive legs they lay them on a surface with a stick to
them and uh one to two potentially sometimes three days after fanning them uh the eggs hatch into fry
a couple days later they become fries uh free swimming and as you guys know when it comes to
discus they're one of only three fish in the world that feed their babies off of their uh
skin slime off their sides now in a dark tank like this the parents are very difficult to find
the odds of the fry being able to not only attach but find them continuously are pretty slim to none
so in a white aquarium these guys will likely be the darkest things in the tank and easy easier to
find they're not gonna be the darkest things but they're gonna be tremendously easier now we gotta
move those guys over to that tank so we might as well do that right now mind you the tank is cycled
the temperatures out here are all identical so no real acclimation is going to be required i'll just
be able to net them walk them over and put them in i'm not going to put them in a bucket and then put
them in the i'm not going to net them put them in a bucket net them again from the bucket put them
in when i have probably a three second walk it's better just to take them supported with a net one
at a time and put them in the tank looks like we got the mail first can you go big fella oh you can
actually see him now oh it is beautiful coloration beautiful blue and red fins just absolutely
phenomenal conditions but they are small parents you guys even hear me or see me i'll show you
in a second small parents which are already breeding so either them getting much bigger
is slim to numb because they're going to put all their energy into breeding and now the female
also absolutely gorgeous
okay fresh in the tank so maybe they'll lay down or maybe they won't display properly but i'll show
them anyway immediately this is not the same fish you guys were just looking at the female
again just added her in that's just mom on the uh the base of the tank and i left it in there but
he's coming over hey so uh look uh excuse me dad can you close the curtain for for uh for
just for a few minutes there is a curtain here they're gonna be they're gonna love it back here
a little bit of privacy it's kind of sensual you know there are some uh bit like kind of
like alcoves here i might put a couple candles there no they'll do just fine absolutely stunning
and this is one of the things with discus is if you want them to display the best a lot
of the times their surroundings have to suit the variety of discus that you actually have
when it comes to a lot of the discus in the hobby especially these man-made variants or
discus that have been selectively bred they will display best in lighter colored aquariums
especially white one of my favorite discus variants but one of the worst to keep looking nice
now they're bug they're bugging out right now this tank's a little yellow from the uh tannins
but it's the pigeon blood now the thing with pigeon bloods is if you look closely is in between
uh all of that red squiggles which doesn't look very good in here
they have peppering they're trying to blend into their surroundings so that's basically how i would
do a discus breeding tank if you don't really have like the the pro setup that like i used to
do with like the racks and multiple tanks for them to like grow out in and breed in etc etc
a simple aquarium 40 gallons is a little big for my uh typical
size that i like to breed in i my favorite discus breeding size would definitely be uh the 30 gallon
which is i think it's like 30 inches by 12 inches by 16 inches absolutely perfect size 25 30 gallons
with a breeding cone sponge filters or if it's on a rack of course uh go ahead and plumb it into
a sump for even more control with that said um sponge filters are going to work it's going to be
just fine once the fryer too big to be with their parents you can keep them in if the tanks big
enough but a lot of the times you're going to want to grow them out in a separate aquarium so the
parents don't attack them because they will want to breed again and are you guys laying eggs no
um but that's it let's see where this goes uh i'll give these guys a probably a week in the tank by
themselves and if they do anything i'll leave them in there but if not we'll set up another
breeding tank for these guys and use this as one massive crow tank for all of those discus
uh who do you think is gonna get the viable fry first the blue guys or the red guys as these as
cobalts or the pitcher blitz let me know in the comment section below see you guys soon