Breeding Discus Fish -How To Raise White Worms For The Aquarium

Every successful breeder of tropical fish knows that feeding live foods to their charges is one of the best ways to maintain healthy and active fish.

Live foods are overall high in protein. They stimulate spawning, and help to intensify coloration. Live foods enhance the natural tendencies of fish to forage for their food as they would in their natural environment.

White worms (Enchytraeus albidus) are a great source of food for the aquarium. They are about 70% protein, 14.5% fats, and approximately 10% carbohydrate. The white worm in size is approximately 3/4" to 1 1/2", somewhere between Tubifex and Grindal worms. Fish love them, and they are appropriate for a large variety of carnivore fish, even the smaller cichlids.

Nick Lockhart, breeder for King Discus feeds white worms twice weekly to our breeding discus and juveniles. His goal is to provide a wide variety of food to keep the fish interested and feeding to stimulate breeding.

White worms are easy to raise. A plastic shoebox from the dollar store will meet the needs of most aquarists. As worms need to breathe, the container shouldn't be air tight. Cutting a small hole in the lid and placing a piece of breathable foam in the hole will suffice to allow enough oxygen to reach the worms.

Fill the container about 3/4 full with peat moss as the medium. The peat moss should be wet, but not soaked. Test by squeezing a bit of the medium in your hand. If a few drops emerge, then you have it right. If water emerges from the mass in a stream, you have it too wet.

Add your starter culture of worms. Finding a suitable starter culture can at times be difficult. A good source can be from auctions at local fish clubs, or from a fellow enthusiast. Also, looking in the classified in the back pages of magazines like Aquarium Fish Magazine or Aquarium USA can sometimes lead to a good resource.

Place a piece of wet crustless white bread on top of the medium for compost. Cover this with a sheet of plastic the size of the slice of bread. The plastic aids in keeping the bread from drying out. It is a good idea to bury the piece of bread in the medium when first starting a culture to prevent mold from occurring. Allow the worms a week to establish before feeding them. Check on them on a daily basis to insure that they are eating the bread.

White worms will need to be housed in a cool dark place, free from insects. We use an apartment sized refrigerator with a temperature control sensor that maintains the temperature at 55-65 degrees Fahrenheit.

One of the best foods for white worms is Gerber's Baby Oatmeal. Add a pinch of active dry yeast to the mixture. The trick is to feed the worms enough to insure they thrive, but not so much that it will begin to mold. A good rule of thumb is to feed only what they will consume in three days. A little trial and error work is needed here. If mold occurs, simply spoon it out of the medium, and replace the food, using less the next time.

White worm cultures will "crash" if the population becomes too large. This can be noted by the worms attempting to crawl up the sides of the container. Simply dump the medium onto a sheet of newspaper, separate the medium into two parts, and you have another culture to fall back on if the first crashes. Get another shoebox, top to 3/4 full with dampened peat moss, and you have the insurance of a supply of white worms.

To harvest white worms, simply wait until a nice clump of them are underneath the sheet of plastic, pluck them out with tweezers or your fingers, and clean appropriately before feeding to your fish. rinsing with dechlorinated water, by pouring from one container to another will do the trick, removing any soil or left over food. You can then feed the worms to your fishes.

The biggest thing to remember about growing white worms is to never let the medium dry out. It is also a good idea to have two cultures growing at the same time, in case one of the cultures "crashes." Keep an eye out for mold, feed the worms appropriately, and you will have happy, vigorous fish!
Breeding Discus Fish

Breeding Discus Fish - A Guide To Buying Discus Fish

Buying discus fish for your aquarium should be pretty much the same as buying any other fish, yet it seems to give people all sorts of worries and anxieties, possibly because of the amount of money involved. Not many other fish has the price tag that Discus Fish has attached to them.

The main thing is that you have carried out your homework, so you know about the fish and their requirements, what to look out for, and what questions to ask, in order for you to be able to make a right decision. This may seem like common sense - but some people fail on this - and make costly mistakes!

Next - remember you're not in a race! If you are up against time or competition to get the fish you want, put down a deposit to get the vendor to keep hold of it for you, or let it go. Don't let yourself be pressurised into making a hasty decision.

When you feel you've got these bases covered - you're ready to go! So where do you go?

Discus Fish are generally available from 3 sources: Importers/Dealers, Pet shops and Home Breeders.

If you're a beginner - whether you never had discus before or are starting as a fish keeper in general - always go to the specialist shops. There's two reasons for this. They have a bigger selection of fish which means you are more likely to find something to suit you, and the have specialist knowledge for you to draw from at the time of purchase and after.

For the more advanced Discus Fish keepers - by all means try other avenues - but take care. While the fish may come at less of a premium - you'll often find that the quality of the stock isn't always all it's cracked up to be.

So what do you need to look out for? Most people will tell you to search for Discus Fish with perfectly round shaped bodies and small bright eyes. Even though this is correct - there's more to it than that.

Apart from finding the fish with the colour/pattern (don't worry too much about their names as these tends to vary from place to place), it's important that you spend some time watching the fish closely and monitor their behaviour.

Healthy Discus Fish should be bold and alert, and not shy away from the front of the tank. Do not go for fish that hide away at the back of the tank or behind plants etc., as that is a sign that something is not quite right.

As far as bodily defects is concerned, the things to be on the outlook for is fish that seems to be breathing heavily, fish with twisted mouths, poorly shaped finns and tails, odd or big eyes and short gill covers. These are all signs of poor breeding practices.

Also, you should not look at the fish themselves only. It's equally important to look at the bottom of the tank, to see if you can see any if their waste. Discus Fish pass their faeces regularly, and it the fish are healthy it should be black in colour. If they're white or clear this indicates that the fish may have intestinal worms or similar internal problems, in which case you shouldn't buy them.

So what about the questions to ask the dealer? Well - first and most importantly - ask if you can see the fish feed. Healthy discus should, though they are slow eaters, respond fairly quickly to food. Any dealer who really wants to sell his fish will agree to do this. Otherwise walk away.

Other information you need to obtain is how long the dealer has had the fish (less than two weeks suggest that they may not be fully quarantined), where they originate from (import or bred in-house), and if they have been subject to any medication or de-worming cures? Any decent dealer will have an immediate answer to such questions - and it will give you an idea of the fish's history as well as the dealer's knowledge.

Finally, remember to ask about the water conditions the fish are in, so you can make sure your aquarium offers the same conditions before bringing the fish home. If this is not the case, go and make the necessary changes to your water, before bringing the fish home.

Again - if you have seen the fish you want - put down a deposit, and go back a couple of times to check on their conditions, while you're in the process of changing things. It's another chance for you to make sure that the fish you're buying is in good health.

If possible - buy medium sized Discus Fish - adolescent in want of a better word. The reason for this is that they will find it easier to adapt to a new environment than older fish, and they do not require as many regular feeds as the young growing Discus.

Breeding Discus Fish

Breeding Discus Fish - PH Levels in The Discus Tank

Because it is imperative that discus fish have optimal water conditions, much has been written about this subject, This is the plan put in place to insure proper PH water levels in our hatchery.

Allnut Enterprises' breeder, Nick Lockhart of Noblesville, Indiana, has many ingenious ideas as to how to accomplish things in the hatchery. We begin our experiment with two matched pairs: two red melons, and two leopardskins. They are lovely, friendly fish, and have been getting acclimated to our tanks and the aquarist since the end of June.

Initially, we begin to prepare for the new arrivals by setting up the tanks in this manner: water was tested for PH and nitrite levels, and a proper ecosystem for active bacteria was begin by populating the tank with cichlids that Nick has been raising prior to the purchase of the discus. When we felt that the water/bacteria levels were correct, we set up the meeting with the breeder, and made the trip to Bloomington, Indiana.

Upon arrival at home base with a travel time of about an hour and a half, we immediately begin to acclimate the pairs to their new home. We were advised by the breeder to let them acclimate to the new tank water by "floating" the bags containing the fish for approximately one hour to equalize the temperatures, and to add a cup of water to the bag from the tank to equalize PH levels.

We did not, however, follow this procedure. We took approximately six hours to acclimate by adding a cup of the tank water to the bag each hour, and keeping a close eye on the discus and PH levels, because they were stressed from the trip. A Hanna PH digital meter was used for testing, which gave us a very accurate reading. As large changes in PH in a short period can shock the discus, we were careful in this approach. Our water at the time matched the water in PH levels from the breeder closely.

Because the two pair were bought for breeding purposes, Nick was not comfortable with the PH level, which at that time was at approximately 7.5, high for optimal breeding conditions of 6.5-6.9. What to do?

We had read that hanging a mesh bag of peat moss would help to lower the PH, but were not happy with the idea of having debris from the Peat in our tanks, which are kept scrupulously clean. We knew there had to be a better way to accomplish this goal.

Because Nick lives in town, and has city water, he uses a Reverse Osmosis filtering system to insure that the water is free of chemicals and suitable for the aquarium. Knowing that Peat Moss will lower the PH in an aquarium system, and having a large bag left over from making culture for Grindal and White Worms, he took a 5 gallon pail, and drilled a series of holes around the perimeter of the bottom of the pail, using a 3/32" drill. He then lined the bottom of the pail with a think layer of regular aquarium filter floss, and topped that off with a thick layer of Peat Moss, with the finished pail being about two-thirds full.

The outlet hose from the RO system was then allowed to drain into this pail. Setting the pail over the top of the holding tank, the water slowly drained down through this medium into the holding tank.

Initial test of the recycled water showed a drop in PH to below the base of 7.0. We have been adding the water to the discus tanks slowly through water changes so as to not shock the fish, and at our business meeting this weekend, Nick informed me that the PH levels in the discus tanks are now at approximately 6.6, which is the optimal level for breeding discus.

Cost of the project? If you already are using an RO system, and have a holding tank, you will spend a twenty dollar bill getting the Peat Moss and filter floss. Not bad, considering a breeding pair of dicus can run you $425 dollars!

Breeding Discus Fish

Breeding Discus Fish - How To Determine The Sex of Discus Fish

One of the biggest question asked of the discus breeder is "how do I determine the sex of my fish?" There are very few easy identifiable identifiers in this process. Here, we will discuss the methods used by some of the top breeders.

In juvenile fish, determining sex is almost impossible. It is only when they begin to pair off that an opportunity arises to help in the determination of sex. Juvenile fish, both male and female, have a rounded dorsal fin, and it is not until they begin to mature that a difference can be detected. As it is never wise to excessively handle the fish, close observation is in order to aid the breeder.

In Allnut Enterprises' King Discus Hatchery, for example, it is an easy process to determine who is who, as we have observed these fish for a while, and can determine the sex of the pairs we own. This would be true in any hatchery. But to the uninitiated or casual observer, this would not be easy to do.

Some of the identifiers: The male will have thicker lips to aid him in his fight to protect the female, and will be more aggressive. He will be larger than the female, his forehead is thicker, and we have observed that if the discus are a bit shy, the male will have a tendency to stay between the female and the observer.

The dorsal fin of the male will be pointed, and the female's dorsal fin will be rounded. Note that in juvenile discus, this is not apparent.

The breeding tube of the female, between the anus and anal fin, is broader and rounder than the male, and will have a blunt tip. The male, in turn, has a smaller, sharper breeding tube. Be aware that this is only evident during spawning, and should be closely observed.

It has been said that the male discus fish will tend to have a less intense color and more pattern while the female tends to be more colorful but with lesser pattern. I disagree, because too many variables are in place here, such as the health of the discus, the water parameters, and feeding pattern.

In an interesting article by Jeff Richard, he discusses an article from Diskus Brief, a German publication, which reports a very successful way of determine sex of a discus by using simple geometry. Jeff reports, and I quote: “Picture a discus facing to your left ... you would be looking at its side. Find the Dorsal (Top) and Anal (bottom) fins and look where the fins slope down toward the Caudal (tail) fin ... make sure you're looking at the fins after they have curved back toward the tail. The Dorsal and Anal Fins become (almost) straight after the fins curve down (or up) toward the Caudal Fin ... extend an imaginary line along this straight section of the 2 fins back toward the tail which just touches the Dorsal & Anal Fins past the Caudal Fin. These two imaginary lines should intersect behind the fish. The key to sexing the fish is where the lines cross the Caudal fin. If they pass through the Caudal Fin, the fish is most likely a FEMALE. If they miss or just touch the Caudal Fin, then most likely it is a MALE.” Thanks, Jeff!

Sexing Discus is difficult at best. The easiest way to do so is to raise a group of at least six to eight discus, and allow them to pair off when ready. It is a beautiful sight to see this happen, and makes the hobby well worthwhile.

Alden Smith is a published author, and has been marketing on the internet for 7 years. His website, King Discus, is an active gathering place for discus breeders and lovers of discus fish.

His wife Betsy is the administrator of All The Best Recipes a site rich in online recipes and cookbooks.

Breeding Discus Fish