Discus Breeding Tank Setup Part -2

Tank Setup 

To be the best there are three feet long 12 inches wide and about 18 inches tall I like the length that as I'm able to distribute the flow a little more evenly and not have any really turbulent spot it's also big enough to allow the fry to grow a little bit with the parents which we'll talk about in a little bit it's also a nice volume of water which will help dilute a lot of the waste that the dog that the disc is produced which will help maintain the water quality a little longer with that said some people breed them in20 gallon tanks others breed them and bigger or smaller 30 gallon 33 gallon tanks are very calm and very easy to come by and is what i have had my most success with I've also breed disc isn't a 

variety of other sizes so if this doesn't work for you shoot for around the 30 gallon range as a minimum you also don't want them to be too big so between 30 and say 40 gallons would be ideal too big and the fryer not going to be able to find their parents too small and too many fluctuations can occur so how should we actually set this up though as you can see this tank is bare and that is exactly how I set them up for breeding what I start with do we know is painting the tank and I paint all surfaces that I don't need to see into which is the bottom the back and the two sides the only place that's not painted is the front panel the reason being for this is Chris pretty simple as well but there's two reasons to mean reasons the first reason is it provides a sense of security for the discus which is arguably important for a breeding pair the second is I find that it also helps isolate the site of the parents when the fryer looking for their parents they can see them a lot easier without any distractions behind them the color of paint that I typically use will be a white or a very light blue 

like what is used on the basis of this tank I've sense remove the paint since I was into breeding but you get the idea of using a light colored paint is the important it simply allows the parents to stand out more and the fry can more readily find them that is very important especially if you're going to raise the fry like i do and again we'll get to that in a little while you'll also notice that there's no decorations in the tank it's absolutely bear let's start with the reason why there's no substrate know I've done a Blog entirely on why I do bare bottom tanks and specific tanks especially like a breeding tank and the reasons for this is very simple it maintains water quality a lot longerit's easier to care for and detritus and waste doesn't collect in the tank these tend to be some of the more 

popular reasons and again the reasoning is simple they don't need some breeders  like to provide a little bit of cover like some plants or maybe some flowerpots or decorations to some extent but in my opinion that just takes away from the fry being able to find the parents the only decoration that I had is a breeding cone this is a do-it-yourself breeding come the bottom is a porcelain tile has a PVC end cap and a piece of PVC on top of it this just goes in the tank at any place the height of the PVC pipe is lower than the overall tank but only about a half inch under the water surface this is so that water can actually fill it and it doesn't float yet it's also not too short to allow fri to get trapped inside the reason i do with this way is to give the parents a preferred area to spawn on typically discus like to spawn on vertical clean surfaces having this allows me to clean it easily and I can move it with in the tank wherever I want which comes in handy when you find the disks are not laying their eggs it might be because of the position of the breeding code for example it might be in the flow rates of the return of your filter so you might want to move it away or maybe they want it closer to the front door to the back you're just gonna have to find where you want it at the end of the day the distance are going to lay their eggs wherever they want I've seen them lay them on the front panel side panel back panel bottom panel I've seen land on heaters filter intakes whatever they want to lay it on they will however if you have one of these in the tanks most of the time they will lay their eggs on this and again comes in really handy after every time they bring your legs and fri of hatched i'll remove it from the tank and clean it completely when I'm ready to get them back into breeding i simply put it back in and they know exactly what this is this only cost you about three dollars to 

make anyway so something like this is exactly how I would have a breeding set up just like that although obviously the sides and the back need to be painted but you get the idea ok so let's move onto filtration now this is typically done in a few ways and I prefer in two ways one I'll use a sponge filter if I only have one breeding pair i would just use a sponge filter because it's really easy to do sponge filter and heater in the tank and that's pretty much it kept keeping it really simple however having a heater in the tank gives the disc is something the spawn on which is sometimes cannot be good for the eggs the sponge filter is typically black which would attract the fry away from their parents at times which again is it good so what I like to do what I've done most of the time is run the breeding tanks on sups meaning that the back of the tank is drilled and it leads down to a sump where the water is filtered mechanically as well as biologically it's also heated and then return to the tank I do this for a number of 

reasons one it adds extra water volume to the tank - it makes water changes a lot easier three it keeps all equipment out of the tank the only thing that I really need to do is make sure that the intake is covered with a fine sponge this is just so that the Spry don't actually get sucked into it for water circulation and the return I focus on keeping the water almost still so i would have my drain over here and there turn on one end just to make sure the water is well circulated however I always . my drains down straight down and not blowing around this make sure that the fryer not being blown all around and the parents are being blown around I have found that even a slight amount of flow can disrupt the fry from their parents.