Well we've been watching our Brilliant, Blue Diamond and Silver Pigeon hanging in one corner of the tank. The Brilliant and Blue Diamond have been twitching for each other for the past 2 days. Well it turns out that they are both males and they must have been challenging each other for mating rights with the Silver Pigeon. This afternoon I walked into the room and glanced at the tank and saw this...

http://s57.photobucket.com/albums/g213/ctu...nt=ec7e219c.pbr

I don't expect anything out of this considering that my water is not set up for breeding and it's also their first time. Just thought I would share with everyone!

Very cool, Rena!

Kind of an odd place to lay the eggs, heh?

Pretty typical. They tend to want a fairly upright place to lay their eggs. Unfortunately it's often on filter intakes or heaters. :blink:

Good luck with the eggs. Hopefully you get past that stage at least and see if they'll be good parents for you later.

Yeah well because they are in a community tank the eggs were all eaten by the pretty upset Brilliant. Well at least I know I have 2 males and 1 female!

Rena, how can you say that this is "Nothing to get excited about"? To me it's very exiting watching Discus spawn.

Congrats and good luck Tres Bien! Tres Bien! Tres Bien!

I'd be excited, too...I still get excited everytime my rams spawn, even though I know that if I don't remove them, they won't last past the free swimming stage.

Who knows? You might want to put a divider in at some point and let them have a real go at it...

Lisa, would they use a piece of slate if you put that in there?

That's very exciting, cturner. You should get a divider and one of those discus spawning cones and see what happens. whoot whoot

They might, but most discus breeders tend to use breeding cones or large clay pots turned upside down.

Well I was excited about it, don't get me wrong! I was watching off and on all day. But I knew that it probably wouldn't have amounted to anything. I know my water isn't set-up for them to be any good. Plus the Blue Diamond didn't really know what he was doing. I've heard that BD's mature slower and it takes them alittle more time.

Plus there is always plenty of time!

Your discus are beautiful! How exciting to have eggs! I've always thought of discus as very demanding fish to keep.

Here's an exciting update, since the egg laying incident I went to our local hardware store and bought a piece of eggcrate to separate the pair in the 90g. It's nice for the rummys, cardinals, rams, and corys have access to the entire tank while keeping the discus seperated and safe from any chases that might arise.

The problem was that I was 100% sure the silver pigeon was a female as she was the one laying the eggs, but I was not sure the sex of the Brilliant or the Blue Diamond but they were involved. idunno So I separated the BD and the SP for a day and got no reaction from either, so I assume both are females. So tonight I went to pull the eggcrate out and give up on the whole idea and in the process the SP shot through the eggcrate to be with the rest of the discus and the Brilliant shot over to be with the BD!!!! blinky I think we have made our first pair!!!! Bouncy Gimme an A! whoot whoot Unfortunately in the process of the Brilliant shooting over he scratched himself up pretty good so I added a dose of Melafix and I'll being doing a large water change tomorrow.

The Brilliant (male in question) and the Blue Diamond (female in question) are doing their mating dance and cleaning the filter tube so i'm hoping this amounts to wigglers!!!!! Jason is excited too and said that if we indeed do get little ones that we can get another tank for them!!!!!! wabawhat?? <---My exact response!!

Here's a couple of shots of the tank as I have it divided and a short video of the mating dance....

Well, it looks like your matchmaking attempts paid off, even if it didn't go the way you planned! Tres Bien!

Awesome, cturner. Gimme an A!

Now I'm going to have to ask this since it is such a big deal with Africans -- will the fry that result from this pairing be hybrids?

It matters not to me, but was just wondering.

Aura they're just considered mixes being that most of the different discus are man made breeds anyway. If you would do a search for wild discus pictures you can see that they are darker colors not the bright vibrant yellows and oranges that you see in tanks.

I have an update on what's been going on. The BD layed eggs last night on the filter tube. The Brilliant wasn't interested so she tried to get his attention many times. Every time she got his attention and brought him over to the filter tube he decided he would eat the eggs like they were scooby snacks! dumb dumb I hope they get it right soon! Gimme an A! <----Me cheering them on!

Good luck, Rena! Tres Bien!

They say that the quickest way to a man's heart is through his stomach,
so maybe she's on the right track after all! Giggly On the Floor Laughing