To succeed in breeding discus fish you have to possess a qualitative couple to start with. You should buy a couple of young examples to start a better way of forming couples. For example; if you want to start with a group of eight discus fish, you should purchase them from eight different suppliers to prevent in-breeding. With purchase the fish have to be observed thoroughly, and the following things should be watched:


The fish have to be healthy and in a good condition

You can notice a bad condition from the "knife back", dark colored, retracted and hung in a corner. The faeces should be of normal quality. Slimy or white faeces can suggest illness or worms.

The fish should be of good proportion (shape).
A discus should be round and the length should be equal to the height. The size of the eye has to be in the right proportion to the body. Small species with a big eye have suffered growing-arrears.

The fish should be undamaged.
The fins should be complete (damages caused by biting of company could be tolerated). You should lookout for occurrences of holes in the fins. This could suggest the presence of worms.


After the purchase of the fish, they should be housed in a spacious aquarium. The raising should be just and proper. (view caring).

Some fish will seclude and form couples after a while. If we are sure that some fish aren't joining the rituals, we should remove these to create enough possibility, for the remaining couples, to form territory.

Now it is about time to transfer the fish into a separate hatch tank (approx. 100-liter). These tanks should be as bare as possible, for hygienic reasons. You should place a simple filtering system in these tanks (could be internal or external), and a deposit cone. These cones are made of earthenware and are favorite deposit place for the discus.


If we have a couple at our disposal, they will in course of time clean a place on the deposit cone. The deposition will start. The female places her tube over the cleaned place and deposits a string of eggs. After this the male swims over this string and impregnates the eggs. Mostly this deposit takes place in evening hours, you should place a nightlight to light up the tank.


Most couples eat the first eggs from the first nests. If the eggs are not properly impregnated they could get mouldy. The parents have to learn to become suitable to raise young fish. This process is self-taught and first nests can easily go wrong. I had a couple that used twelve times to raise the first young fish to a fully-grown state. After learning this trick, nests of 100 to 150 young fish were normal.

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