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From the earlier post you may have guessed why I have not blogged for a long time on Discus. what has happened to my collection? Frankly it has shrunk to a manageable size of 10 tanks. Beside concentrating on keeping songbirds, the current water source is becoming even more challenging then keeping discus itself. The chlorine and chloramine levels have increased. the trace elements are lesser. the PH has gone up to 7.8.
In the past, say 5 years back, I did not have to you use anti-chlorine to condition the water after water change. But now, the discus parish within 3 hours if I forget to add the water conditioner which I have guilt fully done on several occasions and lost quite a sizable number of young and adult discus. It really gives you an heartache when you see the floating bodies of dead discus. In the past, discus can grow to 2 inch size in 2 months but now takes 3 months. Everything else being constant, you have to put your finger on the 'New Water'. Although, it has become a little more tough keeping discus here, I am sure our fellow hobbyist all around the world would still envy our good fortunes.
Another of my disappointment was the breeding or non of it. My pairs were breeding occasionally but most of the time the eggs turned white or the pair ate the eggs up. Further, my F1 Blue Albinos were not breeding though they had reached breeding age. Slowly I started selling of my collection keeping the minimum number of adults to kick start my breeding once I solve the teething problems
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After going back to basics, adding (MB)methylene Blue, I managed to get out two small batches of fries from two pairs. One being the white scorpion x blue pigeon and the other the F1 Blue Paradise. I had stopped using MB for more than 7 years as I opt to keep the breeding tanks clean. But now the MB has helped to prevent all eggs turning white. However, the hatching rate is poor as there is still a large number of eggs that turned white despite adding MB. It can only mean that the males are not up to the mark. I would need to look into the diet so as to improve the hatching percentage but on the other hand , a smaller batch is easier to care .
I hope to get some nice white butterflies from the whitescorpion x blue pigeon crossing. For the blue paradise, hope to see some goldens and off course nicer blue paradise.
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