My breeding cycle of my Discus

[MissClaire]

Every Tuesday my Discus will lay, and for a couple of days the mother and father will attend to these eggs, fanning and blowing jets of water and protecting them, but on the 2nd/3rd day the mother just starts tucking into them like a delicasy! And the poor dad comes back for his turn to babysit and they are gone!
Ive tried a water change afer she lays, but this only seems to disrupt her more. They seem to be well fertilised by the dad as well..
Any suggestions on how I can stop her treating her eggs like 'caviar'

 

[elgecko]

Young discus may do this for some time till they figure it out.

 

[MissClaire]

Oh well, I hope she will grow out of it!!!

 

[Tolak]

Are you turning off the light at night, leaving them in a dark room? Sometime leaving a bit of light on, sort of like a dusk effect will make them less nervous. If you can dim the tank lights during the day relying on room light only it will make the lighting a bit more consistent. Sort of like overcast skies during the day, & dusk at night.

Tolak

 

[Daveo]

If the little girl keeps doing this you might want to consider doing this. Butting some wiring in the tank so the discus wont feed on the eggs. but leave enough for the little discus to swim back and forth as they please. but consider this, if she does not stop eating the eggs then it would be better to get a discus that won't do that. This is because, if the discus does give eggs and then the male fertalizes them but then you notice that once again that the eggs are being eaten and you seperate the eggs from the mom. When those babys grow up its quite possible that they will eat all the eggs to, just like the mom. THis is because they have carried the genetic code of eating the eggs. So later down the road when many generations have past it is possible that the the discus will always eat there eggs. (interesting...........isn't it...)

Daveo

P.S: basically if she continues this then I would get another female, or two

 

[MissClaire]

Daveo- Well, I bought another "female" pearl piegeon....but Im starting to think it is male...as I presumed my dominant male would have been showing off, but he seems to just chase her/him away.
So I think I have three males to one female now! And I have no more room in my tank, so it doesnt matter if the eggs never hatch, but I really just wanted the 'experience' of fry because it is something Ive never had in this hobby (and once they grow up give them to my LFS or someone I guess!)
So I suppose it's not such a bad thing that she eats them....Thats so interesting that it is a genetic thing for eating eggs! Like mother like daughter

Tolak - As for my lights, my plants are actually dieing at the moment because of lack of light so I will be keeping them all on for alot longer, and maybe a dusky one on at night