At a given moment a discus lover will feel the need to breed her/his fishes.

The first thing that is required is a good couple of course and as it is impossible to distinguish a male from a female it is best to put together a number between 15 and 18 discus fish in a tank and to observe them well.

If two fish keep an eye on each other they exclude themselves from the rest of the group. They also become more aggressive to the others fish. They keep swimming towards each other with diving movements and their head, tail and fins look almost black.

In a further state they start to polish objects (e.g. the leafs of a plant or the aquarium window etc.) or keep stationary before the object while they "shake" at regular intervals.

Then begins a sort of probe depositing; with the female the laying tube is already visible; she goes from bottom to top over the depositing spot, but no eggs are layed. This can go on for a day or longer. After the probe depositing they proceed to the real egg depositing. The female deposits the eggs in a string from bottom to top at her selected spot. After each turn she makes room for the male so that he can fertilize the eggs. After the deposition both parents guard the eggs. The eggs hatch after 2.5 to 3 days. The parents suck the larvae from the wrapping and place them somewhere else on the deposit substrate. Larvae that fall down are picked up by the parents and put back amongst their brothers and sisters. After another 3 days the larvae start to swim around. It is now important that they can find their way back to their parents who in the meantime have developed a sort of skin slime. For the first days it is their only food. They constantly graze in the area of the head, back and dorsal fin of their parents.

After 5 to 7 days we start to feed with Artemia. After 3 to 4 weeks it is recommended to separate the young from the parents. They now eat almost anything they can get in their mouths: cyclops, small water fleas and ground beef heart but also the very handy dry feed tablets. Feed the young fish several times a day with a variety of foods.