Ok, finally got my Pigeon Blood discus to lay eggs in the 55g community tank. So I carefully moved them over to a 25g previously cycled bare-bottom breeding tank. Many of the eggs have gone white but a third remain (the parents are 12 months old first-timers at this).

The parent discus have been jumpy after the tank change, and I'm afraid to vacuum the bottom of the tank (now filling with their detritus and uneaten food) without freaking them out (they are in low traffic area of house at shoulder height off of the floor). I also cleverly emptied the newly cycled tank and filled it with the old water of the larger community tank, so as to skip the discus being moved to be acclimated to the water of the new breeding tank.

Is it ok to just do 20% water changes leaving the bottom as is? I think that's the only other option, especially since they could injure or impale themselves on the driftwood they decided to lay their eggs on.

Your Discus have no place to hide (no rocks, no plants) so they will panic whenever they are disturbed. Try and walk near them frequently so they will get used to dusturbances. You need to get ride of any uneaten food as Discus don't like Nitrates generated by decomposing food. Try using some air tubing to vacume it out to reduce disturbance.

I took your advice and am using a long art wire (non-ferrus and therefore not rusting) to stiffen the airtubing line like a backbone so that I can vacuum out the debris without disturbing the pair. I lost their first clutch with only one survivor. The lone fry died since the parent fish didn't even know if the fry was around and the fry couldn't attach to the parents to get at the mucus coat. The male didn't get at most of the batch with his fertilizing, resulting in the massive loss.

They have since laid another clutch, and they are about to hatch sometime today. This second clutch are much better fertilized at about 70% of the original. They aren't as jumpy as I thought they would be with the water changes since the new clutch, but I'm not sure how I'm going to do water changes with free swimming fry. It would take forever to fish out all the debris with the narrow gauge air tubing.

I usually get all the big stuff with the airtubing, rub down the surfaces with a dedicated cloth for the tank/task, use the wider gauge garden hose to suck out the floating gunk getting to about a 30% to 50% water removal. Then refill as normal. If I have to watch out for the fry while using the wide gauge tubing, water changes will take forever. Grr. Any suggestions?

I used to breed angelfish successfully for two pairs I had going, so I know basically what to do, if I'm guided in the right direction.

I used to separate the clutch from the parent angelfish as soon as they were fertilized, but since discus fry should get the mucus sustenance from the parents, I can't do that. If I suck out the fry before my clean, I'm afraid I'll hurt the fry and damage the bond with the parent discus. If I use a bucket and look for the fry in the bucket, I'm still thinking I'm hurting the imprinting process for the fry to eat from the parents' mucus. Third choice is be very careful to leave fry as is.

All three seem slow. Any suggestions?

in the past what i have done with jumpy or overy agressive fish was wait till late evening, or turn out the lights and or cover the tank so the fish calm an rest. then uncover after a while an sucked the bottom or did what ever i had to do while they were still in "sleep mode" or jusy getting around..

Actually my breeding pair discus are pretty resilient, but they were the bullies, the top dogs, in the community tank. Now that the top dogs are gone, the ones who used to be bullied the most are freaking, two out of 5 in particular.

I experimented with having the lights off now too and moving the tank to a lower traffic area. This has helped, but they still freak for no reason. I can actually hear the thudding sound as the 12 month old juvenile is plowing into the tank walls. It just breaks my heart.

When I do a water change, pandemonium and jumping like frogs. I am very very worried. The water parameters are all normal (KH: 3* dH, GH: 4* dH, pH: 7.5, NH4+: nil, NO2-: nil, NO3-: 10 ppm, PO4:0.1 ppm).