Discus require a higher temperature than most tropical fish, about 28 degrees Celcius. If your pair of Discus raise their own young, great! If they still eat them after several layings, then the following may help you to raise them artificially. (The fry normally graze the slime of the parents for the first few days).

After the eggs have been laid for a few hours, remove them to a tank with the same water and temperature. Place an airstone near them to circulate the water. Add a multicure such as methylene blue. Raise the temperature to 30 degrees Celcius. When the fry are free swimming, the hard part begins. Mix together some powdered egg yolk, gelatine, agar-agar, and Metamucil. Place the fry in a shallow dish, no airstone while feeding, and smear a small amount of the mixture to the side of the container. Feed four times a day. It may be necessary to add an antibiotic (such as 250mg penicillin per 20 litres of water). After 5 or so days, begin feeding brine shrimp in a larger tank. Nowadays you can buy very small brine shrimp eggs that they use in breeding marine fish. If you and they survive the first fortnight, you are well on your way. Good luck!

Mexican Walking Fish (Also known as Axolotyls) usually breed during winter. Sometimes we add ice to the aquarium to stimulate them. The eggs are encased in a jelly, rather like frogs' eggs. To come into breeding condition, the parents have been fed a variety of food such as earth worms, raw steak cut into long thin strips, and strips of fish fillets.

Ancistrus Catfish (or Bristlenose) prefer to lay their eggs inside a clay pot. The eggs are stuck together in a clump. The male cares for the eggs,circulating the water over them.

When ready to lay, the female cleans several places on the side of the glass of the aquarium. She settles on the bottom of the aquarium and lays several eggs. The male fertilizes them, then the female picks them up with her ventral fins, swims to the cleaned glass and gently presses the eggs to the glass where they stick.

Goldfish lay adhesive eggs and scatter them. They stick to whatever they touch. If they lay in plants, we remove them to hatch in a separate aquarium as the parents eat the eggs as soon as they finish laying. I often use coconut fibre as in the next photo.

Mystery Snails lay their eggs above the water level. Eggs are extruded one by one and joined by a sticky mass until a clump have been laid.

To hatch the eggs, I remove them and place them on a board supported by a couple of pieces of coolite. This allows sufficient moisture to keep them damp but not wet. The black parts are the ones that have already hatched, the grey are ready to hatch, the pink still have a few days to go.

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