Red Melon Mom and Blue Diamond Dad

[Naomi Harel]

They have just spawned. Does anyone have any idea what the fry might look like? I know I will see for myself when they grow and color up, but I'm curious now :) I've done a few searches and not turned up any good info.

Thanks,
Naomi

[Tony Vaughan]

Hi Naomi,

Well Done on getting a spawn.......it means whatever your regime is it's working so keep it up
I'm not an expert on genetics but IMO depending how true your strain is will determine the results on the spawn. For example in theory your spawn should have 50% melon and 50% fry. But what can happen is that the parents genes contribute to a lower % rate of fry looking like the parents. So you might have 35% Melon, 35% BD's and 30% of what ever the parents are made up of.............e.g. maybe some browns or solids (both blue and brown) etc etc. Gene's can be dominant or recessive which changes the % rates so you could have more of red or more blue fry.

Keep us posted on how things turn out

Best Regards....................Tony

[Naomi Harel]

Hello Tony and thanks for your helpful reply. The good news is that there is a new batch of fries, now 3 weeks old and growing quickly. The sad news is that the ones that had just hatched when I wrote the last post disappeared within a week, there were problems with them finding the parents then being allowed to stay on the parents after finding them :(

After several more spawning attempts and many eggs getting eaten, the current group is now doing fine. There never were very many eggs in any of the spawns. With this batch I counted 14 that hatched and now there are 8 fry. This totally fits with what I've read about hormone use by certain breeders causing lower fertility in their discus, and the parents were purchased from an importer, not a local breeder. So there's very few fries but that's helping them get enough food to grow quickly. Some are starting to show red coloring on their fins. I'll be posting more updates since there is so little info available about what fries from this type of cross will look like.