After all eggs are laid (discus stops swimming in vertical direction), I usually put a stainless wire cage to protect the eggs. This is to prevent both parents from consuming their eggs. Add Methylene Blue to prevent eggs from being damaged by fungus. This is what I call the 1st day..
Helping the pairs manage the fry
Usually at day 3 the eggs will start hatching, but the fry will stay attach to the cone. At day 6 or 7, the fry will start to detach themselves from the cone and swim freely. This is the period where we should help parents in gathering all fry, so you can get a complete-full batch, by reducing water level to only 25cms or lowest at the above discus upper fins. During this period, you will see that the parents can gather all their kids and the tiny discus fry will start to consume slime from their parents body.
Managing the fry
After day 4 (which means 11 days after 1st egg is laid), where all fry can freely swim, you start to add food. At this stage, I feed them with 1st hatch of brineshrimp or artemia naupli. (4 times a day). If everything goes fine, by day 7 (14-15 days after 1st egg is laid) you can start separating all the fry and put them into a different tank, which this marks the start of the raising process.
Feeding
Fry at day 7 (14-15 days after 1st egg is laid) up to 1 month of age, feed them with artemia or brineshrimp (8 times per day).
When the fry is between 1 month to 1.5 month, feed with artemia (4 times per day) and you can make your own discus burger.
When the fry are above 1.5 month, you can feed discus burger or frozen blood worms (3-4 times per day) and you should have successfully spawned and raised large amounts of fry.
