Discus diet

[spokanejared]

What do you guys feed your discus to keep them fat? I give mine freeze dried brine shrimp, freeze dried tubiflex, frozen bloodworms, and vibrant bites. I don't really want to go Beef heart route due to it fouling out the tank quickly. 

[jwcarlson]

Beef heart for growing, I don't think there's a better option when you couple it with daily water huge water changes.  Mine are grown now and I feed them freeze dried Australian black worms primarily.  They're expensive, but for one tank of discus it's not too bad.  Mine never liked tubifex, brine shrimp, and most pellets.  They do like Cobalt flakes and I feed that occasionally as well as Hikari frozen blood worms.

They do pick at pellets sometimes, but never consistently and never at an amount that feels like they're getting enough food.

Edited March 14 by jwcarlson

[spokanejared]

On 3/14/2024 at 11:01 AM, jwcarlson said:

Beef heart for growing, I don't think there's a better option when you couple it with daily water huge water changes.  Mine are grown now and I feed them freeze dried Australian black worms primarily.  They're expensive, but for one tank of discus it's not too bad.  Mine never liked tubifex, brine shrimp, and most pellets.  They do like Cobalt flakes and I feed that occasionally as well as Hikari frozen blood worms.

They do pick at pellets sometimes, but never consistently and never at an amount that feels like they're getting enough food.

Yeah I was expecting at least someone to say beefheart is the main way to go. I guess I'll be biting the bullet and soucong some good beef heart. I appreciate the help. Btw my discus are insanely addicted to tubiflex and bloodworms. I do one frozen cube of bloodworms twice a day and 2 tubiflex cubes twice a day and a pinch of vibrant bites once a day. They got pudgy bellies to prove it but I want to see more thickness in my fish. They are healthy but at 4 inches I'm not wondering if I shoupd be seeing a little thicker heads at their size yet or not.  What do you think based on the photos?

[jwcarlson]

They don't look unhealthy.  I wouldn't suggest beef heart as your setup will most likely just end up killing them because of the substrate and it is very messy.  When I was growing mine out it was 4-8 cubes of beef heart per day and 85% water change every night.  Can't tell much from the side.  The one of yours looks thinner than mine do, but I haven't fed them beefheart in a year probably.  

I'd just feed more of what they already like if I were you.  Or maybe more frequently if you can.

Have you wormed them?

 

Here's a frontal shot of a few of mine.  I think mine are healthy weight.  This was also awhile ago, but they don't seem any thinner to me now, other than the red melon which his some sort of chronic issue that he'll eventually die from.  It's been in a QT tank for a month.  Not sure what's going on there.

[spokanejared]

On 3/14/2024 at 12:48 PM, jwcarlson said:

They don't look unhealthy.  I wouldn't suggest beef heart as your setup will most likely just end up killing them because of the substrate and it is very messy.  When I was growing mine out it was 4-8 cubes of beef heart per day and 85% water change every night.  Can't tell much from the side.  The one of yours looks thinner than mine do, but I haven't fed them beefheart in a year probably.  

I'd just feed more of what they already like if I were you.  Or maybe more frequently if you can.

Have you wormed them?

 

Here's a frontal shot of a few of mine.  I think mine are healthy weight.  This was also awhile ago, but they don't seem any thinner to me now, other than the red melon which his some sort of chronic issue that he'll eventually die from.  It's been in a QT tank for a month.  Not sure what's going on there.

How big are yours? Mine are still pretty young. My best guess is around a year old. I haven't wormed them yet either... 

[anewbie]

 I feed my discus (10 5 inch); 2 cube of freeze dried black worms (one in the morning and 1 at night) with some other stuff with lots of green. In the wild discus like many cicihld eat mostly plant matters and so i try to limit the amoutn of fat and meat they get. They do go after the worms first and i worry they aren't eating enough green but all the food vanishes between feedings so i presume they are grazing during the day which is normal behavior.

[jwcarlson]

@spokanejared I've had mine for a bit more than two years.  I don't know how old they were when I got them, but I'm guessing 3 months or so at 2.5".  So overall they're probably 2.5 years or so.  The picture above is from December 2022.  So they'd have been about a year at that point.  They were roughly 5" at that point.  They're all 6"+ now except the sick one.  I haven't measured any in months though.  They might be 6.5" at this point.

If you bought them just at a local store, it's a total guess as to how old they actually were.  If they're spawning now, though, it's likely that they're way older than what they normally would have been at that size.  So maybe a little stunting.  But the fact that they're growing is a good sign.  I found that their growth was very much linked to the amount of food and the amount of water changes.  You could almost see them grow for the first several months even though it does slow down quite a bit eventually.  

[spokanejared]

On 3/14/2024 at 1:28 PM, jwcarlson said:

@spokanejared I've had mine for a bit more than two years.  I don't know how old they were when I got them, but I'm guessing 3 months or so at 2.5".  So overall they're probably 2.5 years or so.  The picture above is from December 2022.  So they'd have been about a year at that point.  They were roughly 5" at that point.  They're all 6"+ now except the sick one.  I haven't measured any in months though.  They might be 6.5" at this point.

If you bought them just at a local store, it's a total guess as to how old they actually were.  If they're spawning now, though, it's likely that they're way older than what they normally would have been at that size.  So maybe a little stunting.  But the fact that they're growing is a good sign.  I found that their growth was very much linked to the amount of food and the amount of water changes.  You could almost see them grow for the first several months even though it does slow down quite a bit eventually.  

Wow honestly I never even considered stunting. At what age are they supposed to be mature enough for breeding?