Feeding Discus

[Reframer]

Well, I took the plunge and got a couple discus about a month ago. I have 2 more coming on Friday and there will be the four of them with a pair of pearl gourami and some nerites in my 80g. I have a Bambini Rossi (like a red melon I guess, he's in my avatar) that's 5.5" and a RSG that's 4.5". I do daily wc with gravel vac about 20% or more.
Feeding them has been quite an adventure. The first few weeks they would only eat spirulina BS and BW. I dosed them with metro to rule out worms and tried training them to eat other foods, but they would refuse to eat for days.
Eventually, what I found that worked is to pull out all of the substrate. I had a thin layer of river rock in there. Now that it's out, I can put in pretty much any frozen foods and they wait until it hits the bottom then take their sweet time eating. They don't take flakes yet so I add liquid vitamins to their food. They are such Divas! I hate having a BB tank, but if that's what it takes to make them eat then fine.
Anyhow, I was wondering why the larger one does a little shimmy when he sees the food coming. He never nips or lip locks with the smaller one, and he let's the smaller one eat. Is it some kind of dominance show or excitement about the food?

 

[Star_Rider]

It may take time to move the discus to other foods. I've always gotten small ones and raised them in grow outs.. the smaller discus are more easy to move to other foods.. that said they can be just as difficult.

Many breeders make up their own foods and often the discus have gotten use to these high quality fish foods.

your discus in your avatar looks to be one of those higher quality discus, judging by it's size, shape and eye proportion.

these same discus are often grown out and kept in bare bottom tanks where forage is much easier to find.
as you have probably noticed Discus ate grazers..they tend to search for food all day long and search thru detritus...this is one reason they tend to be higher maintenance fish..they are generally healthier when the tank bottom is clean
the shimmy you see may be a result of dominance..I'm curious. generally they are kept in species only tanks and water temp is usually in the 80's f I keep my adults btwn 82-84 f. most other species don't do as well at those temps.
also they are more comfortable in a group(unless it's a breeding pair)
for now keep feeding flake, pellets and frozen.. try mixing the pellets with the frozen ..it's how I taught mine to move to pellets(I use tetra color bits)
there are others including NLS

 

[ktrom13]

The discus im looking after had a hard time adjusting to new foods as well. They used to get a real high quality DIY food but they are starting to take to other foods such as flakes, pellets( sinking and bottom feeder pellets... For them to graze i guess), and sometimes algae wafers. They are difficult but keep it up and youll be paid off in vibrant and healthy discus

Sent from my SGH-T989 using MonsterAquariaNetwork App

 

[fishorama]

I think the shimmy is just feeding excitement, mine liked to beg ALL the time? The discus I raised learned to hand feed within a day or 2 & never really liked pellets or anything that had to soften up at all, until they didn't get anything else for 15 minutes, lol. They would eat whatever I held for them, even peas. They were quite spoiled, I made both seafood & beefheart mix for them, along with flake, various pellets & frozen foods...6 times a day at first but later "only" 3 or 4.

Mine never showed any signs of breeding interest (only in food & me... or any person, the food providers, lol) until I sold them to a friend before I moved. They paired up almost immediately for him.

You could try hand feeding like I did, first with bloodworms & other favorites... but yours are much older. When you approach the tank are they nervous & try to move away or do they rush up to greet you & beg?

 

[Star_Rider]

Mine shimmy but there appears to be pairs forming up in my tank.. I'm getting a 29 ready in the event they do form up..so far it looks like a pair of VR(virgin Red)

 

[Fishfiles1]

what i did was use a 1oz syringe with about 8" of air line tubing on it, fill with blood worms or what over they will eat, then train them to eat off the tube, soon they will learn that the tube means food, then there is no mess. to get them to eat new foods, what i would do is mix small amounts in a cup with the food they will eat, then do the above, i would add more and more of the new food each day until it was just the new. it takes time and more time, but hey your keeping discus you have the time right. good luck

 

[Reframer]

A quick update:
The bigger one now does the shimmy a lot (even when there is no food) to the younger one who just seems to ignore it.

The younger one now is back to eating only BW and brine shrimp. I will be getting a package of kusuri wormer plus (flubendazole) tomorrow so I thought I would try that. I tried increasing the temp to 86, but didn't seem to make any difference in terms of appetite.
Meanwhile, the larger one eats about 5 kinds of frozen food, but no flake yet. I ordered some New Life Spectrum discus pellets, as they seem to have very good reviews from what I've read.
Although buying larger discus has many advantages, the one down side is that I don't think they are as flexible to train on new foods. They are a bit stuck in their ways I think compared to younger discus. I purchased mine from Na discus, I believe they only fed live foods and beefheart there.

Good luck with your potential pair Star Rider!

 

[tonytheboss1]

80g is a great size. Try 5 or 6 if you can. The group dynamic gives them comfort for they are shoaling fish by nature. Adults can get set in their ways a bit but you can adjust the menu. It will take time & patience. Not real sure about the tankmates but 86/87 is a good temp. to peak the appetite of Discus. Normally my temp is 84. I started w/ juvies so it was a little easier but it still took time for them to adjust to a varied diet. Mine is a bit much.....

(from prev. post)

You'll need a bit more than just that. There are a number of different things you can choose to diversify your discus' diet. Mine is a bit extreme (OCD) but the choices are many. Food varies every couple a days - live blackworms, Hans frozen beef mix, San Fran Bay Frozen Bloodworms, Mysis Shrimp, Ocean Nutrition Discus Flakes, Als Austrailian freeze dried blackworms, O.S.I. Spirulina Flakes, NLS Discus Formula pellets & Dainichi Cichlid - Color FX + Vita-Chem once a week. "T"

They like to take their sweet time grazing & picking & sometimes other fish interfere w/ that process. The 'shimmy' thing is more a dominance/territory display. Nothing to be concerned about. There will be squabbles as pecking order is established again normal. The quicker you get that group together the better they will be. Goodluck. "T"

 

[fishorama]

White worms are an easy live food IME, you might want to give them a try, they like cooler temps, ie northern basements. Also, depending on their size, there may be some differences in maturation times. Seems to me females (in cichlids generally, IME) are "ready" at a smaller, younger age...but since yours were older to begin with, it may be harder to tell M from F but boys are most often the first "headshakers", "hey baby, c'mere", lol, & maybe a bit aggressive to other males (ventral fins held wide & charge!). Females are often more interested in food than breeding... until they're ready, then, beware indifferent, immature males!

 

[Mark Allred]

A home made beefheart/ green shrimp/ spinach/ etc/etc mix is good.
Avoid too much flake, or you can end up with fish with HITH.