ATKINSON

I am getting my discus this afternoon and am wondering what feed ing schedule I should do and what food. They are Juvies and will be in a barebottom tank for a while before I move them to my planted 75.
Will 3 meals a day be sufficient? What about discus pellets in the morning, blood worms in the afternoon and brine shrimp at night, is that too much meat in their diet? How many wc should I do. I am thinking maybe 30% daily, is that fine? Sorry for all the questions but I am new to discus keeping. Slug and other discus keepers, please help?

EDIT: In my LFS they sell extremely expensive discus pellets, flakes. Is there a substitute flake or pellet I could use for discus that is cheaper? If I have to get Discus flakes, I will. Just checking if there is a cheaper way.

fish_newbie

I feed mine 5 times a day. 9am frozen brineshrimp, 12pm frozen bloodworm, 3pm beefheart mix + water change, 6pm frozen mysis shrimp, frozen brineshrimp. It repeats in circle. All my frozen food are hikari, the beefheart is homemade. If you feed beefheart, make sure to do a water change about 15-30 minutes after they feed, or it going to wreck your water. The good thing about beefheart is that it has high % of protein and its cheap to make.

PS: You'll need more than 3 feeds a day for juvenile discus if you want them to grow to their potential. Once they're adult, you can minimize it to 3 feeds a day. Every feed is just a small feed, so their water stays pristine.

ATKINSON

Thanks, fish newbie. Your aquarium info doesnt say you have discus. Could you please update it so people can see that you own discus. Its quite a thing, almost like an achievement...lol. What strains of discus do you have? Any other comments welcome!!

Slug

If you have time, do more feedings. These can be like Fish said, smaller feedings and even just be flakes or pellets in an automatic feeder during the day. Tetra Color Bits or Color Granules as some call them seem to work well for an alternate pellet food. Flake wise, mine really arn't that picky, some are though.

Not sure if you have them or how much they cost there but a lot of people have had success with the Ocean Nutrition brand of flakes. Specifically the Prime Reef and Formula One. High Protein is good for these fish.

http://www.oceannutrition.com/produc...3.html&head=09
http://www.oceannutrition.com/produc...1.html&head=03

Beef heart is great, i love it it works for me. But it can be messy for a lot of people. It grows fish fast and big, but again....lots of WCs very soon after using it is needed. I usually feed flakes/pellets, bloodworms, and beefheart.

fish_newbie

Lol no worries atkinson. Actually, I just has them for 2 week. I got two 4.5" blue turq from my friend, and i bought another 2 turq + 2 red melon. A week later, things work out really well, they adapted well and started eating like pigs. So i got 2 blue diamonds and 1 pigeon blood. All good unti now I think, I just introduced homemade beefheart 2 days ago, they are still trying the new food, not really in to it yet. Post pictures of yours when you have it.

ATKINSON

Thanks Slug, Just got my Discus!!! They are 5cm in width. Just acclimatising them now. I could try 4 times a day. 7h00, 11h00, 14h00, 18h00. Followed by 30% wc.

ATKINSON

fish newbie: Post pictures of yours when you have it.

Will do, just acclimating them now will take photos tomorrow.

Slug

Nice Atkinson, congrats. What types did you get?

Fish whats in your homemade beefheart? Got a recipie or just experimenting? A lot of people have had success mixing some seafood (shrimp mainly) into the mix. Remember though the more you put in the more it breaks down in water. I personally use only garlic, some flake food and the beefheart. Sometimes spinach too. I am going to make some seafood mix someday though.

Also remember, don't use an automatic feeder unless you know they are eating that type of food. If you are not there and the feeder keeps working, but the fish don't eat....then its a lot of waste to foul the water.

ATKINSON

Not 100% sure but they might be red turqs. Here is a pic of a one like mine.

Attached Images

discus.jpg (62.2 KB, 58 views)

Slug

Looks like it may have some Leopard in it too. Good luck with them.

ATKINSON

Thanks, will do!

fish_newbie

Hey slug. I'm just started to make homemade beef hearts. A lot of the ingredients in famous recipes I can't find where i live, so I'm just experimenting with things. I just made my first batch of beef heart last week. I chop up a bit of beefheart ( without veins and membranes) + shrimps + 1 clove of garlic + a bit of high quality mysis shrimp flake. I've fed them 4 times until now, they kinda reject it at first but now getting around, eat it a lot more now . I find it much cheaper to create your own mix. A packet of hikari FBW is $6.50 around here while 1 whole beefheart is only $2 !!!

Oh and Atkinson, update us when you can , I'm still waiting to compare discus . I know that Slug's is better than mine

ATKINSON

LOL, sure thing, I saw the biggest one eat abit of betta flakes(small pellets) but no one tried the blood worms yet. Will get some other meaty foods soon to experiment with.

Slug

$2, wow you got it good. I can get beefheart already sliced, but with veins here for about $1-3/lb for a 3 or 4lb pack. Still very cheap compared to something like live worms or expensive bloodworms. Does your food seem to break apart easy in water making a cloud of stuff? I've heard geletin works for this but never tried it.

My discus loved getting Mosquito Larva in the summer too.

fish_newbie

My $2 beefheart is whole with all the membranes and veins on it. I have to go home chop it up and remove the things myself. My beefheart and all the ingredient is minced up to mouth size pieces and I put it in a small size ice cube tray (same size as Hikari FBW cubes). When i feed it, I chuck it into the feeding cone in the tank, it will just thaw and fish will come to eat without having it fly all over the place. I have neons swimming around picking up particle size pieces and have cory on the bottom to clean up partly. But I always do 30% waterchange after feeding. I haven't have cloudy water yet

ATKINSON

I saw both my discus eating a reasonable amount of bloodworms this morning. Yay!!

cerianthus

Put a couple of pan in the back yard and water (rain) for insect to spawn (natural and free)

Live Black Worm. cultured Tubifex is all ok.

Beefheaart is OK but be ready to do more water changes.

Can even feed small dry pellets of Duro flakes.

Its nice Discus!!

ATKINSON

Thanks, cerianthus. They seem to enjoy bloodworms alot. I like the mosquito idea. I already have a dirty tank with still water standing outside my flat.

Neji

ATKINSON

Congrats on getting some juvenile Discus Fishes you should feed them at night.

I'm pretty sure you can feed your Discus fish twice a day. The pet store I go to feeds theirs twice a day.

TedsTank

there is a good dicus food recipe at the Gwynbrook farms discus site. They use flake food to help bind it all together.