Discus growth ideas

[NeonFlux]

What can I do to get a pigeon blood discus from 2 inches to 3 to 4 inches quickly? It's kinda disappointing to see it can't eat hikari discus food whole.... :confused:

[pinkertd]

5-6 feedings a day of bloodworms and beefheart might help. Beefheart is a very messy food but some people slam-feed their discus to get fast growth. And lots of water changes, that helps too.

[Star_Rider]

I second that.. lots of food over the course of the day and lots of water changes...
daily in this case.

clean water lots of food should do the trick.

what are you trying as food?

[NeonFlux]

Hikari discus food :)

[RedScare]

Lots of beef heart and lots of water changes. Do not worry about over feeding;worry about under cleaning.

[NeonFlux]

What do you do to get them eating beef heart? I never actually tried yet. Will they just fly and eatem or will that graze and be like... "wth is this?! I like hikari discus sinking pellets!"

[RedScare]

I grind up my beef heart with spirilina flakes, color flakes, and garlic. You could try starving them or just mix the beef heart with the hikari till they are only eating beef heart.

Usually once a fish gets a taste of beef heart they will always prefer it.

[FishyMatty]

first of all there is no way to be sure that your fish will even grow quickly. I have 10 discus that all were from the same spawn that I got when they were 1" almost a year later I have one that is about 4.5" and one that is no bigger then 2.5" some fish just never get big.
second if you are going to try to feed them 4-5-6 times a day they better be in a bare bottom tank, and you need to keep up with the wc.
and third if you do feed them that often you may need to keep the water dosed with epsom salts to prevent constipation and bloating.
Its really just better to feed them 2-3 times a day keep there water clean and let them grow at their own rate.

[Star_Rider]

it's true..the discus have individual traits..but the growth rate is note soley determined by this.

if you have several discus you may find some are more dominant and will get to the food faster and eat faster..this inturn rduces the available food to the less dominant fish in the ladder.
these will get less food and will usuallly be slower at growth.

but you do need to get your fish to eat.
try beefheart, mine don;t particulalry care for it, try frozen -thawed bloodworms. brine shrimp etc.. mix your hikari(mine don't like that either) with the bloodworms..the fish wil eventually associate the flake with the bloodworms and you can then cut back on the bloodworms.

[yourchoice]

Grind up the beefheart and shirmp good mix in crushed Hikari pellets add Knox gel to bind and they will eat it.Might work with ground up shirmp add crushed pellet then freeze it.

[Barbie]

Free feeding live blackworms is the fastest way, but it definitely requires some attention to water parameters and frequent changes!

Barbie

[Inka4040]

Hmmm... A discussion on discus growth and no mention of temperature? Crank the heat up to 84-86 first off, then feed your fish a good mix of high protein foods. Frozen bloodworms and mysis are great, as are freeze dried krill and plankton. Rotate that out with a good staple food, and change the water as often as you possibly can. Many recommend doing large daily water changes, but how feasible is that for normal people? Try for two big water changes a week, and your fish will reward you with good growth.