discus love blackworms, but will not touch anything else

Fishfiles1

Fishfiles1

AC Members
Mar 3, 2008
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Lansing Michigan/Mesick Michigan
Real Name
Ben
so i have had my discus for about 6 months now, 4 of them in a 55 gallon, they all around 3-4 inches, but i have noticed that they will not touch anything but live blackworms, every kind of frozen food gets spit back out. i have tried raising the them to 89 F and not feeding them for a week, i have tried crushing the blackworms, and the bloodworms to make a mix, i have tried to feed nothing but blood worms for a full week. they will not touch anything but black worms. in your experience, how did you get your discus to eat other foods. i feed the black worms from a tube with a syringe now they see my hand in the water, they know its feeding time. im running out of blackworms, and i love my discus, i am afraid that if i cant get them to eat other foods, they will die. i have had plenty kinds of fish, rare and not rare, hard to keep to the easy, but these discus are really working my mind, its like they dont eat anything else because they know it makes me mad. any one with incite please help.
 
wow i have stumped the people of aquariacentral for the first time
 
It sounds like you've tried the common techniques. Will they take other live foods? Live brine, perhaps? Have you tried repashy? It drives all my fish crazy, so might work...There are different formulations for different fish.
 
i did try live brine shrimp, i only could get the baby brine shrimp, so perhaps that is why they did not eat it. I have not tryed the other
 
You could try a couple of other things:
1.- Mix in some other food, e.g. bloodworms, shrimp, even flakes, with the blackworms for a couple of days to see if they will try some of the other food while they're going for the blackworms.
2.- Mix in some very finely chopped or crushed fresh garlic in with flakes, pellets, or other foods - discus generally will be enticed by the flavor & aroma of the garlic.

Or, if you can't find frozen adult brine shrimp, or frozen mysis shrimp, you could try finely chopped pieces of fresh raw shrimp or prawns (the human food type). My discus also really go for Tetra Color Tropical Granules, TetraMin Tropical Crisps, and Discus Bio-Gold Pellets. They'll even munch on Algae Wafers that sink to the bottom. Observe carefully as they graze following a feeding to see if they try anything else. Just do a little at a time to see if they do try it.
Have you tried beefheart - a home-made mix, or store-bought frozen cubes of beefheart mix ?
 
i have tried mysis shrimp, beef heart, and beef heart + store bought, i have tryed ground venison, and venison heart. thank you for your ideas discuspaul, i will try some of the above, i hope they start eating, i will post pics soon too
 
:cool: If all they know is one thing, it'll be somewhat of a challenge to break but it can be done. 7 day fast might not be enough. Try soaking a few flakes or freezedried worms in 'GarlicGuard'. If they refuse, remove as much as u can & wait another couple a days. Keep the temp up & do your regular water changes. They will surrender if you don't cave.
This is reprint ......
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"
 
Add a discus or two that has not yet been spoiled on your diet. When your discus see these fish eating other foods, they will get the idea.
 
^ that is exactly what i did, ^^ and i did that also, but instead of fasting for a week i fasted for 3 days, then i added 1 new discus that is the same size, and he did eat the blood worms, i tried feeding them the blood worms 4 times a day for 3 days and on the fourth day every fish was eating blood worms, i will continue to feed the blood worms for a week or two at that point i will see if i cant get them to eat mysis shrimp and brine shrimp, beef heart to venison

Thank you every one for your help and incite, once again Aquaria Central, you have helped me greatly

Ben
 
I had the same problem not long ago. I purchased a full sized set of Breeder Discus around 7" plus. In short, the previous owner from very young discus only fed them one thing - beef heart and I couldn't get them to try anything else. I tried live black worms, live tubiflex, live brine shrimp, frozen mini mysis, dry color enhancing pellets by Tetra and so on. It took a month of training but what I had to do is everytime I fed some beefheart blend I had to purchase from the original owner since he made his own (I noticed garlic in the blend) I would also include a little of other foods which often went uneaten but atleast they were nibbling. I had to do many frequent water changes because of the waste but when I really noticed a difference was when I included 5 more discus to the same tank (discus that ate many other things). When I fed them, the others would devour the other foods and it seemed to make the pair which didn't want to try it before start eating out of competition. I slowed down on the beef heart over a two week period and they all competed for "anything" included in the tank.

Now they all eat anything put in the tank and I make it a practice to mix it up daily in what I give them. I'm sure I have healthier fish for it as well.

Hope that helps

Mike
 
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