Pictures of discus in our planted tank

Beautiful fish and tank!
 
manitu710 said:
don't want to cloud you're joy

here but some of you're discus look to skinny

not really healthy

and think its little overstocked too

what do you feed you're discus and how often ?

regards

gerald
Click to expand...

Hi Gerald,

Thanks for your concern. I do have a few of them who are skinny and I've been trying to fix that. I feed 1 or 2 times a day with a mix of blood worms, brine & mysis shrimp (thawed and rinsed blood worm cubes, and 50/50 plus cubes) Then I supplement with beef heart 1 or 2 times a week. I also feed sinking algae wafers, sinking carnivore pellets, and thawed market shrimp for the plecos, which the discus get into as well. A few times a week I also serve blanched zucchini for the plecos, which the discus eat too.

Let me know what you think on the feeding regiment. I suspected that those where are skinny may be dealing with a parasite problem. I have not seen any outward signs of hexamita such as the stringy white poo. But, to be safe I recently used Gel-tek Ultra Cure PX to soak their food. If you aren't familiar with this product, it contains metronidozole, flubenol, and prazipro (I'm not 100% on the spellings) in a liquid/gel format. It is designed to be fed directly as little droplets suspended in the water, but the fish weren't too fond of that. So, I decided to soak instead. The metro should help with any hex, the prazi with flukes, and the flubenol with worms. Since I would suspect that their wasting is coming from a gut issue. They are all still eating, but some are still skinny... so I'm not sure if it will take time to bulk up, or if I still have a problem. You insights would be appreciated.

Is your concern about overcrowding based on bio load issues or territories?

As far as the overcrowding... All testable water parameters are fine. IE, they aren't overcrowded as far as the biological filtration is concerned. I have 0 ppm ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate. In fact, I may even start adding small amounts of nitrate back in as part of a fertilizer plan. (I'm reading up on PMDD)

Territory may be another issue. They generally get along until one of the two pairs in the tank are spawning. That gets a little hectic when they try to push all the fish to the other side of the tank. Two pairs spawning at the same time was really getting interesting. I am currently growing up some apongeton ulvaceous (once again sp? {too lazy to look it up}) which grows all the way to the top to divide up the tank into more territories.

With regards to stocking, I tried to find a balance based on the personalities of the fish. Being that the bio load is taken care of, I would assume any overstock problems come from territory issues. Most of the discus that I have prefer to school together anyway... but there always seems to be a dominant one in the tank. Even when I only had 6 discus in the tank, one was always trying to clear out the upper water of the tank for herself which put stress on the other fish. I moved the more agressive fish to another tank and stocked based on personality. Currently there are 17 discus which makes for ~5 gallons of water per fish.

What signs do you look for with respect to overcrowding? I would assume one sign that I am overcrowded would be the skinny fish. Overcrowding could lead to stress, which in turn makes the fish more vulnerable to disease. Of course, it is possible to have sick fish, especially discus, even in a lightly stocked tank. So, I would like to know what other symptoms there are of being overcrowded.

Your feedback, and of course any feedback from others on my logic and methodology would be greatly appreciated. After all, it's all about taking the best care of the fish. I just try to do my best given what I have learned so far. And I know that there is a lot more to learn.

-Eric
 
Hi Eric

wow what a reply !
about feeding: discus need a lot of feeds during the day
do you make youre own food ?
i feed mine arround 10 times a day ranging from homemade beefheart to flake
to tetra Prima especial juvies or sub adults you can find many receipes online
i use raw shrimps earthworms and ad spinach and vitamins
also ilnes can be an issue for discus to become skinny
from my experience gill flukes if not treated can make the fish stop eating
also dominant fish can stop weaker fish from eating

i do think that youre tank is overcrowded as the general rule is 10 gallon per discus

hope this helps

but why not be a member on a specified discus forum like simply discus?

regards

gerald
 
beutiful discus... but i love the pleco! :)
 
some intresting commets about discus Fish Colud u tell me how u feed live food Please Thanks Barry
 
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