Spoiled Discus

crows4hire

crows4hire

AC Members
Feb 11, 2008
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Houston, TX
My three discus have posed a problem. Since they joined my happy home, they have refused to eat anything but frozen blood worms and frozen brine shrimp. I have tried them on Shrimp bits, enticed them with freeze dried tubifex, cajoled them with Omega One First flake... they turn up their noses at all of these and then go and sulk. I need them to get something resembling a balanced diet. Can anyone suggest a means to get them to eat something besides there favorites? I tried them on a two day fast to rid them of some of their food snobbery, but they didn't waiver for even a second!
 
How often did you feed them bloodworms and brine shrimps? Feed them those only once a week and try the others by lacing garlic on them.
 
There are a few tricks try mixing a small amount of flake food with the blood worms if that works decrees the amount of worms till they eat the flake by itself.

other wise it sounds cruel but if they are adults as they should be if they are eating blood worms. Your fish can go up to seven days without eating feed a little flake each day and only flake till they eat it readily .

then wait a month or 2 then as a treat you can give them some blood worms.

Tough Love is the only way to handle them
 
Thanks for the replies.
Wow... seven days? I have purposefully gone as far as 4, but never that long... Biologically, I know they can survive, but is that healthy for them?
 
I have gotten most of my discus accepting flakes, though it is not the staple of their diet. What I ended up doing is a bit of a mixture of the two ideas above. I'd mix just a little bit of flakes into their bloodworms as they thawed, and let them sit for about 15 minutes or so. (figuring that it might absorb some flavor/scent, and that the discus might not reject the texture as much if it seemed more familiar) I also tried skipping a day of feeding every few days, which lasted a total of about two weeks. (probably missed 4 feedings or so... I felt so guilty not feeding them that I gave in before I could get to 2 days) Nowadays, when I'm getting ready to feed them, I'll put a dash of flakes in the tank and let the harlequins/cardinals go for some, and the discus will pick off some pieces too. Then, I'll give them a mix of frozen foods (varies from week to week, but includes blood worms, brine shrimp, plankton, beef heart, and krill) and watch them really go for it. The cories are gettin nice and fat from all the meaty foods they've been getting of late, and the cardinals are getting gutsy enough to dart in, steal a bloodworm, and dart back out. Good luck to you bud, with a few weeks time, hopefully they will be accepting flakes as well as the regular foods they enjoy. :D
 
I simply mixed flake with thawed frozen bloodworms..if they get in a frenzy they will eat it when it gets in front of them

I've had sick(parasites) angels and discus go weeks without eating. it's the juveniles that struggle without food for too long.
 
Same here, mix flakes with worms.
 
Try Omega flakes.No additives.Surprized my fish real went for them.

Search beefheart recpies.Beefheart is cheap but tricky to find.A store that carries a good amount of discus may have some pre-mixed recipe for sale at a good price.

recipe is like/
2lbs beefheart-after you clean the fat and gristle and grind it up you got about a pound.
1lbs raw shirmp-grind like paste.
(I used fresh salmon also)
Take a third of this put it in a pot.Add a packet of Knox gelitin.Add whatever you want.Heat it mix it spoon it into a 6x6 inch baggie spread you`ll get about 1/4 inch thick.and freeze.You have three different recipes.

I mixed 7 recipes including 3 types of high quality discus pelets,spinach,paprika,peas.carrots,omega flakes,wheat germ,garlic,apples,pears, spirlina flakes and one a day multi vitamins(maybe other things).
I take it out of the freezer and shread it up with a knife.Tanks are bare bottom and it all gets eaten no matter how much I put in or whatever recipe I put in.
 
Thanks for all the good advice... We are trying the tough love solution at the moment... I'll let you know how it goes... they look so hungry! :(
 
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