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I try to provide a nourishing and varied diet to my discus.
I feed them my
own discus food mixes, frozen adult artemia (nutrient enriched),
frozen black mosquito larvae, frozen white mosquito larvae,
frozen daphnia, fresh chopped earthworms and different types
of dry foods, mainly Tetra Discus Bits and Aquatic Nature Discus Excel Granules,
but also a few other flake, pelleted and granulated foods.
Compared to "ordinary" aquarium fish species, discus need more protein in
their diet to grow well. Because they also should be kept in a higher
temperature their metabolism is also extra high. You should feed them
more often than normal aquarium fishes, especially when they are
young. It is good to have as a rule of thumb to try to make sure that the
discus always have their bellies filled with food during daytime.
Also make sure that the discus get enough fibre so that they don't
get constipated.
When you feed a lot it also means a lot of shit and waste
substances in the aquarium. Because discus are sensitive to this
you should also make water changes often, and during the water
changes you should also vacuum out the shit and any food leftovers
that there may be (but you should try to not feed too much at each
feeding, then there won't be any food leftovers). One other way of
getting rid of food leftovers is to have, for example, Corydoras or
Bristlenose Catfishes in the discus aquarium that eat the food
leftovers on the bottom of the aquarium.
Some foods that I DON'T recommend for discus are:
- Aquatic worms, for example tubifex or blackworms.
These usually live in dirty waters and can contain parasites,
heavy metals, toxins and so on, that can be harmful to the discus.
This also applies to the frozen and freeze dried types. The aquatic
worms usually also have a very high fat content. But if you have a
100% contagious free source I can't deny that they could be a good
treat for the discus.
- Bloodworms, also known as red mosquito larvae. Even though discus
usually love to eat bloodworms thay are not so nourishing. They can
also contain parasites and heavy metals, etc. (Hikari's triple
sterilized bloodworms are the only ones that are said to be "safe"
regarding parasites). The exoskeleton of the bloodworms can also get
stuck in the intestines of small discus. Personally I also have
another reason not to feed my discus bloodworms since I'm allergic
to bloodworms. If I get in physical contact with them I get rashes
and a horrible itching for several hours, and if I happen to have
been in contact with bloodworms on my hands and then rub my eyes it
hurts like #"@$¤* for several hours and I can hardly see anything
during that time. In my opinion the only time when you should feed
bloodworms is if the discus won't eat anything else you give them,
and then you should try to wean them off the bloodworms.
Discus (especially older individuals) can be hard to convince to
eat new types of food that they are not used to, because they seem
to prefer to stick to what they are used to and don't like to try
something new. I have some different tricks to make the discus eat
new foods without starving them as some people do.
- Feed small amounts of the new food as the first meal of the day
every morning until they accept it. In the morning (after they have
been given time to wake up) they are most hungry since they haven't
eaten anything for the whole night. (Give them the foods that they
are used to later in the day and in the evening.)
- If the new food sinks, give some of a food that they already
accept, that also sinks to the bottom, so that the discus pick at the
bottom and that way also discover and try the new food. The same goes
for floating foods, then you feed a floating food that they already
accept, that also floats. The same thing goes for foods that circle
around in the water, move, have a specific colour, size, etc. Just
try to feed them the new food together with some similar food that
they already know.
- If they are used to a type of food mix you can mix some of the new
food into some of the food mix. When the discus eat the mix that also
contains the new food, they more easily learn to accept the taste of
it.
- The younger the discus are, the easier it is to get them to accept
new foods. That is, if you buy discus, it's an advantage if they have
been fed a varied diet with several types of foods, because then they
are already accustomed to these types of foods and also variation.
Please let me know what YOU feed your discus!
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