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Hey...
i just bought 4 baby discus.. about 4-6cm
i was just wondering if it was normal if they didn't eat the 1st couple of days and they r always hiding.
i've bought them for 2 days now
once more thing... is beef heart and ox heart the same?
because ox heart is the only thing i can find in super markets and i heard it's good for discus...

Hi,

First things first. I am going to assume that the tank is cycled correctly as you seem to have posted here quite a few times.
A couple of questions:
What is the setup of your tank? (Size, temperature, decor, ph etc)
What were the discus eating at the place you bought them from?

Discus generally do better in groups of 5 or more depending on the size of your tank. I know this seems a bit strange but I can personally attest to this fact. A group of 4 discus will do nowhere near as well as a group of 5 or more.

Yes, beef and ox heart are the same thing. Just make sure that you trim all the fat off the heart.

HTH
Good luck

I do remember my discus not eating for a short time after I bought them, but I don't think it was more than a couple days. Have you tried offering different types of food? I know a couple of my discus like flakes and others seem to go for the spectrum discus pellets, maybe try offering something new and asking what they were being fed before you got them. As far as hiding it will take some time for them to get used to the tank and to you. After a while I got them eating bloodworms out of my hand. They do respond well with other smaller schooling fish in the tank, afer I added a school of tetra's they came out alot more. Another thing to consider is whether there is enough cover in the tank to make them feel like they have a place to hide. When there is alot of hiding places in the tank they will become bolder, knowing safety is only a dash away. As far as the ox heart, I have no idea except I have also heard beef heart is good for them. I use bloodworms and they really seem to like it. And just a heads up, they will produce alot of waste while they are young so expect to be doing alot of water changes to remove it. This will slow down when they become adults, but until then they seem to be like a common pleco with all that poo. What kind of discus did you get and what size tank do you have? I hope to see some picture and you can find mine in one of my old posts, I need to take some more pics and post them. In the end they will make a beautiful fish, and I hope you get them eating soon.

What does that mean, Bob? "Till the cows come home." Where have the cows been?

BGK,


It's not unusual for young discus to go on a hunger strike. New home, new water conditions, unfamiliar food...

I like two items by Dave:
- What were the fish eating?
- Group size of 5 or more.

Suggestions for the care of the fish.
- Forget about beef or ox heart. Messy foods that will quickly foul your water. Go with Tetra ColorBits, frozen bloodworm and frozen brine shrimp. Formula One Marine Flake or Pellet is also excellent, don't let the name fool you - great for fresh water fish like discus and angels.
- These are tiny fish, push the temp in the tank to 30C or 86F, good temperature for young fish.
- Be prepared to feed small amounts of food up to 5 or 6 times per day, they should eat 95% of the food within 5 minutes.
- Young fish mean undeveloped immune systems. Be sure to maintain great water conditions. Vacuum daily to pick up excrement and uneaten food. Vacuum after every feeding if you use beef or ox heart.
- If you live in the states, consider purchasing CBW to get the little beasts to eat. California black worms are sold live at many LFS. Great food but it will spoil the fish. Another excellent choice is baby red worms or white worms.
- Do you have hiding spots for the fish? See the attached photo for resin wood that you can add quickly to the tank and that the fish will love. Available at PetSmart in the states.



Attached Image:


__________
"To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research."
researched from Steven Wright

thnx for the help..
and yes my tank is fully cycled... been running it for 5-6yrs now.
My tank is a 60gal ( 39"L x 20"H x 18"W )
Temperature is 30 degrees
I have some plants but i don't think it will be enough after reading what agent orange wrote.
The ph of the tank is 6.5, Ammonia and Nitrite levels are 0
The man that i bought it from was feeding them bloodworms but i have tried that and it does not seem to be working...
I have also tried flakes and tetra colour bits.
i have yet to try the beef heart and i will do so tonight.
And my discus are 2 x blue scorpian snakeskin, 2 x red turqs.
I also have 2 clown loaches in there (was 4 but 2 died when i was away on holiday and told mum to look after my tank -_-) and 10 harlequin rasbora's. Is this ok?
i will go and buy some more plants hopefully tmrw or in the weekends for them to hide. Any other advice on discus would be nice.
I live in NZ btw. thnx

Some good news...
3 of the 4 fish r eating now but one still don't seem to be interested.
It follows the others around but does not take the food.
any idea why?
and the 2 snakeskin have started to eat the tetra colourbits and one of the red turq is eating bloodworms now.
also... since i have just got my discus for a couple of days or so... should i be changing the water or would it stress the fish out doing this so soon?

It's good to hear they are doing well. If it's just the fish choosing not to eat then I would give him some more time. But if the others are chasing him away then you may want to try getting food to him somehow. They should be used to the whole water changing concept already from where you got them and I would start doing water changes bi-weekly or sooner if needed. They will prolly be a little stressed and go into hiding for a couple hours but they will eventually come around. I wouldn't move the decorations or plants around too much during water changes for a week or two to give them a place they know as home to feel comfortable in. Mine always seem to hide behind/under the piece of driftwood during water changes when they figure out I'm not there to feed them, but come out after I'm done. They do seem to be pretty hardy fish if you keep the water quality up and the parameters constant, so they should be fine.

What does that mean, Bob? "Till the cows come home." Where have the cows been?

thnx for the help everyone...
i really hope my discus will do well in my tank.
if anyone can give me anymore tips and advice on how to keep my discus fish happy and alive it would be great.
one last thing... would feeding them bloodworms and tetra colourbits be enough for them? or should i try other foods aswell?

Variety is the spice of life. As varied a diet as possible should keep your Discus happy.

Live Bloodworms, live Daphnia, live Brine Shrimp, top quality flakes, small quantities of beef heart (note SMALL quantities as a special treat - and scrape as much of the fat off as possible!) and chopped earthworms should all be fine.

One food I would AVOID with Discus is live Tubifex worms. Though the jury is still out on this, some of the top keepers and breeders consider live Tubifex to be too risky from the standpoint of disease introduction to be trusted as a Discus food. In particular, some have made the claim (though I've yet to see proper scientific substantiation of this) that Hexamita (the nasty creature responsible for Hole In The Head Disease in Discus and other Cichlids) is brought in with Tubifex. Given the unsanitary conditions that wild harvested Tubifex are found in, I'd be wary of using them with any fish, let alone Discus, though the freeze dried cubes are perfectly safe because I don't know anything that can survive total dessication in a vacuum, with the possible exception of those weird creatures known as Tardigrades, but then you're probably playing host to a colony of those in an aquarium that's been running for 6 years whether you're aware of it or not, because those things can survive ridiculous environmental extremes (and are mostly harmless anyway, so quit worrying!).


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

It's hard not to worry when they cost so much... and i really want them to do well
but thnx for the help anyway...
all of them seem to be eating now, the smaller 2 red turqs seem to only go for blood worms and the bigger 2 blue scorpion snakeskins seem to eat both bloodworms and tetra colourbits.
but there seems to be a problem...
1 of my red turqs seem to be a loner?
it doesn't hang out with the other 3 discus much, infact it doesn't swim much at all... the other 3 r very healthy and always swim together... but this one is always alone by himself, he does eat however... how come this is happening?

It is natural with discus. The social order in a group changes constantly. One day the largest fish will be dominant and the smallest fish an outsider. Within a week the smallest fish will be dominant and the largest fish will be the outsider.

One way to minimize the social friction with discus and with their cousins, angelfish, is to increase the size of your group. Aggression levels go up when a pair forms and they pick a spawn site, but until that time, the more the merrier based on your tank size. As Dave pointed out in his post and that I concur with, five fish is the minimum number of discus that you want in your tank.

Feed the colourbits several times a day in small amounts. The fish should finish the servings in two to four minutes. Discus like to graze for food and several feedings each day will meet their needs as juveniles. Save the bloodworms for an end of the day treat.



__________
"To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research."
researched from Steven Wright

thnx bob
i will see if i can get another discus to increase the size of the group.