Discus On Hunger Strike

[zelda_leonhart]

Hi,

I recently bought a new discus for my tank (I have one other). However it seems to be very picky about what it will eat and I'm starting to get worried that it's not eating enough.
I've tried: Dried foods (flake, pellet, bloodworm, tubifex) and frozen bloodworm but it never seems to be too impressed. Are they always this picky? Is live food the way to go? Any suggestions at all would be appreciated!

J

 

[petertr]

First of all, Discus should be in groups of 5+ - 4 is the absolute minimum - this is what has been said by experienced keepers on these board - in smaller groups they can get streesed and refuse to eat until they die.


For you, all I can suggest is making sure there are plenty of places to hide, making sure the temperature is 29-30C and making sure the water stats are bang-on. No ammonia or nitrite at all, and as little nitrate as possible.



Discus can take a good week or so to start eating though.

 

[zelda_leonhart]

Yes I have had that advice about shoal size before. I am not planning on keeping only 2. I'm actually trying to find at least 6, but I want them to be all around the same size which is difficult at the moment with the suppliers in my area. Hopefully he wil perk up then when I am able to increase the shoal.

 

[theshadowinc]

Yes I have had that advice about shoal size before. I am not planning on keeping only 2. I'm actually trying to find at least 6, but I want them to be all around the same size which is difficult at the moment with the suppliers in my area. Hopefully he wil perk up then when I am able to increase the shoal.

Usually by then it would be to late [Mine are in a school of 3 only and doing very well but havn't heard of to many success stories with schools of 3, mind you though I have a heavy planted tank ]

Most cruical part is water changes if needed, Ammo, Nitrite 0.... Nitrate not to sure about yet in my experament they don't mind having 50ppm but thats actually a faulse reading in a planted tank, and I find in 5ppm there colour really comes out of them

I only feed mine tetisbites and frozen foods like blood worms and brine shrimp! Only cause that is what the ones I have where raised on and havn't bothered to try them on tubiflex, freeze dried blood worms etc. I feed it to them directly frozen and stick it into the tank let them pick at it till they are done eating

PH can shock them to, taking them from a store like 7.6 PH and acclimating them into your tank that might be 6.5 can give them PH shock. Research you need to do alot of that, books, internet, breeders ^^.

 

[rabbut]

pH shock doesn't exist, well, not in this context anyway... A fish can change it's internal pH by 5 points in less that 15 mins, so pH shock will be at most a 15 min ailment.... It's well documented in the scientific litriture, provided we are working with a pH above 3 at all times...

KH shock, now that's a different matter all together... It can take anywhere from minuites to days for a fish at adjust to a KH change, depending on the difference, fish size/weight and the paper you are reading. pH usualy changes proportionally to KH though, so people usualy see KH shock as pH shock as they can't test for KH as only a handful of people have KH test kits, instead only observing a pH difference and hence concluding that it's pH shock...

Oh the loverly world of science... Shadow may have a point though, do you know if you are using the same water as the supplier?

All the best
Rabbut

 

[theshadowinc]

Oh the loverly world of science... Shadow may have a point though, do you know if you are using the same water as the supplier?

All the best
Rabbut

LOL ya the Science if you can ace the science behind a planted tank you can have the ph change from 6.5 to 7.5 for overnight and never stress any of the fish Thats done by monitoring the KH Thats the secret behind planted tanks in how some of them actually change ph and where ph means nothing to the fish usually. But I am guess this is not a planted tank he has them in, if came from the store in a planted tank It would for sure go through the KH part and definitly can take days.