Getting discus to eat pellets/flakes

[thekarens]

My new babies love beefheart and bloodworms, which is fine in the morning and evening, but it's my understanding that juvie discus need to be fed 4-6 times a day and my guys won't eat pellets or flakes at this point and I'm looking for some suggestions. On Mon and Wed I'm at work and school from 6am to 8:30pm and I'd like to set up an auto feeder for when I'm not home.

[eklikewhoa]

Starve them for a day and go from there...

[finfan]

Starve them for a day and go from there...

+1 thats what i heard/read too

mine eat the tetra bites (i think thats what they are called)

[thekarens]

Ooohhhhh you hurt my heart! You know how hard that is for me to do? . Ok I'll try it.

[eklikewhoa]

I let my fish starve a day or two every so now and then.... keeps them on their toesfins.

[thekarens]

LOL

[szidlon]

Mine will readily eat the Tetra Granules, used to be called TetraBits. Mine have never accepted flake of any kind. If the Tetra Granules seem to a little too large for them, you can break them up some. They are pretty small so it should not be a problem.

[thekarens]

Oh they "can" eat them. In fact they like to suck them up and then spit them right back out......brats! Someone suggested soaking in garlic but I don't know about that. Wouldn't hurt but I don't know about helping.

[eklikewhoa]

I was gonna suggest that too but then you couldn't use that in an auto feeder and sometimes it could be just the garlic they are after and once it's gone so is the feeding.

[szidlon]

Or, you can buy specialized discus granules, NLS makes or did make a special discus formula that is a very small granule that would work in an autofeeder. In reality, feeding three times a day would be probably be sufficient. In the morning before you leave, a small feeding right when you get home and then another small feeding later in the evening. Just be sure they have finished eating before lights out so the night time crew does not get the late night treat.

[nacra99]

Yes.. you can wean them to flake or granules. Here's how i do it.... (See link...shameless plug)

Skip to the section about weaning FW fish using a worm cone.
Try the worm cone and feed the discus their fav food from it until they are conditioned to associate the cone with food. Then slowly add flake / granules to their regular food in the cone. They will peck at the cone and most likely get a mouthful of flake / granules each time. Slowly decrease the proportion of frozen food until they are eating 100% dry food.

There's an altum in the vid, but i used the same method to train heckels to eat flake.

http://www.ventralfins.com/misc_articles_weaning_wild_fish.html

[wesleydnunder]

Agree with EK. Don't feed for a whole day, then feed nothing but the tetra color bits (or NLS, whichever you decide on) for consecutive feedings until they start eating them, then ease the bloodworms, etc. back into the feeding schedule. I fast my adult discus once a week, to help prevent constipation issues. I don't fast juvies as a rule because with them, every day they don't eat is a day of lost growth, IMO. The one day of fast to get them to eat the color bits seems acceptable.

Mark

[thekarens]

Agree with EK. Don't feed for a whole day, then feed nothing but the tetra color bits (or NLS, whichever you decide on) for consecutive feedings until they start eating them, then ease the bloodworms, etc. back into the feeding schedule. I fast my adult discus once a week, to help prevent constipation issues. I don't fast juvies as a rule because with them, every day they don't eat is a day of lost growth, IMO. The one day of fast to get them to eat the color bits seems acceptable.

Mark

You hit the nail on the head. I really want them to grow big and I was concerned that fasting them would slow down the growth, but one day shouldn't be too bad.

[wesleydnunder]

Nacra posted right before I did. While I've never tried that method, it sounds like it may be worth a try...no fasting.

Mark