Feeding time

[pistilli]

Hi all, I just got my first pair of Discus and am curious as to HOW exactly you feed them. At the store I found them at they were given constant access to live tubifex worms in a wide shallow glass bowl, so the worms would stay in place I suppose. I have a gravel bottom so I've been doing the same thing, but with frozen bloodworms, which they seem to love. But it is kind of a pain slowly lowering them to the bottom twice a day every day to feed them, and if I get more discus I don't know if this will be a problem with all of them trying to get food out of the same bowl. I also wouldn't mind putting some dry food in there, would they scavenge around the bottom of the tank for shrmip pellets if I put them in? And is there any other food that I wouldn't have to worry about getting sucked up the filter? There are other fish in the tank as well, two whiptail catfish, one Bolivian ram (who thinks he is a discus), and about 25 cardinal tetras. The whiptails do a nice job cleaning up anything that hangs around too long, or anything the discus don't like (like the kirll I tried out). Thanks!

-Max

[Merrilyn]

HI Max, and welcome to the forum. Glad you could join us.

You can simply add the thawed bloodworm block to the surface of the tank. Your discus will enjoy spending time scrounging around the bottom of the tank looking for worms.

Dry food can be added the same way, simply sprinkle on the top of the water. Your discus will find it, as will the other fish in the tank.

We don't normally feed live tubifex to discus. Tubifex are known disease carriers. You are much safer with frozen bloodworms, brine shrimp, Mysyis Shrimp and good quality dry foods.

Most of us feed a frozen beef heart mix to our discus, at least once a day. It provides an inexpensive source of high quality protein to your fish. Have a browse thru theFood and Nutrition forum for recipes published by members.