# Is this normal for healthy discus?



## cc_woman (Jan 31, 2008)

It seems when I feed my discus pellets, most of them won't eat them. I have tried the NLS discus formula and tetra color I have even tried soaking them in garlic guard and bloodworm juice, but most of them just won't eat them. I noticed tonight as well when I fed them frozen blood worms, some of them would actually eat a few, but then some of them, even ones that are totally healthy, would suck them up then spit them back out. Is it just that I have some really picky discus that don't like the type of blood worms I feed them, or could there be something else wrong with them? Some of them are still recovering from not doing so good in the set up I had them all in, so I had made some changes to their tank about 2 weeks ago, by putting them in a bare bottom tank with few deco, and I removed other tank mates. I have fed them the cichlid delight by san fransisco bay brand, and most of them will take that. But I just find it odd that they are refusing the blood worms. I need help, why is it that they do this? I have heard about feeding them gel based foods, but where can I get some of that stuff?


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## jgentry (Jul 3, 2008)

Sorry to hear you are having trouble. If you have had your discus for any amount of time and they are not eating you have some issue going on in the tank. Healthy discus will attack food. My group devours food like any other cichlids. If feed flake, spirula waffers, blood worms, and beef heart. I feed 4-5 times a day feeding something different at every feeding. All of my discus eat at every feeding.

Please post all information on your tank. Water changes, water readings, feeding schedule, tank setup, anything noticable wrong with the fish, discus size, age, were they were purchased, how long you've had them, ect.


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## star rider (Mar 20, 2006)

I agree..we will need some input as to maintenance, and water parameters.
if they have been recently moved they may be stresssed from the move.

as long as they are eating and are getting good water changes you should be fine.


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## cc_woman (Jan 31, 2008)

They tank I was keeping them in was a 90 gallon planted tank. The parameters are 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, usually less than 10 for nitrates, pH is 7.6, KH is about 130. The tank mates they did have were angels, bolivian rams, pictus catfish, BGK, red hump geophagus, blue acara, SAE's, ottos, and a kribensis. About 3 weeks ago I decided to do a major change, because I knew this just wasn't working for me. I never saw any aggression from any fish towards the discus, but I think they stressed them out. So I changed the discus into another 90 gallon I have, I cleaned out all the gravel and deco, and am keeping a few wysteria plants and some driftwood. I also took out most of the tank mates that I could, still waiting on freeing up tank space in other tanks. Left in the tank are 3 angels, the blue acara, and 2 bolivian rams.

Tank is a fluval osaka open top tank with T5HO lighting. I am running an eheim 2250 filter on it, as well as a large airstone for added surface agitation. I have a 300 watt ebo jager heater which is kept at 86 degrees, sometimes being summer the heat rises to 88, in which i am trying to limit use of lights to avoid the temp change. I am now doing 3 40-50% water changes a week, using seachem prime as the dechlorinator. Before I was feeding 1-2 times a day, now I have stepped that up to 3-4 feedings a day. I try to give them NLS discus formula, tetra color, beef heart, bloodworms, brine shrimp, daphnia and sinking spirulina wafers.

I have had the 2 WC the longest now, which are 6 inches, not sure of the age but bought from a reputable dealer. 3 of them are about 3-4" and I purchased 1 of them a few months ago, and the other 2 about 2 months ago, again unsure of the age, and bought from a reputable dealer. The littlest one I bought about 4 months ago, I had alot of trouble getting him to eat anything, and he was bought from an alright pet store, he is about 2". The wild caughts have never accepted pellet food, only frozen. One wild caught was not eating for the last week, breathing is a little more rapid than the others, and I found white stringy feces from him yesterday. And the 2 others who are sick are a snow white discus who has not been eating and is gradually getting skinny, and the littlest one whom eats only sometimes now, but is still really skinny. The others are not showing any signs of illness, and took the cichlid delight frozen food I fed them today and one of them did eat the pellets. So basically half of them are not doing great, the other half are typically doing fine. I notice though the healthy WC discus chasing another healthy guy wanting to eat away from the food. The little guy did eat a bit today, and the white one eats on and off. I treated with metro last night when I saw the signs of the white feces in the other. But they still don't seem to be recovering very fast, and I have not seen any other signs of internal parasites except in the one WC. Is there anything else right now I could be doing for them?

I have purchased an RO unit, just need to put it together, and was wanting to eventually start acclimating them slowly with it until I reached a desired pH of around 6.5.


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## cc_woman (Jan 31, 2008)

I just took the blue acara out and am doing another 50% water change. So left is the 2 rams and 3 angels, all if which are very peaceful personalities. I did have to take an angel out a while back because it was more aggressive. And I only use the mechanical and biological filtration, no carbon is used in any of my other tanks. I have 12 other tanks right now all of them are healthy, it has just been my discus that I have been having problems with. Unfortunately, and I am willing to admit this, I did not do extensive research into the discus when I first started keeping them. But I have been doing alot in the last month, and trying to get them all healthy again.


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## Number6 (Mar 13, 2003)

Unfortunately, this is an all too common story... Discus can be tough, but they are very unforgiving of mistakes.

In with all the other fish, the Discus could tough things out until the store bought Discus came in and introduced the usual Discus parasites. None were doing great, and then moving them to their own tank just triggered the internal population boom in their guts leading to the ever so common Discus hunger strike. The white stringy poop is their guts shredded and being expelled...

You might be able to save these guys... problem is, Metro and the like is not easy to find in Canada due to the new regulations against meds! Hard to find something you need quick when it's not at your LFS...

As tough as this may sound, can you help these guys along, clean out the tank and start over? or are these guys wet pets?


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## cc_woman (Jan 31, 2008)

I QT all my fish for a couple of weeks before adding them to the tank. Most of them were bought at a very reputable store known for their good quality fish. The move might have stressed them out more, but they were already stressed in the other tank. And I didn't want to try and take out 60lbs of sand from that tank while they were still in it, and the gravel was much easier to remove from the other tank. The tank they are in now is much more suitable for them than the other tank. Cleaning out the tank and starting fresh is basically what I have done. I won't be changing anything else until they are all healthy and doing well. Metro is very easy to find here, and it was the only meds I had at home that works for internal parasites. If there is any other kind of med I should give them instead, I would love to know about it and try it out.


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## cc_woman (Jan 31, 2008)

I QT all my fish for a couple of weeks before adding them to the tank. Most of them were bought at a very reputable store known for their good quality fish. The move might have stressed them out more, but they were already stressed in the other tank. And I didn't want to try and take out 60lbs of sand from that tank while they were still in it, and the gravel was much easier to remove from the other tank. The tank they are in now is much more suitable for them than the other tank. Cleaning out the tank and starting fresh is basically what I have done. I won't be changing anything else until they are all healthy and doing well. Metro is very easy to find here, and it was the only meds I had at home that works for internal parasites. If there is any other kind of med I should give them instead, I would love to know about it and try it out.


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## cc_woman (Jan 31, 2008)

sorry for the double, this site seems to go really slow on my computer.


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## jgentry (Jul 3, 2008)

Alright, my first advice would be to get the angels out. You can leave the rams in if you want. If anything is ever off with your discus you need to up your water changes. I would do 80% water changes every day for a week and see if that helps. If you do not see improments and you still have fish with white poop you will need to treat for internal parasites.

Do your fish act any different after a water change? Do they hide of breath heavy for a little while? Are you aging your water before adding it?

Your going to have some issues because you are trying to raise juviniles with adults. The juviniles are more shy and require lots more feeding and the adults generally won't let the the juviniles get enough food. You can raise them together, but you have to make sure oyur small ones are getting food 5 times a day or they will not grow. You will end up with 3 inch big eyed stunted discus.

I do not worry about RO water. I think you end up causing more problems simply because it is hard to mix the exact amount of RO/tap and supplements everytime. Discus thrive of consistant clean water, not magic water parameters. Soft low PH water is only used for breeding (the fish will breed in hard water, the eggs just won't hatch) and wild caught discus.

Just as a side note. There are a lot of reputable LFS stores that have terrable discus stock. Discus tend to waste away in LFS because the can not spend the time feeding and doing water changes and still make a money on them.


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## Number6 (Mar 13, 2003)

well said jgentry...

Hmnn, back in Ontario I could never find Metro... if you have some, use it, full strength and mix it into food if you can. Do not feed "treats" but stick to one food and get them eating. 
You'll likely lose some, but perhaps not all during this new settling in period.

I wish you luck... I made similar mistakes with my first time at Discus... round 2 went much better (lasted a decade too). They are worth it all, but man... losing them is not fun.


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## cc_woman (Jan 31, 2008)

Thanks guys for all the helpful info. I have not been aging my water first, but I have been planning on getting a large rainbarrel, and an extra heater to age my water with those and an airstone. I have noticed the larger WC discus does chase one of the 3" discus away from the food, but I saw that he would go somewhere else and get some. I will have to see where my angels can go. For some reason with the bloodworms most of them seem to spit them back out, almost like they don't like the taste of them, but they will take beef heart or the cichlid delight with no problems. Could it be the brand of bloodworms I am using? Because the last brand I bought they were eating them. I noticed all of them eat at least some of the cichlid delight yesterday except the one I found with white poop, I will have to use meds in the water instead of food because of him. I have looked at a few LFS for more beef heart on wednesday, but all of them seem to be out of it  What kind of places can I find live blood worms from? I did a 50% change yesterday, and they all seemed happy with it, the last wc before that was on monday.

Right now I will focus on getting them healthy before using RO water, but in the future I was hoping to breed some. I do know people in my area who have discus and do use RO water, and they gave me some ratios to try. I will be testing it all in a large bucket before adding RO to the tank, so I know what ratio I will need.


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## jgentry (Jul 3, 2008)

If you can get them to eat some flake food or a pellet food along with beef heart you should be fine. If they don't want the blood worms don't worry about trying to make them eat them. I had 2 discus before that I had to treat for internal parasite ( I use parasite clear, it is cheap and easy) and they will not eat blood worms either and still to this day 1 year later won't touch them. Most people feed blood worms because that is all there discus will eat, not because they need them. A quality flake food is cheaper, easier, and better for them. They will grow better and have more color. :thumb: Ramp up your water changes and start aging your water ASAP.


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## cc_woman (Jan 31, 2008)

Ok great  I will try them with some of the NLS flakes I have here too. I think they are doing much better than they were last week. I have a Baby BN pleco in there, it said they like blood worms, so even if all of them don't eat them, the BN will love them. I actually just put him in last night because I was reading they are one of the most suitable tank mates for discus, and I want a cleanup crew. And don't worry, he was in QT for 2 weeks in my fry tank, so I don't introduce anything.


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## jgentry (Jul 3, 2008)

BN pleco's work great. I have a couple of albino BN's in my tank. You can also add cory's with discus as well. Just make sure you get some that can take that high of temps. I like the sterbia the best.


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## cc_woman (Jan 31, 2008)

Alright, I can look out for those guys. Thanks for all the help guys


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## apistomaster (Jun 22, 2006)

Have you tried raising the temperature to 88*F for a 7-10 days?
I would treat them with PraziPro and metronidazole at the elevated temperatures.
Also soak the pellets they eat best in PraziPro and feed that once a day for 2 weeks.

It is usually not a good idea to mix wild discus with domestics or discus of different sizes.


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