Beefheart

[Gil]

I'm wondering if there is a specific brand of beef heart that is preferred with discus keepers? I have tried San Fransisco Bay but my juvenile discus wont even touch it.
Yet they go crazy over blood worms and Omega One marine flakes.

[rdiscus]

It's not the brand, but you need to train them to eat the new food ...

[John_Nicholson]

Also buying BH is expensive when you consider what you get. Check the package. On most of them you will find water listed as the first ingredient. If you are serious about your BH then you need to make your own.

Also Ryan is correct and blood worms are like candy.

-john

[Gil]

Also buying BH is expensive when you consider what you get. Check the package. On most of them you will find water listed as the first ingredient. If you are serious about your BH then you need to make your own.

Also Ryan is correct and blood worms are like candy.

-john

Like candy as far as nutritional value?

[John_Nicholson]

Like candy as far as nutritional value?


Yes it is not the best for them. Ok to feed at times but it should not be their main food source.

-john

[BODYDUB]

Like candy as far as nutritional value?
Correct, not very much protein. When I first started with juvies I use to by the San Francisco BF and it did get expensive quick. I quickly decided to make my own mixture. I was a bit nervous at first, but after the first batch it was a piece of cake.......

[ericatdallas]

Yeah, don't buy beef heart pre-made. It's super easy to make. It can be a little messy but it's really no different and a little easier than cooking dinner for the family. You can also customize it.

I usually make 5-6 lbs of BH mix each time. It lasts a long time too... depending on how many discus you have.

[timmy82]

Yes alot on the market are high volumes of water. The only one I would recommend but can't ship internationly only Australia wide it is called Feedit. My mate has been making it for 30 years and refined his reciepe for what he puts in it to what it cost you to do it i just buy 10kg at a time off him.

[OC Discus]

http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showthread.php?111237-Best-Beef-Heart-Flake-Commercially-Available

Check out this thread. I've been using it a couple of days now with no leftovers. Cobalt flakes could also be a good staple since it includes spirulina and vitamins.

[Rudustin]

I use Hans' meat mix. Not a good cook myself so I can depend on Hans to do it for me!

[Chicago Discus]

Also buying BH is expensive when you consider what you get. Check the package. On most of them you will find water listed as the first ingredient. If you are serious about your BH then you need to make your own.

Also Ryan is correct and blood worms are like candy.

-john


Thats true thats why most of us make our own

[Miamiheat]

any favourite recipes?

[Chicago Discus]

any favourite recipes?

Funny you should ask......Josie



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOZZkgPfm1M

[MSD]

You should sell that Josie, I'd buy it!!!

[Allwin]

Fantastic, BH preparation video!!!!

Funny you should ask......Josie



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOZZkgPfm1M

[blueluv]

You should sell that Josie, I'd buy it!!!

+ infinity


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[OC Discus]

I wish I ate that good every day :)


Fantastic, BH preparation video!!!!

[Miamiheat]

wow cool i love the meat grinder :). What is that EZ... stuff you throw in towards the end (metallic foil looking bag).

[Tankster]

Great video Josie!

Would it be to forward to ask what you estimate each batch costs? I know it might be hard to give an exact number because you buy some ingredients in bulk but I am really curious! I will eventually have about 20 adult discus to keep fed and am wondering if I need to start looking for a second job :)

How many Discus are you feeding and how long does a batch typically last you?

Thanks!!


Funny you should ask......Josie



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOZZkgPfm1M

[Chicago Discus]

Great video Josie!

Would it be to forward to ask what you estimate each batch costs? I know it might be hard to give an exact number because you buy some ingredients in bulk but I am really curious! I will eventually have about 20 adult discus to keep fed and am wondering if I need to start looking for a second job :)

How many Discus are you feeding and how long does a batch typically last you?

Thanks!!

The cost well it depends on if you can purchase the wild fish ingredients on sale or not. The beef-heart I purchase in cases and clean them myself so that keeps the cost down. I make a 100 pound batch every two weeks but also I sell the food locally to my customers in 1 1/2 pound bags. So as far as how many discus I feed I'm not really sure my whole Hatchery and my customers tanks. So quite a bit...LOL....Josie

[ericatdallas]

Here are my costs...

~$3.00/lb of BH for for about 2lbs usually
~$7.00/lb of shrimp for 1lb shrimp
~$5.00/lb for fish (but salmon is more) for 1lb
~$2.00 in flakes
~$0.50 in vitamins (give or take)
~$1.50 in veggies
~$1.50 in vinders

So about $25.00 for 4.5-5lbs of BH mix. You can make it cheaper and more expensive as you want based on ratios, quality, and additional products.

So about $5/lb for it.

[Tankster]

I was half asleep when I asked you this... of course, your cost and usage is not going to help the average hobbyist much since you are supplying those hobbyist with fish and food :crazy: I still appreciate that video! Now if I can just find a local butcher having a going out of business sale so I can find that amazing grinding and mixing equipment you're using in the video.


The cost well it depends on if you can purchase the wild fish ingredients on sale or not. The beef-heart I purchase in cases and clean them myself so that keeps the cost down. I make a 100 pound batch every two weeks but also I sell the food locally to my customers in 1 1/2 pound bags. So as far as how many discus I feed I'm not really sure my whole Hatchery and my customers tanks. So quite a bit...LOL....Josie

[Tankster]

Thanks Eric - very helpful.

Here are my costs...

~$3.00/lb of BH for for about 2lbs usually
~$7.00/lb of shrimp for 1lb shrimp
~$5.00/lb for fish (but salmon is more) for 1lb
~$2.00 in flakes
~$0.50 in vitamins (give or take)
~$1.50 in veggies
~$1.50 in vinders

So about $25.00 for 4.5-5lbs of BH mix. You can make it cheaper and more expensive as you want based on ratios, quality, and additional products.

So about $5/lb for it.

[aquadon2222]

I'm wondering if there is a specific brand of beef heart that is preferred with discus keepers? I have tried San Fransisco Bay but my juvenile discus wont even touch it.
Yet they go crazy over blood worms and Omega One marine flakes.

BeefHeart is a food that breeders like to feed in order to get their fish beyond what the fish are naturally supposed to be. Think of it as steroids for normal fish in order to get the bigger, bigger , bigger. Discus in nature do not eat the heart of a 3000lb animal, its not natural and is like fish steroids. Feed your fish natural foods that makes them healthy in nature and you will have healthy beautiful discus fish.

[MSD]

Can of worms, now opened......

[brddthomas]

aquadon,

What do you feed your fish ?

[MSD]

BeefHeart is a food that breeders like to feed in order to get their fish beyond what the fish are naturally supposed to be. Think of it as steroids for normal fish in order to get the bigger, bigger , bigger. Discus in nature do not eat the heart of a 3000lb animal, its not natural and is like fish steroids. Feed your fish natural foods that makes them healthy in nature and you will have healthy beautiful discus fish.

Not only are you going against 40 or so years of history with long lived, healthy breeding discus eating beef heart, you are going against common sense. Do you think breeders who spend thousands on buying special fish to breed, caring for them for years, would feed them less than the best food for the health of the breeding stock???

[Discusdude7]

BeefHeart is a food that breeders like to feed in order to get their fish beyond what the fish are naturally supposed to be. Think of it as steroids for normal fish in order to get the bigger, bigger , bigger. Discus in nature do not eat the heart of a 3000lb animal, its not natural and is like fish steroids. Feed your fish natural foods that makes them healthy in nature and you will have healthy beautiful discus fish.

what do you feed your fish?

[Chicago Discus]

Never mind...........Josie

[ericatdallas]

Shouldn't we just have a standard response for this by now? One that we can copy/paste that avoids "feeding the troll"? This isn't the first thread he's started this debate.

At the end of the day, in my opinion, we should put a post and maybe a compilation of links to relevant threads to let newbies know. Besides, past experience dictates this thread gets locked in...3...2...1...

[Mariowa]

Josie, thank you very much for sharing this wonderful nutrition recipe, we love it here in Israel (the fish :))

[brddthomas]

Shouldn't we just have a standard response for this by now? One that we can copy/paste that avoids "feeding the troll"? This isn't the first thread he's started this debate.

At the end of the day, in my opinion, we should put a post and maybe a compilation of links to relevant threads to let newbies know. Besides, past experience dictates this thread gets locked in...3...2...1...


I think the standard reply would be IBTL (In Before The Lock) :)

[Chicago Discus]

Josie, thank you very much for sharing this wonderful nutrition recipe, we love it here in Israel (the fish :))

Thank You thats sweet :).........Josie

[rickmiles]

Can of worms, now opened......

Yes they do love live worms....tubifex or black worms.

Live is better then caned

[MSD]

Great idea, Erica.

[nc0gnet0]

Think of it as steroids for normal fish in order to get the bigger, bigger , bigger. Discus in nature do not eat the heart of a 3000lb animal, its not natural and is like fish steroids.

This is nonsense, nothing but pure speculation on your part, and a comparison that has absolutely no merit. You are starting to accumulate more than a few of these posts that have no point rather than to start a flame war.

Protien is protien. When is the last time you ate a banana? Do you have a banana tree in your yard? If not, then by your claim you should not be eating banana's. You can grow discus just as big without beefheart, and you could do it using a wild discus's natural food. I however will not be chartering any flights to the amazon to forge an expedition to get this food, will you? The reason why domestics tend to grow bigger than thier wild counterparts is not what they eat, but how often they are allowed to eat it.

Personally I do not feed beefheart, and I can still grow discus just as big as those who do. But, that is just a personal preference and at any given time I could start feeding BH without batting an eye. Beefheart is nothing at all like steriods and your continued claims using that comparison is destroying your credibility.

-Rick

[Skip]

BeefHeart is a food that breeders like to feed in order to get their fish beyond what the fish are naturally supposed to be. Think of it as steroids for normal fish in order to get the bigger, bigger , bigger. Discus in nature do not eat the heart of a 3000lb animal, its not natural and is like fish steroids. Feed your fish natural foods that makes them healthy in nature and you will have healthy beautiful discus fish.

This guy posted a derogatory remark to another sd member a month ago.. mods came in and put the hammer to him.. close to getting banned

And this is his first post back.. oh boy..

[Chicago Discus]

Aquadon,

Discus in the wild eat animal protein like insects and small aquatic invertebrates. The quality of protein depends entirely on their amino acid composition. Beef heart is high quality animal protein, low in fat and high in nutritional value. Substituting Beef heart for their natural animal protein is nothing more than substituting a higher quality protein for another. The fact that beef heart comes from a 3000 lb animal is totally irrelevant... it is the protein that counts. Furthermore, comparing beef protein to steroids is absurd. Steroids are a type of hormone that affect metabolism, and may be harmful to discus. In and of themselves steroids have no nutritional value. Protein is pure nutrition. The comparison is offensive to breeders who are extremely careful about what they feed their fish, and would never do anything that would have potential of harming the fish. And of course we want our discus to be larger. We are raising discus for hobbyists, not for the wild........Josie

[Gil]

Ok so I didn't mean to start a war on what protein source is best for discus though it is a good discussion, I'm learning quite a bit from it. My issue is my discus, though they are growing they will not even come close to beef heart and I wind up having to remove it hours later from the bottom. All my other fish in other tanks go through a frenzy eating it.
So far my discus will only eat blood worms, Marine flakes, pellets and brine shrimp.
Also someone mentioned having to train them to eat BH, how?

[Skip]

Also someone mentioned having to train them to eat BH, how?

just mix in a LITTLE BIT of BH when you do regular feeding.. they will figure it out its food

[seanyuki]

Funny you should ask......Josie



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOZZkgPfm1M

Great video Josie.....Thanks for sharing it.

[MSD]

Hey Francis, how are ya, Lah?

[bayouboy85]

im asking this i feed blood worms a couple times a week plus i feed beef heart the san fran that i buy from my lfs and i also feed tetra bits from petco the one with the pic ture of the ram and a discus is this a good mixture of protien for them ??

[Skip]

im asking this i feed blood worms a couple times a week plus i feed beef heart the san fran that i buy from my lfs and i also feed tetra bits from petco the one with the pic ture of the ram and a discus is this a good mixture of protien for them ??

that is pretty much what StrawberryBlonde Fed hers.. and they grew out to JUMBO SIZE.. 8" plus!!

BUT she was doing 2 x 90% water changes per day..

[bayouboy85]

I do 50% every other day

[Meilidiscus]

Yes alot on the market are high volumes of water. The only one I would recommend but can't ship internationly only Australia wide it is called Feedit. My mate has been making it for 30 years and refined his reciepe for what he puts in it to what it cost you to do it i just buy 10kg at a time off him.

Hi, I am interested in this 'Feedit'. Could you tell me more. Do they have a website ? Thanks

[Gil]

This is nonsense, nothing but pure speculation on your part, and a comparison that has absolutely no merit. You are starting to accumulate more than a few of these posts that have no point rather than to start a flame war.

Protien is protien. When is the last time you ate a banana? Do you have a banana tree in your yard? If not, then by your claim you should not be eating banana's. You can grow discus just as big without beefheart, and you could do it using a wild discus's natural food. I however will not be chartering any flights to the amazon to forge an expedition to get this food, will you? The reason why domestics tend to grow bigger than thier wild counterparts is not what they eat, but how often they are allowed to eat it.

Personally I do not feed beefheart, and I can still grow discus just as big as those who do. But, that is just a personal preference and at any given time I could start feeding BH without batting an eye. Beefheart is nothing at all like steriods and your continued claims using that comparison is destroying your credibility.

-Rick

Rick, as the OP, I'm trying to learn staying away from the debate since this is my first go around with discus... what do you feed yours?

[aquadon2222]

I'd like to apologize about the negative perception of my comment about beef heart. I was trying to empathize with the OP on his fish not wanting beef heart, since I've experienced it myself. OP if you can get quality BH they will eventually learn to eat it and love it, and of course it is a great source of protein and is tough to beat in terms of growing out big fish. I feed mine high quality pellets, flakes, bloodworms and brine shrimp though and they do well.

[nc0gnet0]

Rick, as the OP, I'm trying to learn staying away from the debate since this is my first go around with discus... what do you feed yours?

Sorry, I had missed this post. As I have stated before, i do not feed beefheart, although that is a personal preference based more on ease of use, rather than nutrition.

I feed FDBW's from Al as a staple, but I also try to include a flake, a pellet, and some occasional bloodworms in their diet as well. I have 30 tanks, and raise more than a few discus from time to time, so not only do I find the variety a good thing, but believe it is important that my fish see and learn to accept many different kinds of foods in various forms. I like Bill's superbeefheart flake with pro-grow (my fish like it) and I also fed an experimental flake from an unknown source. I have also feed the bh flake from brineshrimp direct.

As for pellets, I prefer Dainichi pellets, but will confess to feeding tetrabits from time to time. As for blood worms I prefer the hikari brand, they seem to be a much smaller worm and I kind of buy in to there process. These I only feed maybe once a week, or if I have a pair on eggs/wigglers, then for a few days that is what I will feed the parents to help maintain water quality.

hth

Rick

[pvanderweit]

My discus have slowly started to eat beefheart of the last two months. The other fish still eat more than the discus at this time. The discus go crazy for blood worms.

[bigsean]

Not wanting to get involved in any controversial debate, but as a newbie to this I'm curious about where the idea to feed beefheart came from?
And is it just beefheart that's good or are other beef products or other animal products ever used?

[abuckley75]

The general principle is high protein low fat. Any low fat high protein item will work. Beef Heart is the meat of choice because if trimmed correctly it has almost no fat and is cheap($).


Is my water chemistry right?
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/13/05/11/ahadusud.jpg
Meep Meep

[bigsean]

Thanks dude :-)

[Miamiheat]

This week I found an interview of a famous man in the hobby (can't remember the name at the minute but will find it). He lives in Plantation FL and it seems (was half asleep when I saw the video) he may have bred discus in the past (commercially). In a nutshell what he said was that beef heart is not the best and that the best is liver. Another concept was that the fish did not need the veg or greens being thrown in their food or perhaps just a tiny bit to help with intestinal transit. He mentioned fat fish and claim meat as other great foods for fish. Being a newbie as well I would like to get some veterans take on that. I may be missing facts so I am not here to undermine anybody's expertise. Just trying to learn more about all of it.

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[Miamiheat]

I meant CLAM meat

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