Fish fry for discus

[cramramdon]

I have been breeding some species os cichlids such as convicts and severums for the sole purpous of food for the leaf fish and other cichlids. While I was feeding the leaf fish some baby cichlids the other day I was thinking this might be a great food addition to the discus diet. Can anybody tell me weather this is a good or bad idea?? I always have leftovers as the leaf fish can't possibly eat all these cichlids, well mabee they can, but I don't feed them all. Some get traded in or grown up here in my home.

So fry for food - Ya or NA -
Will the discus accept it or will the fry just end up living with them. That is sort of what I want to avoid - convict roomates for discus isn't a good idea.

Thanx
cram

[Discusgeo]

I woundn't even attempt it because you may introduce some sort of bacteria or micro-organism from the chiclid tank to the Discus. Then you will have all kinds of problems and then start asking why is my Discus not feeling well and what medication should I use. Instead feed your Discus Brine Shrimp, CBW, Redworms, Beefheart or any of the other many prepared frozen foods out there. To me it's just not worth the risk to creating a headache down the road.

[cramramdon]

Thanx DG!! ;)

[EthanCote.com]

Hey Cram,

My first impression was to agree with Discusgeo, yes there is always a chance of introducing unwanted disease to your Discus. But what we all know is that Discus isn't as fragile a fish as what we all once thought.

I would try feeding the convict fries to them. If you are concern with the introduction of unwanted pest to your Discus I suggest you separate a few runts into a tank and use them as test subjects. You can feed the runts the convict fries and see how that turn out. You really have nothing to lose, well except for the convict fries ;D

Also just to put your mind at ease a bit, there is no such thing as a disease free environment, Discus only fall ill when they are stressed. So I doubt a few convict fries will stress these big majestic fish out ;)

Let us know how things turn out.


Cheers,

Chi.

[Richman]

I once wiped out a tank full of beautiful and valuable fish by feeding convict, red devil, and sevrum fry for a long period of time. It was a source of cheap food and worked great for a while. I transferred "who knows what" to the large fish and no amount of treatment prevented their death.
However, the problem was really me instead of the feeders. When we keep a tank for feeders we tend to sometimes not give quite the care and attention to that tank because we know they are not going to be around long. BIG MISTAKE! I let the feeder tanks get dirty.
If you try to feed these fry to your discus, make sure you give the same careful attention to your feeders that you do to your discus. If you are putting them from one tank to another, you must consider both tanks as the same environment. The failure to do this will cause you a lot of grief. Been there done that. HTH

[jim_shedden]

Great info guys...........I have been thinking of guppies myself.

Jim

[cramramdon]

I plan on breeding some guppies in an experimental; planted tank without substrate. Well sort of - a pile of rocks at the bottom with anubias and java ferns tied to them. I'm going for a river bank theme, but want the guppy tank to be very easy to maintain. I'll have a java moss background tied to corkboard. These were going to be food for my bichor and leaf fish, but I agree with an above statement. I try equally as hard to keep all of my tanks very clean and that goes for feeder tanks too ;). I still havent decided if I am going to feed fish fry to my discus. I won't hesitate however to feed my oscars some of these guppys ;D

Thanx for your input ALL have been put into consideration! :o

cram