Originally Posted by
nc0gnet0
First and foremost, I am making the assumption that the reason your asking this question is you want to grow out big, healthy, robust discus with healthy immune systems? To that end, the ONE most important FACT, regardless of what you feed, is clean water, lots of it. When in doubt do another large water change. I am not talking about your once a day 50% routine here, but two times a day at levels of at least 80%. Of course, if you use large, lightly stocked tanks, you can cheat this a bit, but if you look at the larger hatcheries, they all have the fish crammed in like sardines. Here, 3x a day water changes are routine. There is a reason they do it this way, economics is one, but higher stocking densities encourage aggressive eating habits, and eliminates pecking order problems. The result is a more uniform size between all the siblings.
Doing things this way does introduce a large element of risk, Your biggest obstacle is going to be human nature. There will be days that you just don't have the motivation, or feel you don't have the time to do these water changes. Skip a few Water changes and things go catastrophic in a hurry. If you don't have the wherewithal to adhere to this schedule, then your better off following the lower stocking density 50 % water change schedule.
What you feed, while important, is a distant second in importance to water quality. Tell yourself this over and over. Then do it again. And again. I cannot stress this enough. It's easy to dump massive amounts of food into your tanks, thinking doing so will insure good results. And it's easy to do. It won't work, and could actually kill your fish, without first understanding how water quality and discus health coincide.
Myself, I don't feed beef heart. Personally I think beefheart, by itself, is only a so-so food. Even more important, I think the commercially made beefheart cubes that you can buy are absolute crap. Overpriced and of only a marginal quality IMHO.
What John and many others feed is actually a beefheart MIX. Beefheart plus salmon, plus perhaps some flakes, liquid vitamins, maybe some garlic and veggies, maybe some prawn. Now, this, when prepared correctly, is an excellent food. It will foul the water quickly though, so remember what we first talked about. If your willing to go the extra mile and make your own food, this is indeed a viable option. And a complete food.
That's not to be said it is necessary. Quite the contrary. I feed my discus a combination of Al's FDBW's, some high protein flake, and a squid based pellet. With the flake and pellet I on occasion switch things up a bit. I sell a lot of my fish, and I like them to be used to taking a combination of foods, not knowing what the end user might be feeding. My fish grow to 6+" just fine.
So, to sum it up, there is know one way to go about What you feed, however, there is one constant........clean water and lots of it.
-Rick
Re: Pros vs Cons of beefheart
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I am also not currently growing out fry... If I was, I would feed more often and probably mix it up a little more . I'd also be doing a lot more water changes for the fry.
Re: Pros vs Cons of beefheart
Re: Pros vs Cons of beefheart
