Are my discus eating normally?

[Hanora]

Hello all, I have 5 dime sized discus which I am attempting to grow out. They are kept in a barebottom 10 gallon, and are being fed a beefheart mix three times a day. The temperature is at 87 degrees and I preform a 50% water change daily. However I am not sure if my discus are eating properly and I am beginning to become worried. Whenever I throw the fish will pick at it for a few minutes before swimming away. Then they will return after roughly 10 minutes to pick at it again before swimming away once again. This cycle repeats roughly 3 times before I take the food out. Are my discus actually eating the food and is this type of eating behavior normal for juvenile discus? One of my guesses as to why this is happening is that since they are small they can only eat so much, but I am not too sure on this. At this point I am at a loss for what to do and am considering possibly trying garlic guard to see if it will make a difference.

[RogueDiscus]

Hi Hanora and welcome to SD.
This doesn't sound like a problem. Dime size is pretty small so they're only eating a little at a time. You're doing the right thing by cleaning up any they don't eat. You could just try feeding much less and see if they eat it all. Some may disagree, but I don't think you need to keep the temp that high. 82 is fine, although I guess I've read where some keep it higher to encourage higher metabolism and eating. I would just add that 50% daily wc is probably minimum, but again, OK if you keep it clean

[discuspaul]

Have you not seen any of the fish actually take in any food & ingest it ? In other words, are you sure they are not eating anything at all ?
Dime-sized discus have small mouths necessitating smaller foods at this early stage, and perhaps your beef mixture breaks off in too large of pieces for them to swallow.

Suggest you try feeding them baby brine shrimp, bought locally either freshly hatched, or frozen, to see if they manage eating that.

[Hanora]

Hi Hanora and welcome to SD.
This doesn't sound like a problem. Dime size is pretty small so they're only eating a little at a time. You're doing the right thing by cleaning up any they don't eat. You could just try feeding much less and see if they eat it all. Some may disagree, but I don't think you need to keep the temp that high. 82 is fine, although I guess I've read where some keep it higher to encourage higher metabolism and eating. I would just add that 50% daily wc is probably minimum, but again, OK if you keep it clean

Hello, thank you very much for your response! That helps my worries somewhat haha.

[Hanora]

I think that they are eating the beefheart just in very small amounts. Will try giving baby brine a try though. Thank you!

[gluedandscrewed]

just raised 9 fry from dime size in a 20 gal BB tank only changing 3 gals of H2O per day, took 3 gals of water to siphon the bottom clean, would crush up any flake food into a powder, shave a block of frozen blood worms and chop up B.heart with a razor blade, hatched brine shrimp but at dime size it already proved to be a waste of time,,,