How much to actually feed?

[Bgardner510]

So growing up in an Italian household I have a habit of overfeeding, which has carried over to me feeding my fish also lol. I have a 75 gallon tank with 3 Discus (about 2" tall each) and 3 baby clown loaches (about an inch each) and a 2" BN Pleco. Would one frozen cube (defrosted obviously) feed the entire tank? I feel like I am being cheap and should add some soaked pellets also. Advice please?

[zhuls1]

How often are you feeding? What frozen foods are you feeding your discus? If you are only feeding once a day that would not be near sufficient for a juvie discus. The common recommendation for feeding is 4 - 6 times a day. I personally try to feed closer to 8 times a day. If you havent already done so watch AL's presentation, its very interesting and educational https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXe3VKh7qF8. You should feed all your fish can eat in a few minutes, I personally try to feed untill my discus are 'plump', but you dont want them bloated. My suggestion is to watch their belly when you feed. Most on this forum will also recommend increasing the number of discus you have to make them feel more secure and spread out aggresion. Typically 5 - 6 or more is a good number. I am myself only new to discus so I would recommend seeing what everyone else has to say about your feeding schedule.

[Bgardner510]

Thanks. The reason I ask is this is my first day! I literally just purchased my first discus this afternoon. I only went with 3 in order to not add too many at one time. but plan on adding 2-3 more. I have frozen blood worms that i will defrost, but i also have some blackworms with beef hearts on order. I also have tropical granules to

[Bgardner510]

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[Bgardner510]

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[zhuls1]

Blood worms are not nutritionally very good, they are rather low in protein and fat. I would recommend that once you get your black worms and beef heart feed that instead. As for pellets, it is good to add a variety of food to your discus's diet, however, if you have a yellow pigeon discus you will probably want to try to find pellets that dont have alot of red pigments in, otherwise the yellow may turn orange. Most here would suggest raising them out in a BB tank to prevent the accumulation of debris. If you are going to use a substrate, a thin layer of sand would be better. Lots of waterchanges are essential to ensure that your discus reach their full potential. IMO, gravel is just more hassle than it's worth when raising out juvies. Please give more details on your feeding schedule and waterchange routine.

[Bgardner510]

Blood worms are not nutritionally very good, they are rather low in protein and fat. I would recommend that once you get your black worms and beef heart feed that instead. As for pellets, it is good to add a variety of food to your discus's diet, however, if you have a yellow pigeon discus you will probably want to try to find pellets that dont have alot of red pigments in, otherwise the yellow may turn orange. Most here would suggest raising them out in a BB tank to prevent the accumulation of debris. If you are going to use a substrate, a thin layer of sand would be better. Lots of waterchanges are essential to ensure that your discus reach their full potential. IMO, gravel is just more hassle than it's worth when raising out juvies. Please give more details on your feeding schedule and waterchange routine.

Well that’s what I’m here for. I’ve only had discus less than 8 hours. I gave them about 5 hours to settle into their new tank. And then fed some pellets and blood worms. Around 7pm. It’s now 11pm where I’m at and lights are off and I am letting them just settle in quietly and on the darker side. I am trying to figure how much to feed them starting in the morning.

I intend on 25-50% water changes weekly. I have heard a lot of different opinions on this.

[Paul Sabucchi]

Ciao, I live in Italy and prepare food for my baby discus more often and with more care than I do for myself! I purchased a dozen 2" red melons about 10 weeks ago. I have followed the advice generally given by the more experienced members of this forum: buy good quality fish (possibly directly from the breeder) and not mix fish of different origin, feed good quality food often, keep in a bare tank, syphon waste and wipe the glass and change at least 50% of the water EVERY DAY in order to keep conditions as pristine as possible. Both on this forum and (even more) on Italian forums I have read of plenty of people coming acropper because they deviated from these guidelines. If I were you I would remove all the gravel and most of the decor from the tank, equip myself with a suitable container to age plenty of water for changes and hose/pump to do so with more ease and if you planned on getting any more fish (maybe 4 or 5 as 7 or 8 is a good number, far better than 3) they should come from the same source of the ones you already have