HELP One of my Discus will not eat!!

[sabbott15]

Hello Everyone!

I recently (8 days ago) set up my first discus tank and so far, it has been going pretty good. I picked up 8 discus for my 90 gallon aquarium (fully cycled for over a month with fishless bottled ammonia cycle). Bare bottom tank, over filtered 0 amm, 0 nitrates, and under 10 nitrates. I have been doing daily water changes of 30-60 percent since purchase as well. Fish are 3-4.5 inches. All fish but 1 have been eating very well and seem to have settled in nicely. I feed my fish 2 different pellets (and they were eating pellets at the breeder too). D-50 Tropical pellets as well as Hikari Discus pellets. One of the cobalt blue's was not eating, and was hiding facing the back for a while so I have begun treatment for Hex. Temp is 91.4 and have been dosing Metro+ daily (high temp due to treatment). I have tried soaking the food in garlic guard and still, the one fish will not eat. It looks like it is likely the lowest in the picking order, but is not bullied too bad (it could still eat if it wanted too like the food goes in front of its face). After 1 week of no eating I figured okay screw this so I threw in the frozen bloodworms and he/she ate 2 of them!! However, I DO NOT WANT TO FEED BLOODWORMS but instead only pellets and maybe flakes. Is this normal behaviour considering all the other fish are eating? The fish is starting to look skinny around the forehead area (although this may be me becoming paranoid) but the lethargic hiding and facing the back has faded away. This is now day 4 of treatment but still not eating. Please let me know what to do!! I need this guy to eat for I fear it will die due to malnourishment. For some reason the pics would not upload so here are the pics on flickr if they help. https://flic.kr/p/21Fu3NJ the fish on the far right side centre and https://flic.kr/p/ZnQjCD fish centre with stress bars.

Thanks for your help and advice,

Stephen

[Clawhammer]

Sounds like you are doing a lot right with the fishless cycle, BB tank, and daily water changes.

I would cease treatment with Metro, that can effect appetite and there are no other signs that the fish is sick (no white poop). Also, no reason for the temp to be so high if not treating for hex.

8 days isn't very long for a discus to settle in and he definitely hasn't become emaciated in that time. I had a 3.5" fish stop eating for a month once and he ended up being one of my biggest fish. I think you should add some other foods to the mix, especially FDBW. Some discus really don't like pellets. 2 of my 14 will not eat pellets, even after 2 years of feeding.