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Thread: Single ingredient raw food my discus will love please?

  1. #1
    Registered Member HappyFace's Avatar
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    Default Single ingredient raw food my discus will love please?

    Any suggestions please for a simple ingredient or 2 I can buy at the grocery store, cut up and throw into the tank to feed to my discus? It has to be something that my SPOILED discus will enjoy eating. If not do you recommend a commercial diet (one I can buy online and have delivered) my picky discus will adore, hopefully one that's not too messy?

    Right now I'm feeding 40 San Francisco brand gumdrops bloodworms and 4 freeze dried tubifex worms a day split into 4 feedings. I want to continue to feed bloodworms and tubifex worms but I want to cut out some of the blood worm feedings and add something else.

    I really don't want to try anymore beef heart mixes. My discus won't eat it. From past experience it's a disgusting cloudy mess the discus dart away from like I'm throwing gasoline in the fish tank.

    gratuitous video of my discus feeding
    https://youtu.be/XjVECNnXkaA
    Last edited by HappyFace; 12-31-2017 at 08:21 PM.

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    Homesteader Altum Nut's Avatar
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    Default Re: Single ingredient raw food my discus will love please?

    Happy New Years Heidi...I have followed your various threads and know how immaculate your tank is. There are many foods both live, raw meat and commercially prepared that Discus will take but others don't. This can be frustrating to us hobbyist. I feed my wilds and domestics white worm that I culture in my garage. Al's cubed FDBW which seem to be a favorite and clean. I am just waiting on a new food to try called Bug Bits made by Hagan which I think is labelled now under Fluval. I too have narrowed away from any mixes for adults but do use B/H is raising fry.
    Sorry that is all I have to offer but others may chime in with suggestions you may want to try.

    ...Ralph
    "Success comes from knowing that you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming."
    -John Wooden

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    Registered Member HappyFace's Avatar
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    Default Re: Single ingredient raw food my discus will love please?

    Quote Originally Posted by Altum Nut View Post
    Happy New Years Heidi...I have followed your various threads and know how immaculate your tank is. There are many foods both live, raw meat and commercially prepared that Discus will take but others don't. This can be frustrating to us hobbyist. I feed my wilds and domestics white worm that I culture in my garage. Al's cubed FDBW which seem to be a favorite and clean. I am just waiting on a new food to try called Bug Bits made by Hagan which I think is labelled now under Fluval. I too have narrowed away from any mixes for adults but do use B/H is raising fry.
    Sorry that is all I have to offer but others may chime in with suggestions you may want to try.

    ...Ralph
    Happy New Year Ralph!!! Thank you! I will try some FDBW and bug bits.

    I'm kind of hoping for something I can buy raw at the grocery store also. Can they eat salmon? What would happen if I cut up beef heart and just toss it in the tank without making it into a mix- does it hold it's shape or dissolve without binders?

  4. #4
    Silver Member Willie's Avatar
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    Default Re: Single ingredient raw food my discus will love please?

    I am a proponent of beef heart. Old time breeders have raised multiple generations of discus with just this one ingredient.

    I cut up ground beefheart sheets into cubes beforehand and hard freeze them. In my experience, hard frozen ground beefheart do not fall apart and mess up the water. My discus will attack the cubes as soon as they sink. Discus are somewhat messy eaters, but my corys and plecos will do an excellent clean up job.

    I have fed salmon and pollack, but these were also pre-ground. To my surprise, my discus preferred beef to fish.

    Willie
    At my age, everything is irritating.

  5. #5
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    Default Re: Single ingredient raw food my discus will love please?

    Hello Heidi
    Happy New Year
    I gave up on beef heart mix because it was a total pain
    to make, trimming grinding,ect. So what I did is I made a mix
    of 1/2 chicken breast,
    1/4 lb. wild sockeye salmon
    2 or 3 med. size wild shrimp
    various amts. of prime reef flakes, Als fdbw, garlic powder
    kale and paprica.
    Cut the meats to 1/4 inch squares, food process seperately to a med. small consistency
    [ NOT A PASTE] mix all the ingredients together,put in a freezer bag and there you have .
    Quick,30 min. or so,and stays clean in the tank.
    Shave some of with a knife, chop a little bit and your done.
    Jay

  6. #6
    Moderator Team LizStreithorst's Avatar
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    Default Re: Single ingredient raw food my discus will love please?

    If you want a clean perfect food you need to feed live CBW's.
    Mama Bear

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    Registered Member HappyFace's Avatar
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    Default Re: Single ingredient raw food my discus will love please?

    Quote Originally Posted by Willie View Post
    I am a proponent of beef heart. Old time breeders have raised multiple generations of discus with just this one ingredient.

    I cut up ground beefheart sheets into cubes beforehand and hard freeze them. In my experience, hard frozen ground beefheart do not fall apart and mess up the water. My discus will attack the cubes as soon as they sink. Discus are somewhat messy eaters, but my corys and plecos will do an excellent clean up job.

    I have fed salmon and pollack, but these were also pre-ground. To my surprise, my discus preferred beef to fish.

    Willie
    Thank you Willie! Happy New Year! I will give ground frozen beef heart a try. I have cories and plecos too and my geophagus are ravenous eaters. It should work so long as it doesn't leave a coating on my white rock. My pleco refuses to clean the rock for some reason.

  8. #8
    Registered Member HappyFace's Avatar
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    Default Re: Single ingredient raw food my discus will love please?

    Quote Originally Posted by brady View Post
    Hello Heidi
    Happy New Year
    I gave up on beef heart mix because it was a total pain
    to make, trimming grinding,ect. So what I did is I made a mix
    of 1/2 chicken breast,
    1/4 lb. wild sockeye salmon
    2 or 3 med. size wild shrimp
    various amts. of prime reef flakes, Als fdbw, garlic powder
    kale and paprica.
    Cut the meats to 1/4 inch squares, food process seperately to a med. small consistency
    [ NOT A PASTE] mix all the ingredients together,put in a freezer bag and there you have .
    Quick,30 min. or so,and stays clean in the tank.
    Shave some of with a knife, chop a little bit and your done.
    Jay
    Happy New year Brady! Thank you for your recipe. I will definitely add sockeye salmon and garlic to my list!

  9. #9
    Registered Member HappyFace's Avatar
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    Default Re: Single ingredient raw food my discus will love please?

    Quote Originally Posted by LizStreithorst View Post
    If you want a clean perfect food you need to feed live CBW's.
    Thank you Liz! Do you find that black worms make the discus grow better? They appear to be a lot more expensive that bloodworms and more work. Right now I feel like I'm spending way too much on the gumdrop bloodworms $25.00 for 240 San Francisco gumdrops. I use 40 gumdrops a day so that's $125.00/month. They no longer sell the 8 ounce flatpack online or at my lfs. They sell a much less expensive biopure 8 ounce bloodworm flatpack online that I want to try.

  10. #10
    Moderator Team LizStreithorst's Avatar
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    Default Re: Single ingredient raw food my discus will love please?

    They're more expensive and take more effort than any other food. After all, they're alive. It's been a long time since I've fed them due to their cost. I guess I misunderstood your question. I thought you wanted to know the best raw food that your fish would love. Live CBWs are that.
    Mama Bear

  11. #11
    Silver Member Willie's Avatar
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    Default Re: Single ingredient raw food my discus will love please?

    Bloodworms are relatively low in protein content compared to blackworms and beefheart. I rely on the latter and use bloodworms as dessert if I want them to load up before leaving for a long weekend.

    Willie
    At my age, everything is irritating.

  12. #12
    Registered Member HappyFace's Avatar
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    Default Re: Single ingredient raw food my discus will love please?

    Quote Originally Posted by LizStreithorst View Post
    They're more expensive and take more effort than any other food. After all, they're alive. It's been a long time since I've fed them due to their cost. I guess I misunderstood your question. I thought you wanted to know the best raw food that your fish would love. Live CBWs are that.
    I see. They definitely look like a great food!

    Right now I'm looking for something simple and a bit less expensive to supplement the bloodworms and tubifex worms. $125/mo I'm spending on feeding 13 discus seems like a lot of money....if I buy raw meat maybe I can cut that price in half?

  13. #13
    Registered Member HappyFace's Avatar
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    Default Re: Single ingredient raw food my discus will love please?

    All my meat market has is pork heart. Is that ok?

  14. #14
    Registered Member HappyFace's Avatar
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    Default Re: Single ingredient raw food my discus will love please?

    Quote Originally Posted by Willie View Post
    Bloodworms are relatively low in protein content compared to blackworms and beefheart. I rely on the latter and use bloodworms as dessert if I want them to load up before leaving for a long weekend.

    Willie
    Good to know. Thank you for sharing that. Do you have any thoughts on tubifex worms? I heard they are fatty? My discus seem to love them.

  15. #15
    Silver Member Willie's Avatar
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    Default Re: Single ingredient raw food my discus will love please?

    Tubifex worms are full of disease. Eventually, your discus will get sick. I'd stay as far from that as I can.

    Heart muscle is used because it's usually the leanest of all the tissues. The big hassle is to cut out all the valves, connective tissue and blood vessels, which are very tough. When I bought hearts from the supermarket, the resulting tissue was 1/3 the weight of what I started with. It was a very messy process and I stopped doing it. Now I buy beefheart from California Blackworms, a Simply sponsor. They have different versions with different additives. I just get the straight beef heart. They come in 1-LB sheets. I cut them into cubes (1/2" X 1/2") and freeze them.

    The supermarkets in the Midwest also carry extra lean ground beef. There's a 97% lean (so less than 3% fat) grade that I used to simply freeze and feed. It took my fish a while to get used to eating it, but it worked fine. If I had bothered to run into through the food processor, they probably would have had no problem with it. Look for Excel brand in the meat department. They come in a tube.

    Willie
    At my age, everything is irritating.

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