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Thread: my juvenile discus are very slow eaters

  1. #1
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    Prashant

    Default my juvenile discus are very slow eaters

    Hi All,
    I am new to the forum and discuss keeping. It has been about 2 months now. I got four juvenile discus unfortunately various sizes. biggest is 3" and smallest is about 2". The biggest is a bully but all of them get to eat. My main problem is they never attack the food right away even if they are hungry. It always takes them about few minutes to start eating. Sometimes it takes longer. I think this is contributing to higher nitrates than I would like. I am doing 25% WC daily with exact temp match aged water. below are the tricks I have tried
    I have tried soaking dry prepared foods with bloodworm water.
    I have also tried fasting them for couple of days
    Increased temp from 86 to 90 for a week
    I am planning to add two more discus at least 4+ inch to be good role models

    Most other posts I found were about fish not eating at all. Any other ideas appreciated

    Thank You

  2. #2
    Silver Member Iminit's Avatar
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    Default Re: my juvenile discus are very slow eaters

    Never heard of all of them waiting to eat. Strange. But as long as they are eating your good. 2 more may help but remember to qt the new guys. How high are the nitrates? How big is the tank. Pics would help.

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    Don Speers

    Default Re: my juvenile discus are very slow eaters

    Not sure why slow eaters equate to higher nitrates unless you are overfeeding. How big is your tank and what does "higher nitrates than I would like" mean? That may in and of itself be the appetite suppressant. You might want to up your WC to 50% for a few days and see what effect that has on appetite. Will certainly have to up the % with two more discus if you are concerned in re your current nitrate levels. Also, you might want to check your TDS vs your tap. Over time with evaporation you will have an increasing salt accumulation reflected by a higher TDS. Cure for that is substituting either distilled or RO water for tap to get your TDS levels back down near your tap source. Last question, what are you feeding them?

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    Default Re: my juvenile discus are very slow eaters

    Sorry, one cure for evaporative loss is RO or distilled, another and maybe easier is a very large WC, like 75-90%. Remember some folks do almost 100% WC with juveniles.

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    Default Re: my juvenile discus are very slow eaters

    I've had this when I ran out of most of my feed during lockdown and my fish was on pellets and home made food only. Try frozen brine shrimp, I've always had success with it when they become iffy. But with that said, up your wcs to at least to 50% for juvies and you'll see an improvement like what was said. TDS on the other hand shouldn't be a problem for domestics unless it's in the extremes(a TDS that keeps your water stable is what you want). Keeping it constant with daily wcs for youngsters is more important than aiming for a set number as you don't want to fluctuate things too much for them.

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    Default Re: my juvenile discus are very slow eaters

    Quote Originally Posted by Iminit View Post
    Never heard of all of them waiting to eat. Strange. But as long as they are eating your good. 2 more may help but remember to qt the new guys. How high are the nitrates? How big is the tank. Pics would help.
    I bought these from a very good local breeder. I intend to buy the 2 new ones from him so won't need to quarantine them. He has guaranteed that. They are currently in a 29Gallon tank . My 55 is almost setup and ready and I will be moving them in a week into the new tank.
    I am using the tera 6in1 strip and that one always shows around 10ppm based on the color shade. I am changing 25% daily.

  7. #7
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    Default Re: my juvenile discus are very slow eaters

    Wesley, I agree that there is no "right" TDS number, and that stability is the goal. My only point is that TDS will climb proportionately to evaporative loss (and over months to years can get very high) and should be periodically corrected with RO or distilled water, not the usual source (I am assuming tap) for water changes. TDS will also climb with fish waste and uneaten food which will confound any calculation of evaporative loss.

    The easiest way is to establish a baseline with a large WC i.e. 90 % or if concerned about changing parameters that rapidly you could do 50% x 3 every couple of hours which would result in an effective one time WC of 87.5%. Measure your TDS vs your WC source, they should be very close, if the tank is still elevated then the residual ~ 10% water was very "salty". Then, remeasure TDS just prior to your next routine WC to see what the non-evaporative contribution to TDS rise is. You can confirm that your TDS meter is accurate by then checking again immediately after the water change to confirm the expected TDS drop.

    How much the TDS will climb over time is then dependent on your WC frequency and %. Given 25% daily your steady state TDS value would be ~ TDS of source + 4 x the TDS non evaporative loss you calculated above prior to WC or 3 x non-evaporative loss after WC. Any TDS value above that ( I add a 25% fudge factor) is due evaporative loss and needs to be corrected.

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    Default Re: my juvenile discus are very slow eaters

    Quote Originally Posted by psuryava81 View Post
    I bought these from a very good local breeder. I intend to buy the 2 new ones from him so won't need to quarantine them. He has guaranteed that. They are currently in a 29Gallon tank . My 55 is almost setup and ready and I will be moving them in a week into the new tank.
    I am using the tera 6in1 strip and that one always shows around 10ppm based on the color shade. I am changing 25% daily.
    I would check back with the local breeder. I sold Discus and had hobbyist come back and see how I make my waterchanges and even gone to hobbyists homes if they were having problems.

    Cliff

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    Default Re: my juvenile discus are very slow eaters

    Try adding a fresh orange peel every day for seven days. The vigor of the fish's appetite usually improves. But stop after seven days.

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