Wierd discus behavior

[psuryava81]

I have a very peculiar problem. I recently purchased three 5.5-inch discus from GoldenState. One Blue diamond, one Meteor Piegon, and one Red Checkerboard. All arrived healthily and completed 3-week quarantine. They adjusted well in the quarantine and started eating on the fourth day in the qt tank. But the meteor pigeon did not eat just hung around the food and the red checkerboard. They seemed to have paired up but I was not sure. Then in the fourth week I added them to the main tank. The pecking order was reset and the new guys were all adjusted. Then since this was the display tank which I have a constant view of during the day , I noticed a lot of head shaking and general spawning rituals between the meteor pigeon and the checkerboard. And in two days they spawned. Now I was not expecting that cause they are smaller compared to my existing discus which looks huge compared to them. Sure enough, the eggs got eaten quickly. But now these guys have spawned 3 times that I have seen. They are like new weds, just at it all the time.

1. The meteor pigeon is the female and has not eaten during this whole time it has been here at my home. It is just focused on spawning. They are spawning constantly and I am worried the female will just wither away if it does not feed. The egg production must be very taxing on her body. The male checkerboard and blue diamond are eating like a pig.
2. There is a bigger problem, which is the weird one, last two days the meteor piegeon discus started coming to me when I feed FDBW with forceps, but it is not able to target its mouth on the worms stuck on the end of the long forceps. It is almost always 5 mm south of where the actual food is. It is now getting more hungry and trying very hard to get the worms in its mouth but failing. How do I solve this problem
3. Short of selling one of them what can I do to stop the spawning. I don't want them to spawn.

One thing I am considering is putting them in a separate tank and letting them get the breeding out of their system. If the eggs result in wigglers then that's ok I will just not do any of the required aggressive WC etc so the wigglers should definitely fail. And maybe after a few failed batches, they will give up.

[LizStreithorst]

I'd give them their own tank as you suggested. If she's well enough to spawn she certainly should be well enough to eat. But I would not cut down on WC if you get wigglers.