Rock Hard Pellets

[CammieTime]

I bought some Northfin Food Cichlid Formula 2mm Pellet, as it was recommended on here for discus. The pellets are rock hard and the fish won't eat them. They don't seem to soften up very quickly. I'm trying to get the fish to eat these pellets so they are not just eating the messy beef mix and also to improve water quality.

Am I supposed to soak these pellets prior to feeding? The label says nothing about pre-soaking them. How long should I soak them?

[pitdogg2]

It may take awhile for them to get used to them. Soaking for 5 minutes may or may not help though they will be soft.

[Dhavalsp]

try soaking them, it generally helps....and feed very little...

[DISCUS STU]

Sometimes they never get used to some of these rock hard pellets. I have at least two different types of pellets that my fish just won't eat ever, just a waste of money and they are marketed as being especially for the Discus.

The best thing about one of them is that I can use the container for Hikari Bio Gold which my Discus will eat, along with Tetra Bits.

Whew, glad I got that out of my system (lol).

[two utes]

I really don't think its worth all the extra effort of waiting for them to soften before serving to your discus. You could always try crushing them up and add them to the next beefheart mix you make. Get them onto a pellet or even freeze dried black worms that you can feed them straight out of the can.

[DISCUS STU]

I really don't think its worth all the extra effort of waiting for them to soften before serving to your discus. You could always try crushing them up and add them to the next beefheart mix you make. Get them onto a pellet or even freeze dried black worms that you can feed them straight out of the can.

You're right, it isn't. It's a waste of time and if they won't eat it straight away, it's been a waste of money.

My fish will eat almost anything and aren't picky but they won't eat New Life Spectrum Discus Formula or the new one, Omega One Super Color Discus Pellets. As for the second one I told this to the rep. when I ran into him making a call at a lfs near me.

[tolga]

Hi, I have also started to try and and get my heckels to eat these pellets. They appear to like the taste but they then spit it out as it is too hard for them. I have recently started to crush the pellets with the side of a large Chinese cleaver and chop the pieces with sharp edge of the cleaver on a chopping board. I then put the whole mixture through a sieve. You get a lot of dust. I use this dust to add to the special mixture I make for my my white worm culture. In the end, I am left with smaller pieces of pellets and the surface area of each piece appear to be larger due to the irregular shape caused by the act of crushing and chopping. I assume this helps to soften the pieces more quickly compare to the standard shape. Don’t get me wrong, these pieces would still take a while to soften up like others have already said. And I’m not sure if they ever get to a “soft” state as such. My fish are still not enthusiastic about this food but they will wait for it to soften somewhat and eat it slowly if it’s the first feed of the day. Having a glass bottom helps them to find each piece in their own time. I’ll try and persevere with this method for a while longer as I believe these pellets to be good quality. You can tell by observing their poop that it is highly digestible. If they carry on with their unenthusiastic attitude, I might give up and go back to their favourite discus gran wild which is not soft to begin with but softens very quickly unlike the NorthFin granuals.

[plecocicho]

Tolga, buy instead Tropical wild gran, Tropical softline or Dennerel discus. All these are superb and very soft granules and my heckles love them. I remember tetra discus granules- now they were so hard, you coudl cut glass with it.

[tolga]

Thank you Plecocicho. I am definitely going to order more of wild grans as my fish like those. I will also look into the tropical soft line. I already have the dennerle discus but the grain size is much smaller than what it says on the can. I do give this food from time to time and while the softness is clearly an advantage, My heckels don’t like it very much and half of it gets spat out which then creates a thin layer of fine dust on the bottom of the tank. The frustration I’ve had with the north fin was to do with its hardness. Other than that, it appears to be a very good quality dry food as unlike most other dry food manufacturers, they claim they are using whole salmon, sardine and herring meal and not the rejected off cuts from fish processing plants. The Pacific krill is also a very valuable source of natural pigmentation, antioxidants etc. So if these claims are true, then this is supposedly a very high quality fish food if only it could have been not so hard. So, I don’t think I’ll be binning it straight away. But thanks for your suggestion about the tropical softline. I’ll look into it...

[latrodectus]

It takes time for them to adjust to hard pellets, and my female of the pair will eat down those rock hard pellets when they hit water, but my male would spit out and eat after theyve been in water for like 3-5 mins. all depends, my pair would take both NLS discus formula and Northfin krill pro