Does Discus need variety in their diet?

[tdiscusman]

I know most would recommend a well balance and variety of diet for discus, but do they really need it? or is it because we like variety in our diet and thought that discus will like it too? If we give our discus quality pellets/flakes/BH Mix or even live food that they really like why not just stick to one type of food? Stendker, Germany only feed BH Mixed (correct me if I'm wrong) and Danzinger Discus Farm fed exclusive on Tetra discus pellets food and their discus are thick and huge. Even JW said that water quality is more important than food, so as long as we can maintain high water quality, then it doesn't matter what we feed them. Just wanted to hear everyone thought on this?

Thanks
Tony Nguyen

[Eddie]

Sure, you can feed one type of food. It would be best to use a food that would encompass all of the nutritional needs of the fish. A good pellet or flake would be fine.

Take care,

Eddie

[Dkarc@Aol.com]

When we say feed a varied diet it is because the exact nutritional requirements of discus at a given age isnt very well known. Yes there are papers out there that say what they *think* to be their nutritional needs, but because discus nutrition is so far down on the list of nutritional research it will take several more years to determine a more appropriate "ideal" diet for every life stage for discus. Until then, feed a well rounded diet that is relatively high in protein (45-50%), moderate in fat (6-12%, depending on size of fish), and very high in vitamins/minerals.

-Ryan

[caparzo]

I had this discussion with a guy tonight.. I tried flake food and my algea got out of control quickly.. to much left over. He swears by, " all bloodworms, all the time." I've been going with Frozen, Live bloodworms, and recently started mixing in Frozen Mysis shrimp which they seem to like.. I guess you can call that variety.

[Scribbles]

The reasons that I feed a variety is to try to cover all of my fishes' nutritional needs and I think that feeding a variety makes for easy (not picky) eaters. If I were to feed one food though it would be a pellet such as Hikari Discus Bio Gold or ON Formula One.

Chris

[grantbudd74]

i guess you are right, we like variety so why not our loved fish. Look at spectrum discus formula. This food is expensive and is complete from a diet point of view. I still like to treat them with live black worm and brine shrimp as they smash these! I guess budget makes the decision and also things like excess blood from say frozen bloodworm.

Good post thanks

[tdiscusman]

Thanks all for your input. The reason I've posted the questions is because some of the big time discus farm have great success with sticking to one type of food, and to me that is enough proof as to discus dietary/nutritional needs. However, as a hobbyist, I treat my discus like a pet and not farm animal and found that it's hard to stick to just one food, because your instinct always wanting to pamper your pets with different treats here and there, not that they are needed.

Tony Nguyen