Feeding Time Aggression

[SejRamkas]

I have a 55 gallon tank with 4 discus currently in it. I have one large pigeon blood about 4.5" and the other three are around 2.5-3". The pigeon blood has made it apparent he is the top of the pecking order, especially when it comes time to eat. They normally get along well until there is food in the tank and he immediately runs the other 3 into the top corners of the tank and eats the food all himself. I am worried the others are going to starve because of this. I use a sinking pellet food currently.

My question:
Would it be a good idea to use a flake food in combination with the pellet? Say, drop the pellet food in to get the big guys attention and once he chases the others to the surface throw in some flake food? Do the discus still get good nutrition from flakes? I know discus like to scavenge the bottom of the tank for food, so will they react and take well to the flakes?

Also,
I will be hopefully getting 2 more discus this weekend. Would it be a good idea to take the PB out while introducing the two new ones and then introduce him in say a week or 2 later?

Thanks

[darcy]

I feed flake,but not as main food. I break it up during the day. Bloodworms,FDBW,Beefheart,Live BW,flake(not in any certain order).
My big Blue SS can be a bit of a bully but I find if I feed in a couple of different spots the aggression is lessened by quite a bit. Only really happens if the Turq gets too close to the Blue's stash. The Blue however does not bully the two pigeon's that he lives with.

[ROOK45]

How long have they been together? Over time these problems sometimes work themselves out.

[SejRamkas]

How long have they been together? Over time these problems sometimes work themselves out.

Thats a good question. The pigeon blood has been in there about 3 months now. Two of the smaller ones have been in my tank for longer than that. The third smaller one was added about a week ago. I know they should all be added at the same time, but it is impossible to find discus in Alabama so I add them as I find them. The PB didnt start exhibiting this behavior until a little over a week ago, but hes always been the dominant. I'm afraid its led to stunting my other two that have been in the tank with him, and the third I just added will also suffer.

[ROOK45]

As the saying goes if you want to raise 5 nice discus get 6 and so on whatever number you want to raise really nice always add another. One is almost always going to be the runt. Also never remove the runt cause another will replace it. It's a general rule with all aggressive fish. I think your just going to have to add more. You can try taking the a**hole one out for a period of time and put it back later. This worked for me, I took out the trouble maker and put him in a separate tank and put him back 2 weeks later and all is sort of peaceful in my tank now.

Good luck keep us posted

[ROOK45]

I tried to edit the last post but it showed up as a quote

[camuth8]

When that happened to me, I used a sheet of glass to block the alpha and let the other discus get out of the corner and get some food. They came right on out and started eating like crazy.

[SejRamkas]

When that happened to me, I used a sheet of glass to block the alpha and let the other discus get out of the corner and get some food. They came right on out and started eating like crazy.

I have done the whole tank divider thing before, but I was hoping to stray away from that. I dont want to keep discus if they have to be in bare bottom tanks with dividers for the aggressive ones etc. I like discus for their beauty in a more natural setting, but also dont want the health of the others to suffer because one is trying to take over. Do you think my problem will be helped by getting two more discus and introducing them together along with rescaping the tank?

[sandy]

Adding some more discus can solve your problem as I too had such issue but when I added some more discus he stop dominating other

Try it should work

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