only pellet food diet - good or bad?

[Dhavalsp]

I have stendkers which I got from Hans and have grown them from 2.5 inch to about 4-4.5 inch now.

I recently attempted (still trying to) transition my discus from beef heart mix to variety of pellet food - NLS, Aquabites, tetracolor. At first my fish started eating everything but within week I have started noticing a good amount of left over during my daily water changes. On the stendker website it clearly mentions that they don't like pellet food, and will lose appetite if subjected to solid food for a longer period of time. I have known people here on SD who do feed only variety of pellet food to their fish and their fish thrive. I have following questions:

1. Is this a problem or should I just reduce the feeding amount and make them yield to my demand until they start taking pellet food?
2 If this is a problem, is it indigenous to stendkers or you have seen them across all discus (and the ones who are doing it successfully are just lucky)
3. Did I make the whole switch too early and you think I should continue with beefheart till they grow another inch or so?

Thanks for your help!

dhaval

[Phillydubs]

Dhaval,

Sounds like you are experiencing common symptoms from discus when you switch foods. They can easily become hooked on or accustomed to one food and be picky about it when you try and switch.

Have you ever tried freeze dried foods? Worms? FDBW are a great food...

If I were you, I would keep up with the BH and let them get more growth. What seems to be their hungriest time? First thing in the am? If thats the case maybe try the newer foods when they are most hungry and the foods you know they love for the harder to feed times.

Continue to mix foods try new foods and keep a variety, I would also order some FDBW, never seen a healthy fish turn those down!

[Dhavalsp]

hi phil, thanks for your reply and your words are reassuring...NLS is their least favorite, then probably Aquabite...they love tetrabits (that's equivalent of junkfood I guess..;))..

I start with their least fav in the morning and end the day with tetrabits...I have reduced the quantity of feeding and plan to increase overtime again...

My concern was they went at aquabites like crazy and now they have stopped, hopefully, they will start loving it again...

I am planning to add FDBW but only after they start eating these pellets happily...otherwise I will give them another reason to stay away from pellets.

[William1]

My question is, why do you want them to eat only pellets? Is it the cost? I feed my guys a good variety of foods, mostly frozen stuff. I may try the pellets for a change or an experiment, but it won't be a staple in their diet. I wouldn't feed them only beef heart either. It makes a lot more sense to me to feed a variety of foods. The fish will get different nuritional benefits from different foods. Just like people do. If the provider of your fish says they won't eat pellets, why try to make them eat it in the first place?

[Filip]

I have also noticed that my discus eat different amount of food when different food type is offered.
They tend to overeat on their favorites BH , or artemia as opposed to tetra bits and pellets.
My first meal is always tetra bits / pellets as a staple diet , because I find this kind of food easier to serve and more convenient for me , but I tend to mix variety of foods on my second feeding-BH , Artemia , Mysis, Shrimps.

[Jayce]

I'm having a similar experience with my Stendkers not taking pellet foods. Unfortunately some of the highest quality prepared foods are only sold in pellet form. I've tried NLS, Cobalt, Hikari, and Northfin. They'll peck at the NLS discus pellets but not enough for me to feed them regularly. The only prepared food they like is the Omega One color flakes which they go crazy for. BTW here's a great review of fish foods on oscarfish.com: http://www.oscarfish.com/fish-food-analysis.html

My Stendkers absolutely love FDBW. They get so worked up into a frenzy that they bite my hand while I'm sticking the cubes on the glass. They also like frozen beefheart and mysis shrimp. I have 6 Stendkers 4.5" - 6.5" in a barebottom 75 gallon. On a typical day they'll get 2 - 4 FDBW cubes, 2 cubes of beefheart, 1 cube of mysis and one or two pinches of the Omega One flakes. I'd like them to take some of the better quality pellets to improve and diversify their nutrition a little but they're not having it.

[korbi_doc]

Wow, was not aware that pellets are not popular....I'm feeding Sera discus granules & they seem ok on it, ...unfortunately I'm not really able to be consistent with feeding so I use auto-feeders which make life simpler for me...don't know if these are considered pellets, which may be larger, but this is my mainstay & the fish do seem to do well on it....the feeders are helpful but do need checking for battery power at times....
Maintenance is a problem, but I've had some help lately, hope he comes back,(young family man had unexpected twins, now very busy, lol) He has set up a very nice community tank & a salt tank for me & I'm stocking them as we speak, but I would like my discus tanks redone, lol...

[walt]

I also use Sera discus granules and all my discus love it and all my discus are from Hans

[Dhavalsp]

My question is, why do you want them to eat only pellets? Is it the cost? I feed my guys a good variety of foods, mostly frozen stuff. I may try the pellets for a change or an experiment, but it won't be a staple in their diet. I wouldn't feed them only beef heart either. It makes a lot more sense to me to feed a variety of foods. The fish will get different nuritional benefits from different foods. Just like people do. If the provider of your fish says they won't eat pellets, why try to make them eat it in the first place?

Hi William, this is a planted aquarium, so BH was getting a bit messy and difficult to clean. Pellet seem clean at least so far so that is the reason. also I know for a fact that they will get hooked to FDBW and it will get more difficult to introduce pellets...as far as note from stendkers - they have lot of 'recommendations' which we don't follow...example, their tank size requirement(way less than 10G per fish), WC schedule(30% weekly) and so on...so just wanted to see if we could bend their pellet food rule...

Filip, I think I am going to do that pellet in the morning - aquabite/tetrabits...BH at noon and evening..

Walt, do you use Sera as staple ?

[Filip]

Hi William, this is a planted aquarium, so BH was getting a bit messy and difficult to clean. Pellet seem clean at least so far so that is the reason. also I know for a fact that they will get hooked to FDBW and it will get more difficult to introduce pellets...as far as note from stendkers - they have lot of 'recommendations' which we don't follow...example, their tank size requirement(way less than 10G per fish), WC schedule(30% weekly) and so on...so just wanted to see if we could bend their pellet food rule...

Filip, I think I am going to do that pellet in the morning - aquabite/tetrabits...BH at noon and evening..

Walt, do you use Sera as staple ?



I also have planted tank and I agree that tetra bits and pellets are much more cleaner food than BH or other fresh foods.
I give them bits/pellets as a first food just to be sure they will always eat it , but I do want to change and refresh their diet with other tastier foods that I always tend do feed them as a second meal .

P.s. on Stendkers .
They are discus just like any other discus fish from any other breeder or part of the world . So the same rulles of keeping Discus apply to every discus fish from around the world(wild caught being a bit different).

The optimistic info that you can keep one discus per 5 gallons and change only 30% once a week given on Stendkers page is a bit of a marketing trick IMO .
Do not take that for granted .

[William1]

Great discussion. I have eight wild blue discus in a planted 120G, so I'm with you. I am going to try pellets for a change. It's a fun hobby. They won't starve .

[Ryan]

A few months ago I saw a lot of conversation on Facebook about Hikari Discus Bio Gold. People claimed their fish loved it but I was skeptical. My discus have always been stubborn about dried flakes or pellets.

I'd always had great luck with normal Hikari Cichlid Bio Gold for all of my South American fish; I use it as my staple food for everything in the house, from the micropellets for fry and dwarf cichlids all the way up to the 3mm stuff for the big guys. Within about four days, almost every discus in the hatchery was eating Discus Bio Gold with no issues. The pellets are very small and soften in water, making them easy to chew and swallow. I do see them making a mess though, with crumbs going everywhere as they graze. I still make sure to keep up with my water changes. You may want some smaller tetras or cories to clean up the leftovers if you're in a planted/substrate tank.

I think it's a great idea to get them on a good quality pellet or flake if you can.