I'm I overfeeding?

[harrythebat]

Hello everyone and I'm new to the forum.
I do read the forums a lot and something been bothering me or wondering if I'm overfeeding.
When I turn on the lights in the morning all my Discus are right in front of the tank waiting to be fed and their belly are thin by night time their belly is round and looks like they are overfed. I only feed 2 times a day but every I read on here that others feed 3-6 times a day and if I did feed more they would not stop eating.
Please let me know how much you actually feed or potions.

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[danotaylor]

Your fish seem to be in good condition from your pictures. 1-2 daily feeds is enough for 4.5"+ discus. How big are you fish?
I only feed my 5 x 6" discus 1 time daily with a 1"×1"×0.25" piece of pure ground deer heart. I also have some 3.5-4.5" discus, which prior to getting sick from my hero fish, I fed 3-4 times daily as they're still in the rapid growth phase.
Raising fry requires more intensive feeding, like the 3-6 times you mentioned.
Keep doing what you're doing, your discus look happy & healthy!

[harrythebat]

They were 3'' when we got them and now they are 4-4.5'' and The food is a mix of beef heart with prawns. About 1''x1'' similar to your food which I feed two of these per day. So i might be overfeeding a little bit.
But do their belly look too fat and will that cause them any issue in the future?
There are 13 of them in a 200 gallon tank.
Thank you for your reply Dano.

[slicksta]

Discus will often eat more than they should and get a protruding belly. I try to avoid that happening frequently but I can't say that it would cause harm.
That said discus are omnivores and you should be feeding a wider variety of foods. Mine like a seafood mix flake that has spirulina in it and pelltets such as Hikari cichlid excel.

[harrythebat]

Their mix food contain prawns,beef heart, Spinach, pink salmon, kale powder, vitamin c powder, spirulina,astaxanthin and also dissolved multivitamins dried plankton, peas.
Its all in the mix but they don't all like to eat the pellets or flakes and the ones that do tends to overfeed:S

[slicksta]

That sounds better... Your primary description led me to believe that you were doing a protein mix.
Most animals will over eat because instinct tells them that their next meal may be some time away.
If you can feed less more often you can get to the same place as far as growth.

[harrythebat]

That is actually a good idea and I do hand feed them since I have gravel and almost none of the food get lost in the gravel as my other fishes picks it off as it is falling down or the smaller bits and yes feeding them in smaller amounts make sense.
And also found out that if the food is less grinded down it is much easier to feed and falls apart less.

[BradGreenberg]

I have a similar dilemma. I have 6 discus fish of very diverse sizes. There are 4 fish that range in size from 2-3/4 inches to just about 4 inches. I purchased them on-line at 2 inches and they are doing well. I recently purchased 2 others, on-line from a different breeder. One is 4 inches and the other nearly six inches (I think the breeder, whom I spoke with for a while, did me a favor giving me a much larger fish than ordered). Both of the 2 new fish can only be described as very thick, stocky and round. The four other fish are healthy, vigorous and colorful, but not massive nor thick like the 2 recently purchased fish. They share the 75 gal. tank with 12 neon tetras and 4 khori catfish.

I feed the discus three times a day with one pre-cut frozen cube of beef heart and two pre-cut cubes of frozen blood worms. The cubes weigh approximately one to two grams each. They come in rows of plastic blisters. The fish eat all the frozen food in approximately 10 minutes (more or less). I have gravel at the bottom of the tank, which I vacuum 2-3 a week with a Fluval Pro electric vacuum. However, 4 of the discus fish have learned to dig in the gravel and get most of the food that makes it to the bottom. (the very large fish has yet to learn to dig). The catfish get the rest and the tetras get some dry food. I change the the water (40%-45%) every 5 days or so.

Under those circumstances, I am not able to tell whether I am feeding them too much or too little. I want the smaller fish to grow and use a number of plastic plants to keep the aggression between the largest fish and the smaller ones down.

[peewee1]

Brad, a steady diet of blood worms would tend to render a diet of not optimum nutritional value. Beef heart is old school food and uneaten particles can foul the tank, hence making water changing and vacuuming more critical. Why not add variation to their diets and observe how much they consume in 10 to 15 minutes. Can you feed more that 3 times a per day? People eat 3 times per day, Discus, in the wild, eat all day long.