fdbw diet

[brady]

Can discus thrive on a diet comprised solely of fdbw? Reason I ask, try as I might they won't eat pellets.
They will "mouth" them and spit them out. I have starved them for 3 days to no avail.
On the other hand they attack my hand when I'm pressing the worms to the glass.
Jay

[jeep]

It sounds like they are addicted. I recently got some new adults that ate nothing I gave them for 2 weeks, including FDBW's, so I bought some frozen bloodworms and they devoured them. I guess it was all they were eating before I got them. Over the next week or so, I kept alternating bloodworms, frozen BH, Discus Chow and Tetra Bits and they eventually came around and now eat anything I give them.

[jwcarlson]

What pellets? Mine like some but not others. Mine also seem to go hot/cold on stuff. They flat would not eat beefheart for awhile and now they're crazy about it (depending on the time of day). In the morning they will ignore beefheart in the evenings they will smash three cubes of it after the water change (undoing all the cleanliness gained).

But you can always starve them longer. I figure that *someday* I will convert them over to less messy food, but I don't have much urgency there. At this point they're still growing as far as I am concerned, so something they love eating is more important than anything else. I did find a beef heart cube that must have gotten shuffled under the driftwood and was in there 24 hours. That was a rank little thing. I did successfully fend off the fish who were diving after it.

[brewmaster15]

Can discus thrive on a diet comprised solely of fdbw? Reason I ask, try as I might they won't eat pellets.
They will "mouth" them and spit them out. I have starved them for 3 days to no avail.
On the other hand they attack my hand when I'm pressing the worms to the glass.
Jay

Jay, Yes they can thrive on a diet comprised solely of blackworms and I know that for a fact. But you can get discus to eat most foods even if they are spoiled. 3 days isn't starving though Jay. Its just fasting them a few days. Try giving them their new food in the morning, at night give them their favorite food, but far less than you are doing. You want them hungry when they go to go sleep at night so they are aggressively hungry in the morning. You feed the same new food that way for a few weeks and they will take to it. Discus love blackworms, but that doesn't mean you can't train them to accept other foods.


hth,
al

[brady]

Thanks everyone for the info.
Jay

[Greg-Florida]

Yes, this is good info. Keeping notes...
Thanks.