Discus are not that colorful

[chinoz]

hellow fellow discus lovers,


my red doll is not coloring up like it suppose to, i bought this one from Peter Thodes and all his red dolls look gorgeous. His color up really red at 2.5" inch. Mine is at 3 inch now and the color is just horrible. I feed them only cbw, 50 % W/C every monda, wed, fri and sunday. any suggestion?

[chinoz]

some pics might help ;D

[chinoz]

another one

[chinoz]

again.

[chinoz]

Eventhough these might look colorful to you but trust me..its not ;D. its the camera ;D should i try to feed them tetra bits? or more W/C?

[Carol_Roberts]

Tetra bits or food with red enhancer may help. Time will help more. Discus may not get their full color for a year or so.

[April]

Yes. you cant expect their full colour until about 10 months .
I really think you need to feed them more than just blackwroms though. They may not get enough minerals from straight blackworms. the flake like onf1 or tetra bits has vitamins and colour enhancer and minerals etc in them.
i use alot of onf1 and get good growth. i also use a beefheart/prawn/clam/shrimp/cod/garlic/and vitamins mix.
Alot of people have also discussed they get sick of the same food constantly and sometimes will go off their food with no variety. so id try introduce something else.

[Ryan]

Carol is right, any food with red color enhancer in it may "artificially" redden up your fish for the time being. Most of the pictures I've seen of young melons and dolls show fish that don't have much color yet, most are pastel-looking. Anyone know what age they really start to color up at?

You can try Tetra Bits, Hikari Discus Red, or even ONF1. If you fed beefheart you could mix in astaxanthin (Naturose). I've known breeders who use it -- maybe Peter has it mixed in beefheart? You could also ask him how he got his fish to color up so young, it's most likely in the food.

Ryan

[chinoz]

Ryan,

I think you are right..Peter does feed his discus his own mix of beefheart. Its kinda hard to get them to eat Tetra Bits now, because they are so use to cbw.

[crazy4discus]

ur fish looks pretty nice to me and yeah i heard most discus dont get there full colors til a year old

[Ryan]

TnT,

It's best to keep your fish on a variety of foods. I used to feed mine one main thing, and then it was almost impossible to get them to try new stuff. If you feed a wide variety of things to the fish when they're young, they're more likely to accept new foods as they get older.

I have some fish that were fed the same thing for a long time. I recently tried weening them onto flakes, and even after starving them for a day or two, they won't even look at the flakes. It's a shame.

You could cut back on your blackworm feedings and start adding tiny amounts of the other stuff. If you have to, skip one day of feeding, then try the new food (whether it's flakes, pellets, beefheart, etc...) as your morning feeding. The fish seem to be more eager to eat their first meal of the day. They may spit it out at first, but be persistent and they'll eventually eat it.

Ryan

[chinoz]

ok, i will try to feed them Tetra Bits in the morning to see if they will take it. Thanks Ryan.