What are some foods i could feed to my discus that float?

[Abercrombie6202]

I want my tnak to be CLEAN as it is planted and it is harder to keep clean than a barebottom aquarium. My planted aquarium of course is going to have cories, but i want to keep the food from touching the bottom at a MINIMUM. I'm also wondering would snails also help clean this mess up? And if so what kind of snails don't eat plants?

Which foods float and discus will eat. Will discus go to the top of the aquarium to get the food? will the other fish get the food before the discus? (other fish include hatchets, rummy-noses, pencilfish, cardinals)

[Carol_Roberts]

My discus feed in the middle and bottom of the tank. that is why I like bare bottom tanks. The discus will pick at the food on the bottom of the tank for quite a while. My discus do not go to the top of the tank to eat floating pellets.

I keep my discus only with discus

[Luca]

There is a product available (sorry not sure who makes it) but anyway it's a clear plastic cone that sticks to the top of the tank, it's useful to put bloodworms, brine shrimp and you could try putting flake in it too, it's designed to give discus more of getting at the food before it is consumed by your other tetras etc.

It's cheap to buy, look into it.

[BlueTurquoise]

I agree with carol, my discus eat from the middle of the tank and will spend hours foraging at the bottom of the tank for food scraps, esp when they are hungry. Only the very greedy babies eat directly from the top but I think with age, this grows out of them and they only eat mid-bottom.

Flakes float for some time if placed properly into the tank. I am not a huge fan of floating foods as I think they may not soak properly and may bloat your fish, or contain air...

Most of the time, the food is eaten up before it hits the bottom of the tank. I think you should try feeding very lightly and often rather than alot at once to avoid the left over situation.

The other behavour I have observed is that discus need time to "chew" their food. ie They will peck and swallow very feircely at the beginning but will slow down and gradually and slowly eat up the rest of the food over time, taking only one or 2 mouthfulls every so often. This could take up to 5-10 mins to finish everything esp for chunky foods like beefheart. The time taken to do this is more than ample for any food to sink right to the bottom.

I too only keep discus, and keep a bare bottom tank so it is easy for them and me to see food scraps at the bottom.

Cheers!

[dred]

Just adding that my Discus think like Carol's. The only time my discus will predictably eat from the top of the tank is when I'm hand feeding. And, in my quest to vary their diet, I've tried a couple brands of floating pellets. They just float till they cloud the water.

Strangely, Ocean Nutrition Flakes, which do initially float, have been taken from the surface. I have one tank where a couple of the larger discus will agitate the surface to get the flakes to sink, but in one fry tank, they will take flakes from the surface if the bottom and middle areas are otherwise claimed. It is pretty cool to see them swimming the surface with their dorsals exposed, but these same fish turn up their lateral lines at floating pellets, so ...

That said, you can probably get some good strategies for dealing with planted tanks in the biotope section.

[Desertdrifter]

my fish love freeze dried blood worms :-*

[Luca]

So do some of you suggest not feeding flake at all?

[Carol_Roberts]

I feed flakes and sinking pellets

[edgeguy]

I feed frozen blood worms (cube) and they float until the Discus devour them.

I also use Omega one flakes veggie and first flake and they love them. Best flake food IMO.

My Discus are still young so they come to the top and feed on both foods very well.

[Abercrombie6202]

So.. what should i feed my discus? What is the healthiest to feed the discus, but won't cloud the tank and won't carry disease

[BlueTurquoise]

All foods foul the water if not eaten up. You have to marry feeding enough with not over feeding and find a balance between the both.

I suggest the best thing to do is feed small amounts often rather than lots seldom. Feed a tiny bit that will get consumed within 5-10 secs, wait 20 mins and do it again. Do this 8-20 times a day or however many times you can. Remember it is not how often you feed them or whatever but the actual amount that they eat in a day that is most important.

What you essentially create is natural competative behaviour. When there is only little bits of food available per feeding, they will naturally compete more to get at the food. Essentially you get them into a competative habit and after awhile whenever food hits the water, they will competatively and instinctively gobble it all up as fast as they can, which in turn avoids fouling up of leftover foods becuase there won't be any left after 5-10 secs!

I suggest a variety of food. The most safe/widely accepted would have to be Tetra Bits and Hikari frozen blood worms. You can try many other things if they will take it. After awhile of this type of "training" they will eat anything that you give them becuase they are too busy competing over the food to worry about what is actually being offered, especially if they are juvenile fish. (that is the theory anyway! ;) :) )

Hope that helps! Cheers!

[Luca]

Great response Chong, some insightful ideas.

What are the sinking pellets you feed your discus Carol?

I think an important thing to keep in mind is that if you end up selling the discus make sure you tell the people so they buy the same food. Discus are often fussy and will at times not eat (especially when being moved). Keeping their food the same will hopefully jog their memory back into action and assume their old habits.

[BlueTurquoise]

Hmm that is true. Ideally you should start with young fish that you can train to eat a variety of foods and will accept most things in the logn run. That is the ideal situation.

That said, I have an adult that does not eat much else but blood worms and tetra bits however I have been successful at weening her onto flakes and brine shrimp. She'll only nibble at beefheart, but hope is out there, even for the most fussy of discus! :)

[Keith.L]

I used to feed live bloodworms to my Discus using a plastic feeder when they were juveniles (see picture below taken in July 2002).

Then I switched to flakes, as I started to travel more often and no way I could feed live or frozen bloodworms from an auto feeder. I used Tetra Flakes and they worked fine; it tend to float for a little before soaked with water and sank.

Next I switched to Tetra Bits. These were better than flakes in that they didn't stick together as a clump and getting clog inside the feeder as much. Tetra Bits tend to sink faster but some do stay afloat. (I have seen floating TetraBit that turned into a moldy furball. Really disgusting. :puke: )

Now my juveniles are all grown ups and they hardly ever swim to the top for floating food. They only pick at food at bottom of the tank. I tried feeding frozen BeefHeart (from JW), but only one knew it was food and the other 3 all ignored it. This clouded up the water too much for my liking.

Next I tried Diskusin and got better success than BH. (See also thread in the food section). This was freeze-dried and I need to get my hand & arm wet to push and "stick" it onto the tank, almost near the bottom. It also started out with only one Discus (the same one!) going for it, but the others soon got the clue and joined it in the next days. Too bad this Diskusin tend to come loose and float after a few nips.

I guess in most cases we can "train" our fish to eat different types of food...

Regards,
-Keith 030815