Discus won't eat Bloodworms!!!

[Marfie]

Hi all! I recently got 4 3.5 inch discus about 2 months ago and everything was going fine until last week. I usually feed them a mixture of brine shrimp, blood worms, TetraColor Bits and Flakes, and they usually all pig out. All of a sudden one of them seemed to suffer from bloat so I did an Epsom salt treatment that seemed to clear up the problem. However the same discus all of a sudden is very very picky! More specifically it would not touch the blood worms anymore (He still eats the flakes, bits and shrimp). What should I do? I thought about restricting the diet to just bloodworms for perhaps a week to starve it into accepting in but would this be drastic? Thanks for any advice.

Marfie

[susantroy1]

Hey Marfie,

I wouldn't be to concerned due to the fact that he/she is still eating other foods. I have a few that don't like bloodworms either but they make up for it in other areas. remember if you ate something that really bloated you out you may shy away from that item as well:) After one of mine bloated and recovered he/she was picky for a few days after as well.

All The Best

Troy

[ShinShin]

For some reason, some discus have a hard time digesting BW's when they are that small. Tetra Bits compound the problem when fed with BW's. It is not really best to feed this combo to small fish. Bloat is a common problem.

I had this conversation with Wattley's. Gabe feels the same way about the combo, and Jack repeatedly warns people in his column about feeding BW's to small discus.

I've had this happen to me in the past. Not always, but enough that I won't feed the combo anymore.

Mat

[Marfie]

For some reason, some discus have a hard time digesting BW's when they are that small. Tetra Bits compound the problem when fed with BW's. It is not really best to feed this combo to small fish. Bloat is a common problem.

I had this conversation with Wattley's. Gabe feels the same way about the combo, and Jack repeatedly warns people in his column about feeding BW's to small discus.

I've had this happen to me in the past. Not always, but enough that I won't feed the combo anymore.

Mat

Thanks for the info! I never knew it was ill advised to feed blood worms to smaller discus. I thought the major cause of bloat was due to dry foods such as flakes and bits that absorb water while in the gut of the discus. I will continue to feed them blood worms sparingly since I bought so much of it, but I will feed them more of the other foods I have.

[Dave27]

3.5 " discus, BW are no problem. Flakes and pellets esp are more of a problem to cause bloat than BW.
Your over feeding.
2 meals a day is enough, 3 max and spreed them out, they don't need to be stuffed to grow properly.
TOTAL MISCONCEPTION!!!
Feed bloodworms twice a day and a quality flake every other day in place of a BW feeding.
The # 1 cause of young discus death is bloat / overfeeding of anything! repeat overfeeding of anything!
If they don't eat it all in a 3-4 minute time period, your over feeding.

Watch for over eaters ( usually the largest fish ) and separate them from the rest with a tank divider for a month or so and feed them appropriately, shrink their stomach a little and then watch them closely when you remove the divider so they don't over eat.

It takes a couple of days for some fish to come out of an epson salt treatments. Do small WC every 2 days so they don't stress out and shock out. Gradually come off the salt after having them dosed for 2 - 3 days.

[ShinShin]

Dave,

Some of your feeding therories or practices are a bit different than those of peope who have studied fish nutrition. I agree that most people overfeed their fish thinking they are going to grow 9" giants. Truth is most just enjoy feeding the fish and watching the dynamics of the group work.

The belief is that the small discus cannot digest the chitin outer shell of the bloodworm and that this can cause complications when coupled with pellets like Tetra Bits. There is alot a validity to this. There are numerous reports of discus dying from intestinal blockage caused by the inability to be able to digest the shells of the shrimp that was used in their BH mix. That is why almost all recipes call for peeled shrimp. Shrimp shell is also made of chitin.

I followed up on this by looking at fecal samples of discus feed bloodworms under a microscope. Have you? You would have noticed many undigested worms if you did. In experiments I've done, a 2 day a feeding of only bloodworms with a flake food feeding tossed in every couple of days will not produce very nice discus. Juvenile need to be fed 3 times daily with a protein content of 50%, along with othr essential nutrients. Or, at least that is what the fish nutritionists say.

Mat

[waters10]

Mat,

I know this is going a bit off-topic, but you just mentioned my diet, right there: FBW + bits. That's 75-85% of what I feed daily, with live worms mixed in. What's a good substitute for FBW or bits? They don't eat flakes, no matter wht I tried.

Thanks

[Dave27]

Matt

Sounds like good advice.
You won't starve fish with 2-3 well thought out feedings, but you can easily kill them with more if your not very careful, even sometimes then. Like you said people like to feed and watch them and that is why so many people end up with head standers.

[Marfie]

Great News! The Discus is back to eating BWs and I didn't even starve him/her into it. I'm just a bit concern about stunting now though since he/she is now the smallest guy in the tank (although the most aggresive). When I now got them he could boss everyone else around, not anymore.

[Apistomaster]

What I have experienced with bloated discus was always associated with feeding too much of a moist food then soon after, a feeding of dry pellets like Tetra Color bitss or visa versa. it appeared to me that the dry food swells beyond the capacity of their gut an perhaps gas bubbles form that throws off their equilibrium. It can be distressing to see the fish in such distress but they would eventually vent the gas and the equilibrium returns.

Being more careful about spacing the timing of the feedings prevented this from recurring. It would usually just be one out of 10 Disccus I was growing out for breeders. I saw it as my fault, not the specific food(s) or fish. It isn't really constipation; I don't believe Discus become constipated in human terms.
Blood worm chitonous exoskeletons are as natural a form of roughage as we have available. In the case of blood worms, it is perfectly fine to feed them one large feeding. Just don't follow up too soon with a dry food or the reverse. It is true that the structure of marine shrimp shells and blood worm exoskeletons are composed of the identical material, there is a big difference between the thin blood worm exoskelton and a marine shrimp.

I begin feeding frozen blood worms to juvenile Discus as soon as they demonstrate they are capable of eating them. I add a large portion of freeze dried blood worms to my own beef heart blends. They rehydrate by the time the mix has frozen and I use them in the mix specifically for the fact they do provide natural roughage, are very high in protein and also help hold a beef heart mix together well enough for me to minimize the amount of agar, which is what I use as the binder for my mixes.

Just allow discus to digest most of their last meal before you feed them again.