Bold Red Universe not eating

[greenphantom]

Hello all, i am excited to be a part of this community, the site looks very helpful. I recently purchase five discus from Mac's discus, including a breeding pair of bold red universe. I added these fish to my 110gal planted discus tank with 4 other discus. All of them are doing great, eating mysis, blood worms and conditioning flake and they are all very active. The female bold red universe doesn't seem to care for anything but live brine, and live blackworms...... sometimes she doesn't even eat live food. I am relatively experienced with discus, my water quality is perfect 0 nitrate, nitrite, or ammonia. ph is about 7 and i use mostly R/O for water changes which i do 4 times a week. There is a lot of driftwood in the tank as well as peat in the filter. The female isn't as active as the others, but i attributed that to the fact that she gets scared very easily. She swims around and does swim with the 8 other discus most of the time, if shes not swimming with the others she stays near a large piece of driftwood. She doesn't have hexamita, she usually eats live brine, swimming around the tank to get as much as she can and i have seen her have healthy feces, never white or stringy. she doesn't appear to be overly skinny or bloated. I usually wait it out, because this is a female of a breeding pair this makes me very nervous so i was hoping some of the experience in this forum will be able to help me out. I have also witnessed her following my zebra danios around as they spawn eating their eggs, and she seems to pick at small trumpet snails constantly im not sure if she is eating them but i have noticed a decline in my snail and ghost shrimp population. Thanks for your time and suggestions you may have.

[Skip]

umm.. what is the problem you are asking...?

but for starters.. dumping 5 new discus in a tank that is planted, with other fish/discus.. is sometimes reciped for disaster!! just because your fish may look heathly doesn't mean the aren't actually carriers of something the new fish will be get sick from or VICE VERSA.. native americans/small pox... no QT.. no Bueno..

[Skip]

ps.. what is a RED BOLD UNIVERSE? never heard of that STRAIN!? is it solid, spotted.. wild? idk?!

http://www.macsdiscus.com/Bold-Red-Universe-Discus.html

psss.. welcome to SD!!!

[Skip]

ooh nevermind. i just googled it.. Mac's page come up.. its a pigeon blood... one a side note.. $50 for a 2.5" PB... is AWFUL EXPENSIVE :(

[greenphantom]

I agree skipping QT is a bad idea, My usual QT tank contained a breeding group (in progress) of green phantom L200s that were given to me by a good friend.... I couldn't turn them down. The discus in the tank were all given to me by friends/customers who breed so i wasn't really worried about them. I had talked with the guy from mac's for a while about getting a breeding pair and he doesn't ship past nov. so i was kind of rushed. the question was is it normal for a discus to refuse everything but live food, i have even used seachems garlic guard and it seems to make no difference to her. I would rather ask before it becomes a serious problem. Its hard to find good advice on discus short of calling the guy from macs. Yes bold red universe is a strain of pigeon blood, they are a little expensive for pigeon blood but they are quite a bit different than most. I paid 300 for a breeding pair (not proven) and i think that's a reasonable price. The 3 2.5" discus i bought from him (red rio purus, candy apple red, and green leopard) were all over 3" and well worth every penny.

[Skip]

hey GP.. sometimes it just takes fish a while to settle in.. also.. this fish may be the LOW MAN on totem pole.. so they will always be stressed.. i would refrain from doing anything to the water except for old fashion water change.. cut out the live food until the discus eats other food.. when they are hungry.. they will eat.. they can go for awhile without eating.. for some reason.. people tend to have weaker wills then the fish !! : )))

[greenphantom]

Well put, my will is certainly weaker than theirs. i will wait it out and stop feeding live food. thanks and i will post if she seems to get worse.

[kaceyo]

I'd love to see some pics of your fish if you can post them. Welcome to Simply!