5 out of 6 are doing great, but...

[jgvergo]

I have kept discus for ~10 years. My water parameters are all good. Recently, I restocked my tank with 6 gorgeous new fish. 5 of them are super active and healthy. One is extremely shy, hides and does not appear to eat. When I feed them, the shy one gets a little excited and comes out of hiding. It makes "eating motions", but never seems to actually get any food.

It does not appear that the shy one is being bullied by any of his tank mates.

I am feeding them a variety of tubiflex worms, frozen blood worms and flake food. Any suggestions on how to get #6 to eat?

Thanks,
John

[moon_knight1971]

Hiya John and welcome to SD! How new are they? If you've been keeping discus for 10 yrs then you should know they go through a "shy period" but adjust well once they are used to you and their new environment. I'm also wondering if you quarantined them prior to adding them to your tank and if they have tank mates? I have an awesome looking 5 inch Golden Crystal that is super healthy but eats little dainty portions and is never aggressive. Guess my point about that last statement is that, I believe, like dogs, discus have their own little personalities to them...

Joey!

[strawberryblonde]

I have one just like Joey's dainty eater. For the longest time I worried that he wasn't eating since he hid behind the driftwood whenever the other fish were eating. And if I did see him go for food, he'd either just look at it and then swim away, or suck it in and spit it right back out.

He didn't get thinner though, so I went into stealth mode one day and watched him from a covert spot around the corner from the tank. Sure enough, he WAS eating, just not in front of me and not in front of his discus buddies. He was stealing chunks of FDBW's and taking it back to the sword plant to eat in private. He also is the one who vacuums the bottom of the tank while the other fish are feeding from the top of the water. He still spits out big worms. Seems he likes small bites and the peace and quiet of a sword plant for protection from peering eyeballs. LOL

Poor guy was all flumoxed when I transferred them to a big tank this past weekend. First I removed "his" sword plant and driftwood from the little tank and he had to swim with the big fish all day. And then at night I plopped him into this huge tank and the sword plant wasn't near his favorite driftwood anymore. He actually had SWIM (yeah, I'm mean) all the way across the tank to get to the plant. So now at feeding time he heads for the driftwood out of habit, sits there for a minute and then does a stealth maneuver across the back of the tank from object to object till he gets to his sword plant, where he then starts stealing worms and eating them under the leaves.

[walan20]

LOL omg that's so funny... I'm cracking up...

[pcsb23]

Tubifex worms are a really bad choice of food, sooner or later they will lead to problems. I would suggest considering a good beefheart or seafood mix, a high quality granular food as well as the flakes and fbw. Also the freeze dried blackworms are excellent.

[TURQ64]

John, welcome....! As for your hiding fish, I'd really consider treating it for internal's..that's usually the cause for the 'eating motions, but not eating' syndrome...And ditto on the Tubifex, years ago I lost a whole fishroom due to tubifex worms...HTH, Gary