Have you ever had a fish that has TERRIBLE AIM? What to do?

[rachelchick]

I got a beautiful Blue Diamond from John two weeks ago and he eats --- kind of. But he has the most terrible aim I've ever seen on a fish. He misses the food over and over and over and over again. I don't know if he's got bad eyesight or something or if this is the symptom of some disease? He's a good 3.5", so obviously he's been eating over the course of his lifetime, but he's looking thinner than when I first got him. What other way should I feed him?

[Floppy Fin's]

Kinda fill in just what and how are your feeding him??

[rachelchick]

I've been feeding FDBW and frozen bloodworms - just loose. So they kind swish around the tank. Nobody else seems to have a problem with it. However, I've noticed that this guy misses food, even when it's sitting on the bottom, right in front of his nose. And he misses it repeatedly. It's just kind of weird.

[StefanosS]

Probably he has a problem with his eyeshight.All u can do imo is feed him more colorfull foods so it will be more easy for him to see and probably some bigger bits so it will be more easy for him to target.Over feeding the hole tank for just one fish to eat a proper meal wont be the solution cause water quality will go down the drain.I have the same problem not as bad as yours though with my albino lss(wich is natural ofc) and these things seemed to helped him.

[rachelchick]

thank you! I don't think he's in any dire straits, I just thought it was really odd. :)

[Mep1127]

my millennium gold was like that at first.... i thought it had poor vision since he or she is an albino. Over a few months though things have gotten better and it's vision is on par with what it pecks at. Strange thing for sure, but im positive your diamond should snap out of it. just make sure the food is moderately sized so it can see it... I feed mine large flakes :)

[MattE]

I have 2 blue diamonds who also have "Bad Aim". Could be specific to the strain I suppose. They seem to do better on moving targets. If its a stationary piece of food, they miss over and over again like your fish

[LizStreithorst]

Bad eyesight is not uncommon in Discus. Kenny once told me that he checks the eyesight of all his discus before he ships them. It must be quite a job considering all the fish he gets in.

[rachelchick]

Well that's interesting. Thanks guys, for the info. I'm glad I'm not the only one. :)

[josephl]

I find that that is fairly normal actually, especially with Albinos. I feed my discus lbw, fbw and fbw. New fish when added always take a couple of days to figure out how to catch the food as it drifts by, eventually they figure it out but even then, sometimes it takes two or three lunges to get the food

[rachelchick]

By way of follow-up, my blue diamond is doing much better the last two days. :) He still seems like maybe he is a little uncoordinated, but he's hitting it most of the time now.

Just goes to show that a few good water changes and a little patience are probably the medicines in this hobby. :) Thanks for your feedback!

[Bill63SG]

Bad eyesight is not uncommon in Discus. Kenny once told me that he checks the eyesight of all his discus before he ships them. It must be quite a job considering all the fish he gets in.The goggles must be interesting."Better?Better?Worse?"

[shieldsman]

I bought 15 discus from Hans this past summer & one of them is like yours. He wasn't getting anything to eat because after his second miss the food was gone. Finally I put the food in my hand & would lower it into the tank. After a while of doing this; he would swim up to my hand & I would make a large enough opening for him to get partially in and get some food. He has stayed the same size & is a runt but I still feed him this way. I believe his problem to be vision related.

[-gb-]

I have a 9 year old Albino that has the same problem. He seems to have much better luck eating FDBW that I stick to the side of the glass. If the food is on the bottom of the take he only gets some by chance as he'll miss 9 out of 10 tries.