I'm getting confused all over again!!!!

[krislewis3]

I have a 60 gallon with 5 growing discus, 8 card.tetras, 3 Cory cats. I feed then 5x daily. I'm wondering about the amount of food at each feeding. As an example....when I feed them the fd. Black worms, I give then 1 flat square to share among them. Is this reasonable, or should they get more then 1 at a feeding, keeping in mind that they will still get 4 more feedings later in the day!!!!

[Floppy Fin's]

Good question.. and I guess its everones schedule to set up.... I use FDBW for a breakfast feed. 3 cubes, broken up into bits. For 12 Discus.. its just a snack.. About a hour or less later, I feed a good pinch of Hikari Bio Gold for Discus. They clean this up off the bare bottom nicely.. so two variations so far.. the balance of the day, about a hour or so they get a frozen beef heart mix, courtesy of Discus Hans. I changed his ground beef to beef heart, and I liked the change, as well as the fish do too.
Right now, I seem to be experienceding a growth spurt on this particular feeding program. My Discus now are 4.5 months old, and about the same in inches, head to tail tips.
A tip for anyone interested.. I lost some of my first shipment, due to water errors..and I saved the loss in the freezer. Why?? dunno, but I took one out and drew a paper facimile of it. 2.5" in length. OK.. I taped a facimile to the tank front, and it's dramatic
to watch the growth changes.. Today, I cut two thin strips of paper.. @ 4", and 4.5" and use these to measure the fish as they swim buy these, also taped to tank front. Gives a fair guess as to how big they are attaining.
No real answer to your question, except, I feel that as long as they are hungry, feed them....When they are full they will let you know, but don't stress them and your tank by overfeeding.
Watch the belly's..
Floppy Fin's
:-)

[krislewis3]

Floppy fins????

[Bill63SG]

Floppy fins????His name.

[Floppy Fin's]

Nice huh.....??
Beats Wiggly Tails..

[krislewis3]

I like it...hey Mikey!!!

[krislewis3]

My fish would eat more then what I feed them, however, my research said not to overfeed, due to small stomach, so I'm afraid to keep feeding!! Can someone advise me on this??? What does 'overfeed' mean??? Again, would 1 flat square of fd blackworms between 5 juvies, be reasonable at 1 of 6 feedings????

[DiscusDrew]

If you are using Dan for a FDBW source I would say that is sufficient as long as future feedings are of different pellet or flake foods. Under feeding is far better than over feeding. As a general rule feed what the fish will eat in about three minutes 4 or more times pet day for juvies. Make sure again to vary your diet so no deficiencies form in the digestive tract or otherwise. I feed one cube of FDBW split in half and put on two sides of the tank every morning for 7 juvies and a pleco. Followed an hour later by a good amount of pellet food. Then after work they get one if the many other products I keep, freeze dried tubifex worms, vitamin enriched brine shrimp, occasionally blood worms, vitamin enriched BH, or whatever else I feel like. Two hours later another feeding of pellets or quality flake food (what they can consume in a few minutes), then the final feeding two hours later is the same process with FDBW I mentioned earlier. This keeps them supplied with a varied diet and the vitamins they need for proper digestion and break down of proteins and other nutrients. HTH

[DiscusDrew]

Adults get two feedings a day, FDBW in the morning in sufficient quantity, them vitamin BH mix in the evening but this feeding rotates often with other food choices to vary their diet. I've found no deficiencies forming with this feeding schedule.

[strawberryblonde]

Ok, so here was my feeding schedule and amounts for five 4" discus. (and by golly, I'm doing it all over again as of today because I just got a new shipment of fish...woot!)

Morning Feeding: Healthy pinch of flake food - breakfast of champions =)
2 hours later - 2 FDBW cubes which they'd consume in about an hour
3 hours later - 2 frozen beefheart cubes which they'd scarf down within 20 minutes
2 hours later - 1 FDBW cube for them to gnosh on all afternoon
3 hours later - DINNER TIME - 2 or 3 beefheart cubes which they'd finish off in about 30 minutes - followed by a HUGE WC
1 hour later - 2 FDBW cubes which they'd polish off in an hour or so

They grew at a very fast pace and reached 6" in 2 months + 1 week. At that point I increased the FDBW cubes, cut back on beefheart cubes and they continued to grow at 1/2 inch per month reaching 7.5 inches by the end of another 3 months. By then it was September of last year and I was sure they were done growing, yet they still begged for more and more FDBW cubes and lots more flake food, so I continued to feed 4 times per day with the same huge WC's. By January of this year 3 of them had reached 8.5 - 8.75 inches. The others are all 7.5 inches...even the super slow growing BT in my tank that I named Number Five since he was always low man on the totem pole.

So long as you are doing your huge water changes every single day, go ahead and feed them when they beg for food, just be sure not to leave beefheart sitting in the tank for more than an hour because it'll foul up the water something fierce.

[krislewis3]

Wow....if I go by strawberry blonde standards...I am underfeeding big time!!!!! And to discus drew...when you say"what they consume in 3 minuets". Mine take a lot longer to eat, so I'm thinking I'm overfeeding!!! YIIIKS!!!!! I'm totally unsure of how much a feeding consists of. HELP!!!!!

[strawberryblonde]

Ok, so I don't remember much about your discus anymore. How about if we start at the beginning?

1) How long ago did you purchase them

2) How large were they when you bought them

3) How large are they now?

That will help us figure out if you're feeding too much, too little, etc. My fish were little pigs and ate a LOT, but they never consumed it in 3 minutes or less! Mine liked to graze slowly so it would take up to an hour to finish off an entire feeding. I think most people have the same results when feeding discus.

[discuspaul]

Ok, so here was my feeding schedule and amounts for five 4" discus. (and by golly, I'm doing it all over again as of today because I just got a new shipment of fish...woot!)

Morning Feeding: Healthy pinch of flake food - breakfast of champions =)
2 hours later - 2 FDBW cubes which they'd consume in about an hour
3 hours later - 2 frozen beefheart cubes which they'd scarf down within 20 minutes
2 hours later - 1 FDBW cube for them to gnosh on all afternoon
3 hours later - DINNER TIME - 2 or 3 beefheart cubes which they'd finish off in about 30 minutes - followed by a HUGE WC
1 hour later - 2 FDBW cubes which they'd polish off in an hour or so

They grew at a very fast pace and reached 6" in 2 months + 1 week. At that point I increased the FDBW cubes, cut back on beefheart cubes and they continued to grow at 1/2 inch per month reaching 7.5 inches by the end of another 3 months. By then it was September of last year and I was sure they were done growing, yet they still begged for more and more FDBW cubes and lots more flake food, so I continued to feed 4 times per day with the same huge WC's. By January of this year 3 of them had reached 8.5 - 8.75 inches. The others are all 7.5 inches...even the super slow growing BT in my tank that I named Number Five since he was always low man on the totem pole.

So long as you are doing your huge water changes every single day, go ahead and feed them when they beg for food, just be sure not to leave beefheart sitting in the tank for more than an hour because it'll foul up the water something fierce.

Wow - I don't currently feed beefheart, but I've grown out several groups of juvies over the past few years, feeding a varied diet up to a dozen times a day, and I've not had a fish grow larger than about 7" or so. My diet regimen must be off the mark.
Matter of fact, I've seen many, many hundreds of discus, and I don't believe I've ever seen a discus of 8.75" !

If I've got your comments straight, you have 5 discus, the smallest 2 being 7.5", and the other 3 being 8.5 to 8.75".
I can't even begin to visualize that, or imagine what size tank it would take so that they don't trip over each other.

I would love to see pics of them - what size tank do you have those big guys in ?
I don't disbelieve you - I'm just very interested in seeing discus of that size !

[strawberryblonde]

Wow - I don't currently feed beefheart, but I've grown out several groups of juvies over the past few years, feeding a varied diet up to a dozen times a day, and I've not had a fish grow larger than about 7" or so. My diet regimen must be off the mark.
Matter of fact, I've seen many, many hundreds of discus, and I don't believe I've ever seen a discus of 8.75" !

If I've got your comments straight, you have 5 discus, the smallest 2 being 7.5", and the other 3 being 8.5 to 8.75".
I can't even begin to visualize that, or imagine what size tank it would take so that they don't trip over each other.

I would love to see pics of them - what size tank do you have those big guys in ?
I don't disbelieve you - I'm just very interested in seeing discus of that size !

It's actually 9 discus. The first group is 14 months old (5 discus) and the smallest in that group is 7.5". The second group of four will be a year old in 2 weeks. The smallest in that group is 5", one is 6.5" and the other two are 7.5".

I've posted pics a couple of times of my huge discus and I hafta say that they are Stendker's from Hans...and we all know he grows some huge fish, so I can't take full credit for my monsters. LOL

Here are a few pics. In one you'll see that I copied the eye of my Marlboro Red and pasted it up and down her side so that you can count how many eyes would fit. I think a normal adult discus can fit about 7-8 eyes.

74278

That's my largest discus up above. She's extremely round, so it just makes her look even larger. LOL (On the right is one of the 2 "small" ones...he's called Number Five and he's 7.5" now)

74279

Here's a shot of the three largest ones all in front of the tank...grabbing FDBW's from the cone of course.

74280

The 2 big Reds (RT and Red Scrib) scrapping over who knows what.

74281

This is Fred the Flachen...he's one of the "small" ones at 7.5"

I have them stuffed into a 115g tank with 6 cory's and a school of Cards. I kept removing driftwood and plants as they grew because things were getting too cramped for them. LOL

[discuspaul]

Very good-looking, well-shaped discus, Toni - Thanks for the pics.

And yes, I'm quite sure Hans brings in fish that have the potential to be huge.
Are your measurements tip of nose to tip of tail ?
All my grow-outs have been done in lightly to medium planted tanks with DW & PFS substrate, so I don't feed beefheart to ease the cleansing routine, and make tank conditions as pristine as possible.
On top of that, I usually sell any discus that reach about 6" or 7" (or give them to my daughter who's happy to take them), so that I can get in another group of juvies to grow out. (It's an addiction to constantly wanting to change out the color strain scheme of the discus in my tank. LOL)

Apologies for hijacking this thread, OP, but here's my latest group of grow-outs for you folks to have a peek at, if you care to:

http://s1105.photobucket.com/albums/h357/discuspaul/lolliblues2

The largest are the Red Snake Skins at about 5.5" - nearly ready to sell - lol again. The Golden Lollipops are barely over 3", perhaps 3.5".

[krislewis3]

I got mine at 21/2 to 3 inches total length, on march 1 of this year. Now they are 41/2 and 5 inches TL. What do you think?? Overfed?, Underfed? Oh yea....where you said 30 minuets in your original post, I misread that as 3 minuets. Sorry about that.

[strawberryblonde]

Actually, it sounds like you're feeding them very nicely for good growth! You've gotten about 2 inches in 3 months....can't ask for more than that.

You might notice that you need to increase the amounts at each feeding now though since they are larger and require more to fill their bellies than they did as 2 1/2 to 3" discus. Just take more deep breaths, try feeding a little bit extra and see if they consume it all within an hour. If they do, you're doing fine. If they don't, reduce the feeding back to what you were doing before. =)

[krislewis3]

Wow..your fish are beautiful....you did good!!!!! But..back to me....I'm relieved to hear that you think mine are growing well. One more question..Will they overeat if fed too much? Can I keep increasing their portions as long as they clean their plates?

[strawberryblonde]

I think they can probably overeat if they really try hard, but if they do, they just poop out the extra...they don't get fat like dogs, cats and humans. LOL

You'd have to seriously overfeed them in order to have a problem, and you'd notice the leftover food on the bottom of the tank long before it reached the point of affecting their health.

Just increase and watch to make sure they eat it all.

So here's my current feeding schedule for my 5 new fish if this helps you out:

The 4 smaller discus are about 4" each and the large one is about 5"

I've had them for 3 days and have been increasing the feedings each day to find what they are comfortable with.

Today

Breakfast - 2 pinches of Prime Reef Flakes (gone in 20 minutes)

Snack - 2 FDBW cubes (gone in less than an hour)

Lunch - 2 Frozen Freshwater Frenzy cubes (just dropped them in frozen and they attached and ate them within 20 minutes)

Snack - 2 FDBW cubes - I put them in the tank about 10 minutes ago. 1 is already gone and the other is about half gone

Dinner - Will be 2 more Frozen Freshwater Frenzy cubes, 2 hours from now

Bedtime Snack - Either 2 pinches of flakes again or 2 FDBW cubes

They ate 5 meals yesterday (didn't get the last snack of the day) and ate 3 meals the first day. I've been going slowly because they had fasted for 24 hours before shipping and I didn't want to stress out their tummies.

So long as they eat all that food today withing an hour each time, I'll increase the amounts by one extra cube at all the cube feedings and see how that goes.

[DiscusDrew]

Man it must be nice to be home often enough to make that work haha, I have to make due with an auto feeder during the 10 hours a day im at work, so stuck with dry foods there unfortunately. I agree with strawberry everybody sounds happy to me, just watch for uneaten food but shouldnt be huge deal.

[krislewis3]

So if I understand you strawberry blonde, you are feeding at least twice the quanity that am. I think I need to step it up!!!

[strawberryblonde]

Yep, yours are probably ready for more food. You have to remember that as they grow, they need a lot more. Try adding an extra cube at a couple of meals and see if they gobble it down.