SimplyDicus.com
SimplyDicus.com
Best Food for Parent Raised Discus
Cary Strong  



I find these foods to be the best when feeding parent-raised fry with parents.

In my opinion, they are Ocean Nutrition Formula 1 & 2, live blackworms, live brine shrimp, and decapsulated brine shrimp.

I have heard of people shaving the ONF1 and chopping live worms for fry. It is a good idea if the fry are not fond of eating it or do not know it as a food source yet! But for my fry I use whole cubes and whole worms.

My advice when using ONF1 & 2 is to feed it to your pairs when they carry fry. This will help the fry take to it faster. This goes with any food that you feed to the pair, but in my opinon some are better for fry (easy to eat).

Be careful! ONF1 & 2 are very dirty products that will deplete your water quality fast! Wiping down the tank walls will be needed daily along with large water changes. ONF1 & 2 is a gel-based seafood liquid diet high in everything needed for good growth and color, frozen into a tiny cube. Baby discus fry will pound it at one week after free-swimmimg, sometimes sooner if things are set right!

My point was that dropping a full cube in will be best, allowing you many hours before feeding again. In my opinion, it's so fine I believe discus could be artificially raised off of it. Dropping in a whole cube will not foul your water as fast as you may think. ONF1 & 2 will stay in one piece, shrinking in size after hours and hours of feeding. However, once the fry reach a size of 1" or bigger it's best not use it anymore because of the biting and the spitting habits they pick up when eating. This will only foul the water quality faster and is really not needed anymore. Beefheart and bloodworms, etc. can now be used.

In my experience, I find live blackworms to be the best! This is only because of water quality, and because when baby discus are at 1 week old they will take to them, biting little chunks off of them like they would do to their parents' slime coat. Of course it's best that the parents are fed blackworms during spawning and during raising as this will help attract the fry faster and help your pair from becoming raw and nasty, even in some cases dying. At times I would drop in balls of blackworms that would last the whole day. I would leave and feed at 7:00 AM, come home at 5:00 PM, and the fry would still be fat and eating and I'd have good water quality to boot!

Still, I always added in treats of ONF1 & 2, shaved bloodworms, Mike Reed's No-BBS, live brine, beefheart, plankton flakes (crushed) and decapsulated brine.


I hope this helps the future breeders!


   Website designed by: EthanCote.com © 2001-2004, SimplyDiscus.com. All Rights Reserved.