Beef Heart and what else ?

[tomahawk]

Just a passing though.. apart from beef heart, what else can I feed my discus.. beef liver, minced beef meat, mutton liver, etc would it be ok ? Is there any specific reason that everyone prefers feeding beef "heart" ?

[waitaki]

beef heart and pig heart are the best for discus. other than that artemeia (brine shrimp) and bloodworms (sparingly)
I haven't heard anyone feed liver or normal mince
best to stick with the tried and true foods

[tomahawk]

beef heart and pig heart are the best for discus. other than that artemeia (brine shrimp) and bloodworms (sparingly)
I haven't heard anyone feed liver or normal mince
best to stick with the tried and true foods

People do feed liver mince too. I know that, and it has been discussed in this forum also, but my question was ...Is there any specific reason that everyone prefers feeding beef "heart" ?

[Big Daddy1]

Beaf heart goes years back when most dicus were imported wild. It is high protien substance and discus normally take it readily. I cannot exactly recall the specifics but I read them again just the other night believe it or not. It is not like discus have a hard time digesting protien so they need more of it. A good varied diet with a good percentage of protien is better than providing just beef heart or any other single substance diet.

Companies are also starting to produce beef heart flakes.

[bartek]

The Spectrum food range seesm to work well form my Discus.

[Chell]

I have used shaved beefheart with some spinach added, vitamin drops and hard boiled egg yolks. I made it up myself and froze it. When i was able to get it I also added Astaxathin as a natural colour enhancer.
I used to raise my angel fish babies on this mix as well and they beefed up beautifully.

[Merrilyn]

In the wild, discus have a high protein diet. They feed on shrimps, worms, insects and smaller fish.

They get a certain amount of vegetable matter from the gut of their prey, but it's not the main part of their diet.

To try to replicate that diet, we need an easily available source of protein, without any any indigestible animal fat.

That limits the choices. Discus can't digest animal fat, so that eliminates a lot of meat, but heart meat and liver have very little fat, and it can be trimmed out fairly easily.

Fish is another good source of protein, but use salt water fish so you don't risk passing on any disease from fresh water fish.

Salt water shrimp and prawns are also excellent, as is crab meat, mussles, oysters and lobster meat. All these things are great.

So in summary, you can use most types of heart meat, chicken, turkey, pig, beef, so long as you carefully trim them, and just about anything living in the ocean. Mince them all finely and add some cooked or raw vegetables and you have the basis of a great fish food.