Feeding discus in a planted tank

[guppy01]

Feeding my discus in my planted tank is proving to be quite difficult. They are feeding, however their appetite is not strong and they refuse to come and feed while I'm there. The only time I see them feeding is when i walk away they begin picking at the bloodworms/brine shrimp in the gravel.

Due to my tank being planted...it is also hard for the discus to find food in the gravel/plants and the other fish (cories and bristlenose) also compete for food, reducing the amount of food for the poor discus.

How can I increase their appetites so that they are more interested in food? I'm gonna try live blackworms and brine shrimp to see if that helps, but I'm not sure what else to do. Any suggestions?

[G-1000]

Hi Mate,

From my experiences, discus are more like grazers, in that they will slowly scour the floor of the aquarium and pick away at food that interests them. Im not sure how you could change that. Perhaps create a contrast between the gravel colour and the food ?

Not sure - but what you are experiencing is normal.

G

[duck]

Add a bit extra food
My tanks a planted i find that they cruize around and have no problem in finding food inbetween the plant's,wood,I also have BN and Clown loaches which i find are semi aggrssive eater's and the discus still get there fill.

[discus king]

my discus do the same thing.

[FishLover]

What is your temp setting? You can try to increase the temp a bit. That will perk them up in most case. Not sure is good for your plants or not. You need to check that out.

Another question, maybe you have too many plants? If so, why not remove some?

I have a slightly planted tank and the discus have no problem chasing the food. My tank is set at 88F, bit high for most people but the discus like it.

[Daetarek]

My discus show similar behaviour, but they never seem to go hungry, and seem happy to look around for food, i have found the plants give the smaller and more bullied discus some cover from the bigger discus, which cannot see them eating and it seems to give them all a fair go, my corys go around after and clean up :) However they will all go for live food no matter what :)

[DarrenJThomas]

Mix up your food.

You could purchase some tetra colour bits that actually float / sink slowley. This would give your fish time to eat without the others getting to it first. Would also give them a balanced diet.

[guppy01]

Since I last posted this message, the situation got considerably worse. The discus were hardly feeding at all for a few days.

What I did was move them into a bare bottom tank, with just a few pieces of driftwood. Immediately after the move I noticed a huge change. They started feeding very well on everything - bloodworms, beef heart, brine shrimp, tetrabits, etc and are no longer afraid of me (they actually come up to the glass!). I have no idea why this happened, maybe something was wrong with my planted tank, or they just didn't like other fish around? Perhaps they are just use to a bare bottom tank (since I'm guessing they were kept this way their whole life).

Eventually, I'd really like to move them back into the planted tank because it is larger and I need to put baby BN's in their current tank. Any ideas on 'easing' them back into the planted tank?