What to do when one will not eat?

[zim64half]

Howdy all. This is my first post here.

I am relatively new to Discus. I started a 72 gallon tank this past May
with 4 fish. Two snowflakes and two blue turquoise.

3 of them are still doing fine. But the smaller snowflake was basically
at the bottom of the pecking order. All of the others would chase it away,
and keep it from the food.

Eventually, about 2 weeks ago, it died. It looked very skinny and had
stopped eating completely for a few days before it died.

Now I have added 3 more discus for a total of six. Once again, they have
established a pecking order.

The new fish are a leopard snake skin, a white butterfly, and a red panda.

Most of them are about the same size (3 to 3.5 inches) with one of the
blue turquoise now growing faster than the others (also the top of the
pecking order) probably almost 4 inches now.

One of the new ones, the red panda, is now at the bottom of the pecking
order, and in the 4 days since I added them to the tank, the other 2 new
fish are eating, but the red panda still is not eating.

What can I do to make sure that even the fish at bottom of the pecking
order is getting enough to eat?

I feed them Watley's discus cubes (usually 2 of them per feeding), then
frozen brine the next day, then flake food the 3rd day, then repeat.

Even when the flake food is floating right in front if its face, the red panda
seems more concerned with watching the others than eating. It will not take a bite!

Any help apreciated.

Thanks,

-Zim

[benjohnson]

Hi Zim,

4 days isn't a long time for a newly intorduce discus not to eat. The moving stress's them out, and Ihave heard can put them off their food for up to 2 weeks before they will eat again.

Realistically, within a week I would expect your new fish to start eating again, definately within 10 days.

Worst case scenario, perhaps try some beef heart or some live food, that will almost deifnately get them going again ! May be worth finding what the shop was feeding them on before, may mean you need to ween them onto a new type of food form their previous place of residence.


Cheers
Ben

[FishLover]

I agree with Ben. It took more than 10 days for one of mine stating to eat. The other two started eat right after two to three days. These are 6" big guys and they are not picked on by other smaller discus.

When there are more discus in the tank, the picking is less. One way to make sure the weaker fish does get a chance to eat is to put food at both end of the tank. Let the agressor chasing after food at one side, add food for the other guy at another end.

Good luck.

[Merrilyn]

Welcome to the forum. What you're experiencing is pretty normal in a young group of discus, but you do have to be very careful that all the fish get a chance to eat.

Young fish should be fed five or six times a day if possible.

You're doing the right thing by varying the diet, but you could easily feed those three types of food every day, making the first meal cubes, second meal brine shrimp, and third meal flake. Discus also find frozen blood worms very appealing too, so you might like to add that as another meal.

Spreading the food throughout the tank is a good idea, to allow everyone a chance to eat. Discus will often graze for hours after the food has been put into the tank, so give them time to finish their meal.

[tao]

change 1/3 water and add temp to 30^C, see what happen. BTW, what's red panda?

[viobank]

change 1/3 water and add temp to 30^C, see what happen. BTW, what'

33-34 C and 1 salt spoon/20l ( less iodine) ... 3 days ,change 1/3 water

[viobank]

33-34 C and 1 salt spoon/20l ( less iodine) ... 3 days ,change 1/3 water[/quote]

and 1 pastil/20 l -Metronidazol;
also --the fish food boil down at metronidazol--

[TomNS]

One thing I did when I had little ones with Hex was to get hold of a seachem product called "Garlic Guard" which is an appetite stimulant. You soak the food in it and then feed, worked really well on my sick ones, allowed me to get them to eat medicated food which eventually cured them

Tom

[TomNS]

One thing I did when I had little ones with Hex was to get hold of a seachem product called "Garlic Guard" which is an appetite stimulant. You soak the food in it and then feed, worked really well on my sick ones, allowed me to get them to eat medicated food which eventually cured them

Tom