Discus Fish Food

Discus fish are a popular choice for aquarium owners, although they do require special care and maintenance.



One needs to be aware about their feeding habits, breeding behavior and living conditions before deciding to keep them. An important aspect of discus fish care is feeding them the right kind of food.

The discus fish diet must be nutritious and rich in protein. It is also important to introduce variety into the diet. If you are giving them fish flakes, ensure that they are of a high quality.



These fish prefer their food to be at mid-water or at the bottom, and hence you need to squeeze and soak the flakes first. Brine food is also a popular discus fish food. It is advisable to feed them frozen brine. But if you are offering them defrosted brine, be sure to rinse it before giving it to the fish. Shrimp contains carotene and this helps in improving the color of the fish.



It also adds to their overall health and well being. Other foods for discus fish include bloodworm which is also high in protein content. Discus fish love this food. It is not advisable to give them live worms since they may contain parasites. Bloodworm may be fed to the fish once daily. You may also prepare your own combination of foods by mixing shelled shrimp, spinach, minced beef heart, unflavored gelatin and multivitamins. The fat and veins must be trimmed away from the beef heart. The meal must fulfill the daily nutritional requirements of the fish. Younger discus fish need to be fed thrice a day.

It may sometimes become difficult to feed discus fish. But you can make changes in the diet either weekly or monthly. They tend to be stubborn in accepting new foods and any alterations in the diet must be made gradually. When changes are first made, the fish may starve themselves for a short period of time. When this happens, their growth may become stunted for a while due to the stress caused by the changes. Discus fish have grinders instead of teeth and therefore they cannot eat foods whole. They take the food in their mouths and then spit it out again repeatedly until they have eaten all of it. Discus fish tend to swirl the water around so that the food debris from the bottom of the aquarium floats up. They then eat the floating food particles.