A Sample Discus Feeding Regimen & Classic Beef Heart Recipe
One of the most important things you can do to grow large, robust discus is to offer them a healthy diet, but one that is tailored to their stage of life. This diet should be very high in crude protein; sixty percent or more. A homemade recipe of beef heart and other ingredients is an excellent staple diet, which discus could thrive on alone since it is very high in protein. However, adding other foods keep your discus excited about their feedings and will give a more balanced diet. Below I have listed our feeding schedule and beef heart recipe. I hope this helps you grow discus you will be proud to show off.
Young Fry (up to 1”)
All of our discus babies are parent-raised. At five days old, while living off of the parent’s slime-coat, they are offered newly hatched brine shrimp. Very small amounts are squirted onto the parent’s side where the fry are grazing on the slime coat. Soon after, you can see their bulging orange belly’s which means they have eaten their first meal of baby brine shrimp. After four to six hours, any uneaten dead shrimp is siphoned off of the tank bottom to prevent fouling of the water. This process is done twice a day for the next fourteen days.
At fourteen days, the fry are removed to their own twenty gallon tank and fed newly hatched brine shrimp twice a day (morning and evening), as when they were with their parents. However, now they are also introduced to Ocean Nutrition “Formula One” gel cubes, de-capsulated brine shrimp eggs and ground up Ocean Nutrition “Brine Shrimp and Plankton” flake food for a total of five or six feeding per day. At this point, the fry are large enough to start eating white worms, as well.
Juvenile Discus (1”-3”)
Once the fry reach one inch in size (about one month old), they are no longer fed de-capsulated or newly hatched brine shrimp. At this time we move them into larger tanks (forty to fifty-five gallons) and begin to offer them our beef heart mix, Hikari frozen bloodworms, “Formula One” gel cubes, and flake food. A combination of these foods are fed six times per day.
As the fry reach two inches in size (about two months old), they are moved to seventy-five gallon tanks. At this time, we stop feeding the gel cubes, but still offer them our beef heart mix, frozen bloodworms, and flake food four times per day. At this size, we begin to offer them small, live red wigglers.
Adult Discus (4”-7”+)
The adult discus are fed three times a day. The first feeding in the morning is our beef heart mix. The second feeding of the day is beef heart mix, frozen bloodworms, flake food, or a combination of all three. The last feeding of the day is frozen bloodworms. Live red wigglers are also a great choice for this final feeding. By feeding these foods in the evening, you will avoid fouling the water overnight, like uneaten beef heart could.
Breeding pairs
When our breeder pairs are tending eggs or wigglers, they are fed frozen blood worms or live food once in the morning and evening. We try to avoid feeding beef heart mix at this time, as it can quickly foul the water. Once the fry are grazing on their parent’s backs, the pair are fed beef heart mix and frozen bloodworms.
Beef heart Recipe
This recipe is the best mixture of ingredients we have come up with after making and feeding thousands of pounds of beef heart mixture. It is based on one average size beef heart, which is about 4 pounds uncleaned. Multiply all the other ingredients for each beef heart you add. Unless noted otherwise, all of these ingredients can be found at your local supermarket.
- 2 lbs. of cleaned beef heart
- 1 1/2 lbs. of fresh cod, scrod, or peeled table shrimp.
- 4 egg yolks (no whites)
- 20 prenatal vitamins
- 1 cup of wheat germ
- 1- 2.75 ounce bottle of Tetra “Color Bits” (from your pet store)
- 1 cup of ground up freeze-dried krill or plankton (from your pet store)
- 1/4 teaspoon of spirulina powder (from your health food store)
- 2 packs of Knox Gelatin
Have flake food on hand if the mixture is the wrong consistency.
Clean all fat, veins, and sinew from the beef heart, and cube into one-inch squares. Puree beef heart and fish separately in a food processor. Mix the beef heart, fish and egg yolks together. In a blender, grind up all of the dry ingredients to powder and add to the beef heart, fish and egg yolks and mix together. In the blender, blend the gelatin with one cup of cold water on high speed until it thickens (about 3-5 minutes), and immediately mix into the beef heart mix. If the mixture is too runny, add flake food until it is a doughy consistency. If it is too dry, then add water. Freeze prepared beef heart mix flat in small zip-lock bags about a half-inch thick.
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