Feeding Discus

General

I have recently started to feed my juveniles and adult discus Fred Goodall's home made 'Beef Heart Mix'

The ingredients are as follows:

• 2 lbs of beef heart trimmed of fat, pericardium, and blood vessels
• 1 lb of fish
• 5 - 7 cloves of minced garlic
• 2 tablespoons of lecithin
• 2 teaspoons of spirulina powder

For full mixing information and reasons why it is a good mix please visit the original article at Discus Page Holland.

Personal comments on buying the ingredients in the UK.

The beef hearts, fish, and garlic I obtain from MAKRO.

A case of beef hearts (about 4 or 5 hearts; which is enough to make a minimum of 2 full batches of the mix) is under £10.

For fish I use cod or anything else they have in.

The lecithin (500g) and spirulina powder (110g) I purchase from Holland and Barratt Health Food stores for about £15.

I make two batches at a time.  The first time you do this the outlay is about £30.00 which seems expensive.  Fortunately the lecithin and spirulina powder will do many mixes - which brings future mixes down to bout £6.00 per single batch.

Personal suggestions on processing the mix

Having tried several mincers that are generally available in the uk I have found that the old fashioned 'bolt to the table' ones to be the easiest and most efficient to use.

In regards to mincing the ingredients I prefer to mince the ingredients one or twice at the most, as opposed the suggested 3 times.  I suspect this may be due to the hole size on the mincing blade being somewhat smaller than the American counterparts.  Over mincing the ingredients results in particles that are to fine and that readily pollute the water.

I do not use a binding agent for this mix - however some may prefer to - depending on the final size of the mince - if so, I would suggest gelatine or similar.

Comments on using the mix

I have had no difficulty, at all, in acclimatising any size discus to this mix.

If you generally feed pre-packaged frozen beef heart mixes e.g. Rutos - I would suggest you cut down the size or the amount that you normally feed, by about 50%; and adjust as needed.

Personally, I have achieved the same results by maintaining this '50% less' feeding regime - I suspect this may be due to the potentially higher water content in some of the pre-packaged equivalents.

Feeding fussy eaters

To be continued - more on discus food