Beef Heart is the main staple food and protein for my discus, whilst the Beef Liver acts as vitamins and minerals like Iron, Copper, Folic acid, Vitamin A. The Spinach is used for digestible calcium, fibre and other useful properties. Fish Liver oil is used as Omega-3 fatty acids and as other vitamins like A & D. Finally, Andrew's Pro-growth is the main concoction of vitamins and essential proteins like growth promoter.
I did not add garlic or red colour-enhancer and/or any other additional vitamins/minerals as I believe that they do not need it. The former being that I do a lot of water change and the latter being that my water is hard (high trace of calcium).
This Beefheart mix is designed for discus as young as 10 days old till 7-8 months old.
My feeding regime is 5 times a day, the following time that they are being fed are at: 7 AM, 11 AM, 3 PM, 7 PM and 11 PM.
Water changes are done 1 hour after each feeding, or whenever they finish their meal. Each water changes are done in 20-40%, thus equating to a total of 100-200% water change. Juvenile discus require ammonia, and nitrite free water in order to grow large and healthy. A vast array of diet is also the key to success!
These juveniles are still being raised in a bare bottom tank, fed 5 times a day with various food, including my own Beefheart mix, Marine Formula One flake food, Hikari Tropical Discus Bio-Gold pellet food, and Australian Freeze Dried Blackworms. I have been looking for some other food like, Ocean Nutrition Prime Reef, but everywhere is sold out.
It is important to feed juvenile discus fish with high protein food whilst they are still young, this ensure rapid growth before they start to slow down when they reach 10months old.
The dimensions of the new tank is 42"L x 12"W x 16.5"H (water level is set to that high). The formula to calculate the gallons within a cube/rectangle tank is (LxWxH") = XXX / 277 [UK] OR 231 [US]. Hence, the gallons relates to 30 UK (Imperial) Gallons, OR 36 US Gallons.
The tank get wiped down two-four times a week to reduce a build up of 'slime' and risk of bacteria proliferation.
The 500litre rated sponge filter get squeezed once a week under the tap so that it does not get too saturated.
The temperature of the water I raise them at is 28-32C, the temperature have been lowered to test some changes in appetite. It seems like a higher temperature do encourages feeding.
Water parameter tested using an API test kit.
PH: 7.6
Ammonia: 0 PPM
Nitrite: 0 PPM
Nitrate: 0-1
Tiger Turquoise 5 months old, 149 days old as at 28.07.10 DOB = March 1st 2010
Red Turquoise 4 months old, 118 days old as at 28.07.10 DOB = April 1st 2010
It has now been 42 days since these 4 Red turquoise and 1 Tiger turquoise are in my possession.