Stendker advice to feed your discus well and easily:
Continue to distribute to our discus 3 times a day our STENDKER mash. This preparation is a complete food that has proven itself for more than 47 years in our discus breeding. Other fish love it too. (Sold in frozen form in pet stores)

Dosage and feeding
Please feed your fish 3 times a day our STENDKER mash.
1 time in the morning (1 hour after turning on the light)
1 time at noon (preferably always at the same time)
1 time in the evening (2 hours before turning off the light).

The discus get used to these regular schedules of distribution and you will see that they are not long in waiting for you impatiently. It is then possible to feed them very quickly by hand (take care of course not to have any cream or soap on your fingers – brush them well under running water).

Feed the fish about as much food as they can eat in five minutes. Don't give them anything else after that, as leftover food greatly alters the quality and parameters of the water. The discus do not feel any sense of satiety and an excess of food could therefore lead to overeating.

Please imperatively thaw the frozen mash before distributing it to the fish because the discus do not like hard food and have no appetite as soon as they bite into something frozen. In addition, frozen food can also (in some cases) cause discus inflammation of the swim bladder or intestine. Depending on the size of the tank and the number of fish, it is advisable to provide between 2 and 3 feeding areas to allow weaker specimens to access food. Thawed mash can be easily cut into portions with a knife or spoon. Our discus but also their roommates love this mash and devour it quickly.

If for reasons of timetable, it is impossible for you to feed your fish 3 times a day, it is generally sufficient to feed them only morning and evening while taking care however that the daily quantity of food remains the same. However, if the discus are small (less than 8 cm), it is better to feed them 3 times a day to ensure normal growth.
You can also give them small treats such as mosquito larvae (not the red ones as these often live in polluted waterways and could therefore introduce diseases into the aquarium).

STENKDER frozen discus mash thawing instructions:
Take out of the freezer a quantity of frozen food sufficient for 1 to 2 days at the rate of 3 meals per day.

TIP: Use secateurs to scoop out the amount you need by cutting portions into the frozen 500g sheet.

Our pâté can be kept for about 2 to 3 days in the refrigerator once thawed , you do not need to thaw new portions every day. Put the frozen mash in an airtight container, close the lid and store it in the fridge to thaw slowly. After about 6 hours you can already distribute it to your fish. If the mash begins after a few days to ferment or smell bad, wash the box thoroughly with very hot water then remove from the freezer a sufficient quantity of mash for the next two days. Do not thaw it by passing it under running tap water in a sieve to avoid destroying the essential vitamins it contains.

Our discus know and love the mash that we make especially for them, which explains why they throw themselves on it greedily, which is reminiscent of the behavior of piranhas. Don't be frightened if you only see "a cloud of dust" when they have finished eating because they devour this mash very quickly.

Why is STENDKER discus mash so good:
We have been breeding discus for more than 45 years now (in Germany) and over time we have developed a food mixture specially adapted to the needs of this species of fish. Our STENDKER discus mash is distributed exclusively to discus bred with us. It contains everything they need for a healthy diet and this complete food is perfect for them. STENDKER discus mash is a preparation based on beef heart, vegetables etc., which is largely responsible for the good health of our fish.

You only have to take one look at our discus to see that the STENDKER diet is working for them. Make up your own mind and just give it a try. The quality of the mixture obviously depends on the care with which it was made, the right dosage, the quality of the ingredients, the composition and the method of preparation. However, you can be sure when you use our food that we have taken all these factors into account to ensure the well-being and good health of the discus.

To allow you too a quality, complete and very easy feeding, we offer our STENDKER discus mash in the form of complete food in pet shops. This frozen preparation is sold in the form of blisters of 100 g and plates of 200 g or 500 g. This food mixture, good and balanced, contributes to a large extent to the good health and the brilliance of the colors of the discus while promoting their reproduction and their growth. Ask your pet store.

Note : Fish of other species also love our food and the aquatic plants in your aquarium generally do not need any further fertilizers.

General information on discus food

We believe that beef heart has been wrongly accused by the media of being unsuitable as discus food based on the fact that "there are no beef in the basin of the Amazon”. However, the oxen are not treated with hormones, which is confirmed by regular veterinary checks, and their heart contains animal proteins which the discus absorbs in nature when it eats small crustaceans, worms and larvae of insects. Given however that these sources of animal protein are very rare in our latitudes, expensive, even very polluted, we often resort in our region to beef heart to provide this protein that we use in the food intended for the discus. Of course, beef heart is not, in our opinion, a complete food for discus.

Better not to use in our opinion turkey heart because these animals are generally treated with hormones to reach their slaughter weight within twelve weeks and these hormones are fixed in their heart. Since these hormone residues contained in turkey hearts and distributed as food to discus can cause them to mature early,
(in 6 months instead of 12 to 18), we do not use this ingredient in the mash we give to our fish.

We also advise against red mosquito larvae and tubifex to feed the discus because these two kinds of food come from very polluted water (slurry) and they often introduce bacterial infections into the aquarium.

We also advise against cyclops because these crustaceans are often carriers of tapeworm larvae which, once swallowed by the discus, can infest it and cause serious growth disorders.

Dry food , whatever it is, is not in our opinion sufficiently suitable for discus because these fish are generally not very fond of it and therefore they do not eat enough of it. In order to guarantee normal growth and long-term stable health, dry food is not enough in our opinion.
We believe that other types of frozen food such as water fleas, brine shrimp, small crustaceans, white and black mosquito larvae are a good supplement but should be considered as treats because their nutritional value is very weak.

Supplement: Refusal of food after transport and decanting
It may happen that the discus, especially when it comes to large specimens, refuse to feed for up to four weeks after transport, very stressful despite everything for the fish, and their decanting into the tank. Smaller discus (up to 14 cm) are less sensitive, adapt more quickly to their new environment and are generally already eating well the next day. Our discus being however normally well nourished, this refusal of food in almost adult fish does not constitute a serious problem. We recommend when this situation occurs to lower the temperature of the aquarium to 33°C for about two weeks and then to raise it (think of the plants and remove them beforehand!). This procedure stimulates the metabolism and therefore the appetite of the discus. If our fish continue to be fed with mash usual (of STENDKER), the beginnings are also easier.