Blind Discus

[SpyderSpy6]

Has anyone been able to succesfully raise a blind discus??

I adopted a blind discus from my brother, which he has had for about 8 months. My brother has never seen him eat but he has managed to stay alive.

We put him in his own tank because the other discus had become too aggresive. I just want to see him eat. I currently have a cone in there that I am going to leave the food in and hope for the best. It's the only fish in the tank, so I'm hoping it will work.

Has anyone been able to make a situation like this work??

[cocoa_pleco]

i had a blind piranha a few years ago, i heard that blind fish have good senses and can get around the tank well still. if hes having trouble finding food himself, try using tweezers and putting the food near his mouth

[ILuvMyGoldBarb]

I had one at one point. It lost it's eye in shortly after being acclimated to my tank. Unfortunately because of it's one bad eye, it never really got ventured out much and never ate the same. It stressed out when I tried to QT it in a hospital tank and nearly died in it. Unfortunately the blind eye was very debilitating to my fish and it died.

[cocoa_pleco]

forgot to add about 8 months ago when my 55g was planted, one of my black neon tetras lost a eye, after i added 12 serpae tetras, i think one attacked it. the one eyed black neon always swam at a slant, but he lived a good life. he even bred.

one thing that affects fish with one eye is depth perception, its hard. if you close one eye, and look at your computer monitor, its hard to even estimate its width, one eyed fish often have trouble eating due to depth perception

[SpyderSpy6]

The discus is completely blind... both eyes. Amazingly, he looks great. My brother that had has never seen him eat.

I left a cone of food for him over night... this morning it appears that he has eaten from it, since he's the only one in the tank. I can't imagine the food falling through from just being in the water too long. I'm going to say that he ate it last night! YEAH!!!

Yesterday he spent the day tracing out the tank. It was pretty impressive to watch. Once he gets use to the environment, my brother said he will swim around as if he had eyes.

I still will not be satisfied until I see him eat though. Thanks for the suggestions... I'm going to try some tongs and hold it closer to him.

[Lady Hobbs]

Since he's blind and can't tell daylight from darkness, he may be night feeding. Are you giving sinking pellets.

[SpyderSpy6]

Yes I do... it's NLS. I usually supplement that sometimes with either bloodworms, or a little bit of beafheart. I don't mind if the little guy only eats at night... I just want him to eat!

[SpyderSpy6]

I have officially seen my little blind buddy eat from the feeding cone. I was thrilled!! I think I'm going to get a couple cory cats just to help clean up the fallen bits of food. I think a pleco would be to aggressive with the feeding.

Since he is blind, I would prefer for him to be the only fish in the tank that will eat from the cone.

Question... since the fish is blind, would it be possible that he could grow full size in the 20??? You know... because he can't really see how big his tank is, or am I a fool for asking that??