Feeding veggies to our fish

[Ruadh]

When you feed veggies such as lettuce, cabbage, peas and such do you blanch them first?

Mine won't eat zucchini, is there a trick to it?

What other veggies can be fed?

Thankx

Rick

[corrosionjerry]

When you feed veggies such as lettuce, cabbage, peas and such do you blanch them first?

Mine won't eat zucchini, is there a trick to it?

What other veggies can be fed?

Thankx

Rick

I have noticed that most fish will eat fresh peas that have been slightly blanched and have the skins taken off... I have never tried cabbage or lettuce/ it probably depends somewhat on the species of fish.....

Plecos love zucchini...

[Ruadh]

I've got crayfish, Sword tails, Scissor tails, Diamond Tetras, Green Barbs, Dwarf Rainbows, Hatchets and Rasbora's in a 175 gl. and none of them will eat the Zucc's.

I've given them peas, but I didn't blanch them. I will next time.

Worse than little kids, huh?

Thankx

Rick

[geleen]

I've got crayfish, Sword tails, Scissor tails, Diamond Tetras, Green Barbs, Dwarf Rainbows, Hatchets and Rasbora's in a 175 gl. and none of them will eat the Zucc's.

I've given them peas, but I didn't blanch them. I will next time.

Worse than little kids, huh?

Thankx

Rick

With these fish I would try a little cooked spinach chopped very fine, the barbs and rainbows will likely eat that.

I blanch 3 peas and crush them fine with a fork my rainbows eat them before it gets halfway to the bottom.

J

[fairdeal]

Most of my fish are african cichlids, but with a lot of mbunas that are basically herbivores and I feed them romaine lettuce just tied to a rock once a week and also once a week my own "special" European Shrimp Mix. I got the basic formula off cichlid-forum and over the years and a lot of experimenting I redid it to my specifications.

The formula calls for peas and whole skin on head on shrimp, but I have added carrots, brussel sprouts, spinach and smelts. All of this is frozen product and thawed out some so it can be run through the blender until it looks like everything has been pretty much ground up to the consistency of mud. You then add the spirulina powder and vitamins. Mix all this up and put it in the pot with the agar and mix well. The agar MUST be the type that is from seaweed NOT animal product. The animal agar will kill younger fish as it cannot be metabolized properly. The spirulina powder or flakes MUST be 100% for best results NOT the flakes that are only @30% or less spirulina by content. You have to work fairly fast at this point as the mixture thickens quickly. I use ice cube trays and freeze them and then put the cubes in sandwich bags - 1 bag 1 meal for all the fish. Sounds like a lot of work but I do enough to last at least 3 to 4 months depending on how many mouths I have to feed.

When it is european shrimp mix day ALL the fish literally go into a feeding frenzy - nothing but pushing and shoving to get at it. I don't give it to fish less than 1 1/2", but all the others get it. Reason is that all the shrimp don't get blended right down and there are sometimes pieces of the skin and I don't take the chance that any of that gets stuck in their throats.

If you had smaller fish or didn't want to give them something with as much protein you could use skinless shrimp and skip the smelts.

WARNING - ONLY FEED THE FISH ONCE DAILY WITH MY FORMULA AS IT IS WAY HIGH IN PROTEIN AND WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR HERBIVORES. I only feed this once a week to all my fish that way nobody gets jealous cause they think they're missing out. LOL

This formula really works wonders on color, growth, etc. and when the fish see it in my hand they almost come right out of the water for it.