Varied Diet

Cammie

Large Fish
Feb 26, 2010
106
0
0
Bournemouth, United Kingdom
#1
Hi,

I have flakes, bloodworms and Algae wafers.

What else should I be feeding my little darlings to make sure they are big, strong and healthy! I hear about vegetables and things, how do I prepare them?

Thank you x x x x x x*thumbsups
 

Aug 16, 2009
1,318
0
0
SW Pennsylvania
#2
Baby brine shrimp, shrimp pellets, and blanched vegetables are also some suggestions. I highly recommend blanched vegetables. To blanch a vegetable, boil water for a couple minutes. Then, drop the chopped vegetables into the water. Boil 5 minutes, or until soft. But do not boil too long, or you could remove beneficial nutrients. If you don't boil the vegetables, they don't sink in the water and they are harder to eat. I boil a bunch of veggies and stick them in a baggie in the fridge for the week.
It really depends on which veggies your fish will like. Mine go crazy for broccoli, but will only pick at celery. This summer, I'll try fresh, home-grown spinach and zucchini. Lettuce is good, but it has to be romaine. Iceburg has no nutritional value.
 

Doomhed

Large Fish
Feb 11, 2003
687
0
0
41
Rhode Island
Visit site
#5
I've been advised against certain types of pepper because they burn fishes' stomachs. But if sweet pepper is okay, then I'd trust Newman. Thanks for the link, Newman. I'm always curious what else there is to feed my fishies.
the key it to remove all of the skin and all of the white pith and seeds. Do NOT boil the pepper because it changes the chemical composition of the pepper to something toxic to fishes.
 

Newman

Elite Fish
Sep 22, 2009
4,668
0
0
Northern NJ
#7
yes, raw pepper good, blanched pepper bad :p
I never knew about the pepper's skin part until Doom mentioned it a while back so I made sure to note that. Thanks Doom for that useful fact!
 

lauraf

Superstar Fish
Jan 1, 2010
2,181
0
0
Vancouver, British Columbia
#8
Yeah, Doom mentioned that when I was talking about putting a sweet pepper in the tank - apparently it can 'burn' albino fish. BTW, my Albino BN never showed any 'burn' after his lunch on a piece of yellow pepper, but still, I will never put a piece in my tank with the skin on again. Great tip.
BTW, blanching to make the vegetable sink is, I suppose, one reason to blanch, but you can just take that piece of raw zucchini/spinach/pepper and secure around a rock with an elastic.
And hey, littletank, you are almost right about cooking vegetables! But blanching doesn't mean boiling for five minutes, it just means immersing for thirty seconds in boiling water and rinsing immediately in ice cold water to keep the colour and nutrients intact. At least in my culinary world, that's what 'blanching' means - I'd think that might be the same for feeding fish?
I've even accidentally put raw spinach in my tank - the tank water softens the leaf pretty quickly, and my fish devoured it.
But I think it would be important to wash the veggies well, if not blanching them, to get rid of any pesticides.
 

lauraf

Superstar Fish
Jan 1, 2010
2,181
0
0
Vancouver, British Columbia
#11
Hey littletank: upon further reflection, there are times when cooks mix up the meaning of 'blanching' and 'parboiling'. Maybe the fish sites you were visiting that recommend 'blanching' vegetables by boiling for several minutes are also doing the same - parboiling is what you do when you want a firmer vegetable, like potato or carrot, to be almost cooked through and then you 'finish' the vegetable by sauteeing or whatever to add the crispiness, let the sauce infuse, etc.
Anyway, no more on the culinary aspect.
I'm going to guess that for fish, a firm veg like broccoli stems should be boiled longer so that the plant matter is easier to digest - so I could see that parboiling would be a good idea (as in boiling for at least two minutes). However for soft leafy veg's like spinach or lettuce, they need very little boiling to almost break down. What I've been doing that seems to work and takes no time at all is literally pouring a bit of boiling water from my tea kettle over the spinach leaf, running it immediately under very cold tap water, and fastening to a rock with an elastic band. This way you don't have get a whole pot of water boiling, and can easily do a couple leaves at a time as needed.