Feeding Fish Vegetables

[Enigma]

Apparently, some fish are supposed to be fed vegetables. This is an entirely new concept to me.

I did some reading online last night, and I found plenty of references for the feeding of veggies to freshwater fish. Feeding suggestions for saltwater fish were few and far between.

If the feeding of veggies would be beneficial to my critters, I would certainly like to attempt it.

Does anyone have any suggestions or experiences to share?

[Aquattro]

I feed kale to my tangs once in a while. You need to blanche it to break down the fiber. However, I'm not sure it's beneficial if they get a good variety of seaweed and meaty bits. Let's face it, the typical fish doesn't come across veggies all that often :)

[mike31154]

I've put blanched romaine lettuce & spinach on the veggie clip in the past. Yellow Tang took it, but not all that enthusiastically. I even read somewhere that banana peel will work for some & that it's beneficial due to the potassium. My tang never touched it. Both the tang & my angelfish love the bulk nori I serve up so I simply stick to that these days. I recall reading that nori has more nutrition in it than anything we can grow in our gardens. And yeah, not too much spinach, romaine floating around in the sea, a banana or two maybe.

[Enigma]

Thanks for the ideas, guys. :)

I did think the recommendation was a little odd. I have a whole host of foods at my disposal (several flakes, several pellets, several types of frozen, Arctipods, nori) . . . but I'm supposed to feed veggies? Peas and zucchini appear to be very popular with the FW folks.

I'm not sure why either of those would be any sort of appropriate, natural, species specific diet . . . for anything other than my Holland Lop rabbit (versus my Foxface Rabbitfish).

[reefwars]

read your fish food ingerdients i bet its mostly vegetables and shrimp:P:P

most of mine are anyways:P

[fishytime]

Ive fed banana (the fruit itself) to my fish before.....most of them took to it....you really have to smoosh it up and make it bite sized tho....Ive never fed veggies

[reefwars]

in my nls pellets bottle in my hand it says:

red and green spinach
pea
broccoli
red pepper
zucchini
tomato
kiwi
apricot
pear
mango
apple
papaya
peach


a frend and me yesterday were reading the ingredients and alot of these have copper traces in them:(

[Enigma]

read your fish food ingerdients i bet its mostly vegetables and shrimp:P:P

most of mine are anyways:P

I will check.

Ive fed banana (the fruit itself) to my fish before.....most of them took to it....you really have to smoosh it up and make it bite sized tho....Ive never fed veggies

Interesting. Do you think the advantage of the banana is as simple as diet variance, or is there something specific to the banana that is particularly advantageous? I can't eat a whole one . . . they sit in my stomach like rocks (must be all the potassium, maybe?).

[Enigma]

a frend and me yesterday were reading the ingredients and alot of these have copper traces in them:(

There are traces of copper in most things . . . most just don't list it. It probably won't be something that is added on purpose, but rather, that is naturally occurring.

Very small trace amounts are perfectly safe.

Look at the list of minerals for this very popular aquarium product:
http://www.aquavitro.com/products/fuel.html

I'm impressed that they have the gonads to actually list it in there.

Edit: Here's an interesting little article on copper concentrations in the ocean: http://www.chemet.com/file.asp?F=Copper+and+the+Ocean+Environment1.PDF&N=Copper+and+the+Ocean+Environment1.PDF&C=articles

[fishytime]

a frend and me yesterday were reading the ingredients and alot of these have copper traces in them:(

Ive been telling peeps this for years....even got into a heated debate about it here with more than one person.....I think NLS is a great food for freshwater and even a fish only , but I will not feed it to my reef


Interesting. Do you think the advantage of the banana is as simple as diet variance, or is there something specific to the banana that is particularly advantageous? I can't eat a whole one . . . they sit in my stomach like rocks (must be all the potassium, maybe?).

Im assuming that potassium is the reason some feed it.....I fed it as a treat, like you said, just to get some variance in their diet....

[Enigma]

Im assuming that potassium is the reason some feed it.....I fed it as a treat, like you said, just to get some variance in their diet....

I think maybe I'll try it. :) We always have bananas in the house.

[RD]

Ive been telling peeps this for years....even got into a heated debate about it here with more than one person.....I think NLS is a great food for freshwater and even a fish only , but I will not feed it to my reef


Honestly, for some people ignorance must be bliss.




With regards to copper in food food, this topic comes up from time to time on various forums and is something that apparently many reef hobbyists do not fully understand, anymore than many freshwater shrimp owners.

In small quantities, copper is an essential element to all life forms.


Copper and Aquatic Life


http://www.copper.org/publications/newsletters/innovations/1998/12/water_health.html



Joe Yaiullo, one of the pioneers of reef keeping in the USA, and the curator/co-founder of Atlantis Marine World in NY has been feeding NLS (daily) in his reef tanks for the past 10+ years. You can view his 20,000 gallon reef set up (the largest in NA, and 4th largest in the world) in the link below, where he also mentions feeding New Life Spectrum.

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2007/2/aquarium

Joe is one of the world’s most highly regarded Aquarium authorities. He has consulted with many public Aquariums worldwide, and has also presented reef-keeping lectures throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe.


Bob Fenner, who is widely known through his various published works on aquatics, as well as his wetwebmedia website, has stated that New Life Spectrum is a nutritionally complete food, to the point of it being the best food, period. http://wetwebmedia.com/foodsppt1.htm

Bob's bio can be found here: http://www.wetwebmedia.com/WWMAdminS...ex/bobfbio.htm

Charles Delbeek M.Sc., senior biologist at the Steinhart Aquarium in San Francisco also feeds NLS at their facility. You can view Mr. Delbeek's bio in the following link.

http://www.jcdaquariumdesign.com/Pages/about_us.html

The gentlemen mentioned above are not only highly respected, very experienced long term reef keepers, they also hold one or more degrees in the various related sciences, and would most certainly never use anything in their systems that even had the potential to harm any type of life form.

Also, none of those individuals have any type of vested interest in New Life.


Last but not least, please keep in mind that almost everything and anything can become toxic at high enough levels, including some vitamins. No nutritionist would recommend completely eliminating vitamin A, B, D, E and K from the diet just because at higher levels these substances can be toxic to a fish, yet this exact type of logic is what's used when some hobbyists discuss essential trace elements such as copper.

Happy fishkeeping.

[FragIt Dan]

+1 on RD's comments. I co-wrote a publication in Limnology and Oceanography regarding Cu and Fe in the Ocean. Cu, along with many other elements found in fish food (and vegetables as well) have an acceptable range in concentration that is beneficial to each organism. I was actually able to negatively effect some phytoplankton by decreasing the Cu concentration to very low levels. Trace amounts of Cu found in fish foods (and fresh or blanched veggies) are not enough to raise the concentration above levels that are detrimental to anything in your tank.

As for fresh veggies, I am sure that some of the coral foods that I have tried are, in part, veggie juice. IMO, just because lettuce is not found in the ocean, doesn't mean it isn't good for your fish or corals. Nutritional content may be just fine, but the companies selling you stuff would have you believe otherwise :).
Dan