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I would like to provide some fresh vegetables for my fish if they were to profit from eating them..... But I would be worried of harming a fish if I provide these, u know in case one of them is allergic or finds a vegetable toxic.

for example, Plecs like lettuce....

What vegetables could I feed my fish without being afraid of them experiencing problems or even dying because they ate them?

Zucchini is a popular choice at my LFS, and I have heard of fish eating thawed frozen spinach (though I just tried some on my cichlid, and I think it was too tough for her, she kept spitting it out and eating it again). Cucumber (that was fun, she chased it all around the tank, and every time she caught it she took a little bite out of the center, so it looked like a doughnut. I mivrowaved the slice for about 30 seconds, so that it would be cooked enough to sink in the water, instead of floating).

Mine like peas too, just squish them a little so they can get the tender insides.

Umm, i think just about any green veggie really, though i am sure broccoli would be far too tough.

Thers lots to choose from, especially if you are using home grown, or organically grown vegetables.

Zucchini (or courgette) is a popular choice, and cucumber will do no harm. You can also use spinach, and greens if your fish will take them , although they are a bit high in oxalic acids and tannins for regular use. Peas and beans and grated carrot are a popular choice and are a good preventative aid against constipation. Some people use broccoli , and obviously watercress is a good choice. Other choices include slices of potato (must be tiny amounts only because of the startch affecting water quality), and various squashes. Its often a good idea to blanche most of these food sources before offering them to the fish.

In terms of avoiding toxicity, most plants use tannins to defend themselves, therefore plants higher in tannins will do more damage. Fish however are not especially vulnerable to tannins and should be well able to eat any vegetable that a human can eat when in a raw state. The trick is to avoid using fruits and other plants with too many elements that could pollute the water.This includes anything with a huge amount of citrus (will affect ph),and high fructose (may cause bacterial bloom , and massive ammonia production during decomposition).

Obviously one thing to be cautious about is the presense of pesticides. In third world countries some ddt based pesticides are still used, and these will pretty much kill fish on contact, more usual pesticides like pyrethrins, cannot be washed of , but can be rendered innefective my heating. This is why organically grown stuff is safest.

I don't know of any that would be toxic. Probably any that are safe for human consumption would also prove to be safe for the fish. Most soft vegetables would probably be okay, as well as some fruits. I know I've seen it posted by others on this site that they feed pears to some of their fish.

Jim

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Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody. -- Mark Twain

I concur with the above. Any vegetable matter that is safe for human consumption would almost certainly be safe for your fishes. In fact, it's probably a safe bet that in the wild, fishes eat a whole host of things that would give us humans a severe case of Monetzuma's Revenge or worse, some form of alkaloid poisoning that the fishes are immune to.

Put it this way. Pacus will chomp their way through just about any aquarium plant you put in their aquarium with the possible exception of Java Fern. Would YOU eat a Cryptocoryne or an Amazon Sword? Probably not.

In fact,if you think about it, how many aquatic plants form part of the human food chain? Not many. I can think of watercress and ... well, that's about it. I don't see anyone enjoying Horwort and Cabomba salads on a regular basis.

Chances are even native peoples in places such as the Amazonian rainforests don't eat aquatic plants much. Mostly because they have too many diverse things to eat that are more easily available on land, and probably a LOT tastier because they've evolved things such as fruits to make them tempting to land animals for seed dispersal etc. Aquatic plants, on the other hand, don't produce hulking gret succulent fruits (at least, not the ones I've seen in an aquarium, and I've seen a fair few species in over 30 years) or tasty leaves that are appetising to land animals (unless you're a hippo of course). On the other hand, Arowanas will leap out of the water to pluck overhanging fruits from tree branches if they're within reach, and quite a few fishes will happily nibble upon plant matter that falls into the water. Cardinal Tetras in the wild nibble upon sunken leaf litter!

One group of vegetables I would exercise caution with is the Solanaceous vegetables. This means tomatoes and potatoes. The reason I would exercise caution with these is that they are members of the Family Solanaceae, which is the Nightshade family of plants. The edibility of these items by fishes might be somewhat suspect, even though they are, pardoxically, edible by Man. It's possible that tomatoes are safe, but I would hesitate to test this conjecture upon a prized fish, and I would exercise double caution with respect to potato tuber because potato tubers, if they develop green tissue, become less than delightful to eat for humans, let alone anything else (which is why we peel them!).


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Spinach.
Spinach has a chemical in it that can cause serious health problems if ingested regularly in large amounts.
Recently the FDA issued a warning reminding people to eat spinach no more than twice weekly, to prevent health problems.
I would feed only sparingly to fish.
Potatoes I wouldnt feed, or tomatoes either.


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So_Very

Are you talking about the recent E.Coli scare? because that was just for the fresh bagged spinach, because of the way it is handled.

If you are talking about the spinach in general, is there any chance you could shoot a link to the warning/literature about the toxin? My roomie is a vegetarian, and she eats a lot of the stuff...I would like to warn her if its something important like that.

Would the iron levels in spinach and some other leafy greens cause issue? I imagine it wouldn't be a problem for things that eat meat, but maybe for things that eat fish or aquatic plants? How much iron is a fish supposed to have and could they overdo it on veggies?

Agree with cali, I'd avoid feeding nightshades. I did try orange once, they liked it but I think the acidity was off-putting as they kept attacking it and then backing off and looking a bit odd.

For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

I've also fed cooked chicken & fish & shrimp to mine.
And they love the tiniest piece of banana I put in there on occasion.

I've given Broccoli, de-skined Peas, and a green grape(sans skin and center) to my bettas and barbs. They loved it all...

Mango tends to be a big hit with Loricariids. At work one of the employees would buy huge mangos for her precious bearded dragons, but I would always take a bit of it and give it to the plecos (and they went crazy for it).

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

I feed my Loricarids, Rhineloricaria and Farlowella, Nori, the sushi algae. Leave a small 1.5 inch square piece over night and next morning there is no trace of it. I'll try mango when the season is in full bloom.

I would be weary of feeding them veggies full of pesticides or fertilizers so organic vegetables would be my suggestion. Or wash them real good or blanche them before serving.

J.

Just to quickly dismiss an old wives tale, you cant actually wash pesticides off. Certain pesticides from the early eighties back, only used to create a poison barrier on the surface and this could be peeled off, although obviously washing only took of a tiny excess of poison from the soil left on the veg. Pyrethrins, now the most commonly used pesticide, were developed to kill nematode worms that penetrate deep into root vegetables, and they pretty much go all the way through the veg. Like I said, if you want to deactivate its toxic properties , you have to heat it.

longhaired, so it would be advisable to boil whatever you put in your tank before doing so, right?

Tiburon, boiling takes away a lot of vitamins. Best to buy organic for your fishies (spoiled fishies! We are so bad, its good they can't come out of the tank to bug you like the cat does).

Well you can blanche rather than boil, you dont have the nuke the food , just raise the temperature a little. Steaming is also acceptable.As long as the foods are gently and only partly cooked, most of the nutrients should get through unharmed. Same as if you were cooking for a nice healthy diet for your own body.

No not Ecoli.

Oxalic acids.

"Oxalic acid in raw spinach forms an insoluble complex with calcium and iron and renders uncooked spinach a non-nutritious green." from chef2chef.com

Oxalic acid in large amounts can be dangerous to ingest.

"Oxalic acid is corrosive to tissue. When ingested, oxalic acid removes calcium from the blood. Kidney damage can be expected as the calcium is removed from the blood in the form of calcium oxalate. The calcium oxalate then obstructs the kidney tubules." from http://www.jtbaker.com/msds/englishhtml/o6044.htm

This doesnt happen unless you eat large amounts of spinach on a daily basis, mainly uncooked.
But in fish because of a much smaller system, levels could build to toxic levels in no time.



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That site is a bit alarmist and really refers to levels of oxalic acid that just arent in that concentration in most greens. Most iguana owners know (or they should know ) that oxalic acid binds calcium into calcium oxylate which is inabsorbable . A green iguana after a couple of years of eating nothing else, will get a bad case of metabolic bone disease and quite probably anti-pericular gout.

The effect on fish will not be so ounced. Spinach and indeed the entire cabbage family with the exception of chinese leaf all contain oxalic acid that will be toxic if eaten in high quantitites. Keep thecabbage family as less than say 5% of the diet, and dont use it as a daily portion, but say more of a monthly treat, and you should get zero problems.Despite its toxic effects , the entire cabbage family are one of the more nutritious groups of vegetables, and it would be foolish to overlook them completely. Personally i cant think of any monotypic diet that would be good for fish, and if you offer foods on a monotypic basis almost any food can be toxic. Thats why in nature animals "shop around" and take advantage of a range of meals from different sources, often in seasonal variety.

Just as I wouldnt ban an iguana owner from using cabbages, neither would I ban the fish owner. I would instead ask that people use a balanced and varied approach to the diet.Besides in some blackwater environments oxalic acid is present at about 5 mm ,a by product of all the rotting vegetation, after all some trees are much higher in oxalic acid content than most cabbages, and its common in the gastrointestinal tract of freshwater shrimps and in a good number of plants that fish eat anyway. Its a toxin they are well used to dealing with. Oxalic acid also regulates phytoplankton levels and is a part of freshwater ecosystems , it is even indicated as having a role in preventing some diseases. Might even be one of the toxins that inhibits the spread of NTD in certain river systems! It is sold in a concentrated form as a biocide. Oxalic acids in natural ecosytems are also self regulated by the presence of ammonium and nitrates, so in freshwater ecosystems there is a control mechanism at work, and it does not accumulate in high levels, fish can also flush oxalic acid much as they do ammonia, by breathing. Other interesting properties of oxalic acid on fish anatomy is that among the tetra groups it can help reduce the bodily intake of copper, and it has a few anti -carcinogenic effects too. Its also completely normal for most high order organisms to have a low level of oxalic acid in the blood, and that includes humans.

Lots of stuff is toxic, but until its role in nature is accurately assessed , its possible to get too alarmist about such things. Id be much more worried about the pesticides.

Variety being the spice of life and all that.