Cheap and tasty vegies for brissies

[Rol&Jas]

Hi Guys,

My brissies started to breed in one of my cichlid fry tank. Since then, I have cleared a 3ftX18X18 tank for about 20 of them. Put in lots of driftwood, shells, ceramic pots, etc., so lots of hiding is provided and also lots of surface where the algae can grow on. I feed them with flakes and always attach a piece of raw zucchini on a rock. The brissies love to feed on that. I also rotate the pots from other tanks so they always get ones with algae on it. I can see lots of tiny brissies swimming and cleaning around.

I have tried raw lettuce leaf, but they did not seem to like it. I even tried a soft peach (don't laugh), but they did not touch it much.

I'd like to hear all your opinions and ideas about vegetables that you give to your brissies and what they like, whether they raw, freezed or cooked.

Thank you

[anchar]

Hi,

Shelled peas, pumpkin, cucumber, zucchini, spinach, silverbeet, shelled corn - all work for me. . Blanch then first.

merjo

[Alan]

G'Day Roland,

Looks like you have been scanning the Bristle nose posts getting info on thier diet.

Pumpkin ( Jap or Kent variety) and zuchini are my two main staples. Tammy uses blanched lettuce a lot with her youngsters, and boiled carrot slices. As you have seen, they eat just about any veg.

The reason we blanch or boil thier food is just to make it easier to feed a lot of tanks. Raw veggies float and I would be all day attatching weights to half a sliced up pumpkin. Boiled or blanched veg sinks so the food gets down to where the hungry critters are.

Here is a bit of list of things you can try :- pumpkin, zuchini,squash,cuecumber,lettuce,brocolli stems,carrot,beans,squashed peas,spinich,silver beet,wombok,bokchow, they will eat cabbage but it makes the water stink, and probably things I never thought of as well.

Mine also get to chew on shelled prawn heads when ever, and prepared foods like algae wafers and spirulina one or twice a week (that can be bloody expensive tho feeding a lot of fish)

Alan

[Rol&Jas]

Vow! That is a lot of info. Thank you very much Guys.

[OziOscar]

Pardon my ignorance, but what is "wombok"?? And what dialect is that?? ^_^

Cheers - OziOscar.

[Matt88]

Strange yours didnt like the lettuce. thats pretty much all mine will eat. o well theyre all different then. My mummy and daddy BNs love theyre tomato rockmellon, strawberries, peas, brocoli. pretty much anything.

Matt

[Caty]

Hi all,

That's a new one merjo hadn't thought of shelled corn, might have to give that a go on one of the tanks.

At the moment I mainly use blanched pumpkin, blanched lettuce (blanching the lettuce helps break down the cell wall of the lettuce making it easier for the fish to digest) cos lettuce works well and you can use just about the whole lettuce not just the outer leaves, tin peas squashed, makes it easier for the fish to get into them (can cloud the water a little tho) don't use frozen peas anymore the amount of peas I need to shell just takes too long, blanched carrots (has to be well blanched tho), apparently unlike other veggies you get more nutrients from cooked carrots then you do raw.

Have used a number of other veggies here and there but these are the main veggies I'm using atm.

Tammy

[Leeren]

Guys all the veges are great, bristlenose like their cousins pepermints love veges but don't foget they also go crazy over a bit of protien ie meat...my pepermints breed well in a discus tank eating their own veges and pigging out on any beef heart etc the discus leave behind, i found the same with all the tropheus species all though they have long intestines and are herbavores the occasional bit of blood worm etc never bothers them........hey but the above is my own experience only.

cheers karen