How to prepare veggies for plecos?

[mattcham]

How do you prepare green beans to feel to plecos? Specifically bristlenosed plecos.
Do you blanch it first or do you have to slice it up into strips?
What about kale (swiss chard)? Do you blanch that too or feed it raw?

[syno321]

Green beans are about the only veggie that I steam before feeding to bristlenose. Otherwise they get raw potato peels, sweet peppers, zuchinni, watermelon rind, sliced broccoli stems, etc.

[vanillarum]

I feed my veggie eater plecos, green beans, peas, zucchini, etc. and don't do anything to it except the peas which get microwaved and shells taken off. Good luck.

[TwoTankAmin]

I have always purchased green beans canned. I get ones that specifically say No Salt Added. I run a fingernail down the seam to split the bean and remove the seeds. Larger bn may eat the seeds but smaller ones seem to prefer not to,so I usually remove them.

I do nuke zuchini so it will sink when feeding that as I do not want to spike it into the substrate and often tanks are bare bottom. I sometimes use veggie clips:

[de221ck]

my royals occasionally get cucumber as a treat, i just stick a fork or spoon through it to sink it. thats all they really took a liking to that i tried...

[lilu]

Green zucchini has been a favorite of all my BNs, royal and L092 (they didn't take to the yellow zucchini). If they are given organic zucchini they'll eat the entire piece (skin and all) overnight, with the regular pieces they leave the skin behind. Recently my royal has really enjoyed sweet potato (might be his new favorite). None of them like cucumber or green beans very much.

[Mol_PMB]

That's interesting as I find exactly the same. I usually get organic courgette and they go for the skin first. However much I wash the non-organic, they don't eat the skin.
I often microwave in a little tank water for half a minute, but if I go away for a weekend I'll leave it uncooked so it doesn't rot.

Red bell peppers go in raw, so does lettuce and spinach. My Otos like raw carrots and broccoli stalks but the bigger plecs aren't interested.

Every one of my fish likes peas, lightly cooked and squeezed through a garlic press. Even the Weitzmani tetras eat peas, and they're notoriously fussy eaters.


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[mattcham]

Thanks for all the replies. My grocery store here in USA sells frozen sliced zucchini and my BN plecos eat the skin and all. I just microwave it for 1 minute, cool it off with cold tap water (is this bad?) then drop the veggie into the tank. So far my baby plecos are growing fast on this.

I hear that smaller plecos like BN have a harder time eating raw zucchini and that blanching it first allows them to eat faster due to softer texture? Is this true?

For those who feed raw zucchini and are able to sink it down the tank by sticking a fork, how do you do it? I forked a ton of holes on my raw zuchinni slice and it still floats. Do you mean stick the fork in the slice and drop the fork AND zucchini together into the tank?

For those of you who feed peas, doesn't it cloud the water? seems like it would cloud the water upon contact?

I have also heard people feeding potatoes and sweet potatoes (yams).

[DBam]

They mean leave the fork through the zucchini and let it all sink to the bottom, otherwise the zucchini will always float. You can try yam or sweet potato. Regular potato doesn't seem to be used with as many pleco keepers that I know.

I make my own food. Last time I blended zucchini, kale, spinach, peas, yam, carrot, frozen krill, pure spirulina, 2 cloves crushed garlic and the dusty bits from the bottom 1/5th of a tetra colorbits can together. This made about 5L worth of soup. After it's thoroughly blended I heated it just to a boil and added a couple packages of agar. After stirring in agar I poured it out into cookie sheets and put in the fridge until they set, and then I sliced them into little squares and put them in the freezer. This makes months of pleco food , and my BNPs and blue phantoms love it. The squares are dense enough to sink after a couple seconds in the tank. I got tired of fishing forks and mushy veggie remains out of the tank every day and trying to keep up with fresh veggies on hand all the time.

[lilu]

I attach the raw slices of zucchini with VeggieMags http://www.twolittlefishies.com/tlf_pro ... ?lang_id=1, I found the magnetic clips stay put better than the ones with suction cups when the larger plecos hang from it. For larger pieces or for the sweet potato I use the pleco feeder http://www.theplecofeeder.com/. When the sweet potato was on the substrate my royal ignored it, but with it suspended midway he eats practically the whole 1cm thick slice overnight. The only one who doesn't swim up for the veggies is my L239, he only eats the veggies if they're on the substrate.

Those cubes are a great idea, definitely will give them a try, especially for the L239

[zeebo]

hi, like a few others, i use plastic clips with suction cups. I tied fishing line to them so I can just pull them out in the morning. They are sold in aquarium stores, very cheap - 2 for $3.00.

As for food, yep, fresh , raw zucchini, deshelled peas, raw red bell peppers-skin down, spinach, sweet potato. Anything cooked can mess up your water so be careful. just pick up a few raw veggies and swith them each night , then the next week same --that way your veggies wont go bad and you L'S will get the variety they need and dig.

[zeebo]

well i meant the next week choose 2 different raw veggies and so on... I never put pre-cooked veggies in the tank, all raw ..but i do nuke the peas(they sink)in water for 1 minute , then gently squeeze the clear shell off and discard, just plop them in. They love them and peas keep them ''cleaned out''

Georgie

[mattcham]

Thanks everyone for your input.
If you are feeding pleco fry (babies about 1 to 2 weeks old, common bristle nosed), do you need to blanch/pre-boil the zucchini?
Are pleco fry able to chew on raw zucchini?

[Jumpmaster]

I boil my courgete and my albino BN fry (between 1.5cm to 2 cm) and they get on with it

[Aquaticus]

My fry do fine with raw and blanched both.

[Fisutar10]

My plecos and bristlenose's favorite is raw zuccini. I take skin away and put small slice to tea spoon that it stay in bottom. In one night they eat 3 hole big zuccini.

http://aqua-web.fi/forum/viewtopic.php? ... 0#p7208395
http://aqua-web.fi/forum/viewtopic.php? ... 0#p7209044

Videos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntJdzCN8Qcs
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[pitbull13]

I give mine cucumbers and zucchini and just slice it into anout a 2 inch oiece and cut a hole in the middle and they eat it all.