Any fishkeepers here?

I'm just wonderng if anyone else feeds their fish veggies? I've fed mine Romaine Lettuce, Kale, Zucchini, egg whites and peas. I'm wondering if collard, turnip or mustard greens are okay - I just want to make sure they won't turn the tank green!

I would not try greens. The letuce is good. I have 4 african Cichlids and they love romaine letuce. I even slip them a cricket now and then for protein. The crickets are actually for the chameleon but any esacpee will be put to death by Cichlid Firing Squad. I will try and get some pics of them.

Well I thought about keeping fish. But I read a book on it, and added up all the prices........and lets say I became fully interested in reptiles.

Damien....that's not the answer I wanted! You were supposed to say 'sure, it's okay'. LOL. Any reason why you say not to use the greens? The reason I asked is because I'll have to buy greens to feed my bluetongue skink, but she won't be able to eat it all before they go bad. Other than eating it myself (not too keen on that just yet), I'm trying to find another use for them rather than wasting. It's mostly for my Bristlenose Pleco, but I sometimes catch my other fish sneaking a bite or two. :)

LOL. Where you looking at saltwater fish? I'd love to try that, but for now I'll stick to my less expensive freshwater fish, reptiles and puppy!

The greens do dye the water a little but its not bad. I tried it once with mustard greens and the fish loved them but like i said it dyed the water.

HeY. You got to beat the right answer out of me. LOL

Yup, I was lookin' at saltwater, I'll never do that again. To much stuff to do and money to sped for something that for me at least dosn't have much payoff. But I'm not putting down anyone has like saltwater fish keeping.

i have a 30 gallon tank with tetras, rasboras, 2 platties, algae eaters, cory catfish and all live plants. i was hesistant about the live plant thing at first but it turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to my aquarium. i had shrimp for a while and i fed them chunks of frozen spinach. the fish seemed to enjoy picking at it too, but that it the only veggie i have ever tried.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by gozetec02

The greens do dye the water a little but its not bad. I tried it once with mustard greens and the fish loved them but like i said it dyed the water.

HeY. You got to beat the right answer out of me. LOL

---

:D Thanks! I might give it a shot - maybe the day before a water change and try to leave it in only for a bit. I just know I don't want to eat the greens - well, actually I don't want to cook them.

the smell of vegetables cooking is a stinky one. i don't blame you there.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mlededee

the smell of vegetables cooking is a stinky one. i don't blame you there.

---

That and I only rarely get the itch to cook.

My Tiger barbs used to love the egg whites and peas. I'm going to try it (maybe this weekend) and let you guys know how it goes. :D

Has anybody ever gone to a fish store and done this? :

You walk into the fish store and spend a long time loking a certain spieces of fish. Buy a few of that spieces and just before you leave you ask the casheer:
" Say, these are good eatin' right?"

Before we moved to Florida we had a 75, 2-55's, and a couple 15 & 10 gallon tanks, all tropical. Would love to try salt water someday, but the expense and upkeeping do not fit into my budget or lifestyle just yet. We have been pricing tanks/equipment as we miss our fishys and would love to get back into the hobby (too bad I sold everything before the big move, we had quite a collection of equipment, guess we'll have to start over, but that's fun too!).

Yeah, I really enjoy the planning of species and decorating the tanks - same with the herps! Bet you can find some species at petstores in Florida that maybe you couldn't really get where you used to live.

I have a 30 gallon fish tank filled with, platies,rasboro hets,guppies (that i breed) neon and glowlight tetras a betta and a chinese butterfly algae eater. i used to have sword tails but i had to get rid of them becuase they would eat the babies.

I love the Harlequin Rasboras - my 55 has them, Cherry Barbs, Bristlenose Pleco, Boesmanis (sp?) Rainbow, Albino Corydora, Peppered Corydora (I think) and a neon Tetra. At one time we had 7 tanks going...now just down to the 1 - and it is really made up of all the fish left from the other tanks...on

i had a whole fishroom setup in my last appartment, and had to sell everything before i moved to florida. i used to have an awesome piranha shoal (caribe and terns), 2 huge bright red oscars, dwarf snakeheads, a rhom, a spilo, and a community tank.

i really want to get into saltwater, but this climate is way better for reptiles . . . and they fit way better into my budget also.

~Will.

i kinda wanted an oscar and i REALLY want salt water but my parents said no to both becuase i already have 6 tanks filled with differnt stuff in my room

I have a 40 gallon octogan tank with:
1 bubblegum parrot (big and PINK)
1 algae eater (sp?)
5 tiger barbs
1 african chichlid
2 rosefire barbs
1 spotted green puffer
2 midas barbs
and one other I forget the name of...
We used to have a butterfly fish, but the poor guy jumped...
He was one cool fish.

Well, after having FW tanks since I was 10 and breeding guppies, platys, mollies and bettas, I got into SW tanks. I still have bettas (3 at the moment) and a 5g FW tank going. I also have a 10g reef tank, and a 30g fish only tank w/ live rock at the moment. I'm going to be putting seahorses and pipefish in the 30g once I can get some time! The thing with SW is the initial cost. After that it costs no more than a fresh water tank to maintain. All I do to my SW tanks is a water change every week and to off the tank with FW every day. It's not that hard to do :P

Good luck with the seahorses! Do you plan to feed live food or try to convert to f/t? 80% mortality rate in captivity scares me - I'm such a wienie.

I'll be buying from a breeder. That way they are already on frozen food. I've already had pipe fish and they aren't that different from seahorses. If you want more info on sea horses go to www.seahorse.org The people there are great and they will definitely answer any questions about them----- even if you aren't going to get a SW tank :P We have had a few people on there just wanting some info on them even though they didn't even own a SW tank. I've had SW tanks for a year now, and like I said- they aren't too different from FW tanks.

We recently acquired Shedd Aquariums seahorse collection at our zoo, so I had to reseach them quite a bit (that website was very helful at that time). Already on frozen food - bonus! It's sad that the real reason that mortality rate is so high is because of people who go out and buy them 'on a whim' w/o any research. If I ever did SW I'd love to have some anenome, anenome fish, coral banded shirimp, chocolate chip seastar and a crab. Heck, I don't even know if any of them can be put together. But they're all some of my favs. Of course I'd love a stingray.

Quote:

---

Bet you can find some species at petstores in Florida that maybe you couldn't really get where you used to live.

---

Actually we used to keep what is commonly called a 'snake head' fish in NY but they are illegal to keep down here. They are voracious eaters and can live in the waters and disrupt the natural ecology (these fish get rather large, and as with the burm problem, irresponsible, uneducated keepers let them go--gotta love it!:frustrated: ). However, I believe they can survive up north as well but they haven't banned them yet.

In any case, I haven't really looked closely at the fish down here, but have noticed all the same as are available up north, I'll have to start looking closer....interesting, hadn't thought of that before!

I keep 3 HUGE fancy goldfish, 2 ryukins and an oranda. For fresh veggies they get the occasional spinach, some frozen brine shrimp, some krill. It brings out their colors so well and keeps them "regular" :) All three are probably around 7-8" long. One I get them in a 55g, they should get a bit bigger and a little more robust.

Gold fish are cool , me and my mom are setting up a koi pond in the back yard soon and plan to get lots of differnt gold fish. And of course some koi

I'd love to set up an outdoor koi pond. They're so cool.

My mom has outdoor ponds front and back with koi, goldfish, and volunteer snakes and bullfrogs that come up from the creek behind the house. We have a 20g tank with a pleco, some platys, zebra danios, a scissortail rasboa, and something I'm forgetting at the moment. We've had the pleco for years, but have had two disasters that required replacing all the other fish twice: a bala shark went nuts and ate all his tankmates but the pleco (gave him to mom), and just recently Jessica accidentally dumped almost half a container of fish food in the tank and killed all but one zebra and the pleco. Those guys are hardy.

We just bought a pond for the backyard and hopefully will have it up and running w/in the next week or so (been so darn hot haven't wanted to do any yard work lately!)...I plan on having a Koi pond, can't wait until it's ready for fish!

We had a Pleco in our 75g community tank and he was awesome, got HUGE though. My favorites were the Discus and Severum...and the Angels and the....guess I loved 'em all!! Now I really miss my tanks, it's just moved to the #1 spot on the 'luxury' list!!

Was wondering what you guy's think of certain tropical fish being injected with a dye, or dipped in a dye to make them colorful? Hopefully none of you here support this but it is a free world. I just cant imagine what kind of stress and problems this causes the fish that have been injected. My Dad has made it his life mission to let the owners of pet stores that have these dye colored fish know exactly how he feels about it everytime he goes into a pet store. This is one of the few things that I know that can set the ole man off.

Was just curious!

I have no fish now, though I have had many in my time, but I am thinking of starting a 70 gallon that I have with some native fish of this area. I had one many years ago with native fish but I was to lazy to take care of them back then so I released them. Im thinking I will have Large and small mouth bass, Flat Head, Blue & Yellow Belly catfishes and Blue Gill or as they are called in the South....Brim. There are lots more but better not stuff the tank. Some of these, especially the flat heads get very big.

Has anyone ever thought of or have had native species tanks?

I am totally against it myself. It's been awhile since I've bought fish or really visited the aquarium section in the petstores-not lost any fish in awhile (knock on wood). So what are all the fish that are injected? I seem to remember the Painted Glass fish - is this right?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ironhead

Was wondering what you guy's think of certain tropical fish being injected with a dye, or dipped in a dye to make them colorful?

---

I hate it personally, always have and now my kids hate it too. The animals are interesting or beautiful enough naturally not to need any "makeup." In general, I oppose artificial "beautification" of natural things. It's one thing to trim a shrub or a dog's coat, and quite another to remove, add, or alter natural features of the animal.

The painted glass fish is one. There are Blood Parrot Cichlids, Lutino and Albino morph of the Black Skirt Tetra, Skunk Botia, Tin Foil Barb, Red and Green Tiger Barbs, Bala Shark, Albino morphs of the Oscar, Albino Palaetus, Aeneus Cory Catfish, Honey Gourami, Albino Plecostomus, Fruit Loop Tetras......im sure the list goes on. But these are many of the ones that are being injected or dipped in dye's.

The Bala Sharks? Wow, I had no idea about most of those - especially the Tin Foil Barbs, Bala Shark, and the cories.

You can see some of them here....

http://fish.orbust.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=7123

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ironhead

Was wondering what you guy's think of certain tropical fish being injected with a dye, or dipped in a dye to make them colorful?

---

Ironhead - People do this? You've got to be kidding me! I've never heard of this before, then again .. i've never kept fish before outside of the 2 goldfish i won at the fair when i was younger. Thats just horrible.

Thanks for that link!

I've heard of it and have always been against it. I knew tetras were dyed, but didn't know about some of the others. In Japan they have genetically altered fish to make them glow in the dark (saw a special on National Geographic just the other day), they look like tetras but I don't know what kind of fish they really are....it's just so wrong!!
EDIT: I just checked out that link and there is a picture of the genetically altered fish that I mentioned.

Those blood parrot cichlid's look so fake its unbelieveable !!

Wow, old thread that I never noticed!
I have goldfish, and I have fed them peas. They are good for their digestion if fed in small amounts.
I would not feed more than the fish can consume in a few minutes, and I always remove the uneaten peas. I don't want them to go rotten in my tank!

When I had Tiger barbs, they really liked the peas and egg whites.

Well, I tried Collard Greens and my Pleco loved it (not sure if anyone else ate any).