Can you give your freshwater fish pieces of bread??

[jasno999]

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Can you give your freshwater fish pieces of bread like whole weat bread and what not?

I have seen people feeding fish in the ocean with bread. IT is used in Hawaii to let torists hand feed the fish. Is it bad for them in any way? Could it be done in a freshwater tank?

 

[ferret]

I believe it causes some fish digestive problems but I don't know. I would suggest against it though. You have all these food specificly formulated for aquarium fish so it seems silly to use bread. Bread is used for tourist causes its easy and cheat to acquire. And they don't really care if it hurts the fish, after all, they have a big ocean full of more if one dies :/

 

[Deitta]

I have no scientific basis for this opinion, but I would think that it would be a bad idea. Bread has salt, yeast, sugar and other ingredients depending on type. In the ocean adding a little bread doesn't affect the water purity much... but in an enclosed enviroment? I don't know much about chemistry but I can't see where yeast could be good for the bacteria balance.

 

[Christmasfish]

Actually most fish flakes are made of bread..^_^.. kinda. The cheap kind read like cat and dog food ingredients.

If you look at the ingredients in some okay brands of flake and pellet; it was like a heavy stacked seafood hoagie puree'ed in a blender and dried to flakes.
With large ocean fish it would be like a treat day...though I am sure that is is not good for strict carnivores or herbivores. I doubt it hurts them in any permanent way.

In a tank however..it'll turn your water to carp! Think..would you take a sip out of a cup your kid threw a bread crust in? and it can help harmful molds establish themselves. A coiple pinches of bread is the detrius equivalent of throwing a half can of flake in the tank!

And if you have kids they'll get bad ideas..^_^
i pureed some treat for my gourami girl when it was sick. I told my son it was like sausage. So he gave my male gourami a piece of hot dog! And dragon refused to let me catch him til he ate it all. He survived. He is the ony Christmasfish that did.
hmmmm...maybe I should feed all the fish hot dogs?

 

[jasno999]

Well my Girlfriend used to have oscars and Cichlids and she said she would give them bits of lunch meat and what not. So in moderation things liek that are not goign to hurt. YOu just have to make sure you don't over do it.

 

[smidget]

i think bread would be like a treat to them. don't know whether or not it is good for the fish though. a lot of people use bread as bait in minnow traps because they go so crazy over it

 

[QTOFFER]

The only concern I would have is that bread tends to swell up several times its initial volume in water. It may cause intestinal blockages if the fish swallows a large piece (which may even be a tiny piece - remember, fish stomachs are generally no larger than their eyes.) I know that bread is very very bad for many birds for this reason.

 

[Sparky]

Bread and Water......what do you have in there?....a bunch of Convicts...J/K

Could not resist.

Mike

 

[madasafish]

Hehe. I like that, Mike.

I've been told before that the starch (I think) in bread is really bad for turtles. In Central Park here in NYC, ppl feed the turtles bread, and some of the caretakers think this is a reason for early deaths. Just something I heard.

But really, there's no reason to feed fish bread in the first place. Fish food is so incredibly cheap...

 

[jasno999]

Ok no bread. IT was just a question. Don't everybody freak out on me here.

Jsut lookign for soem different and fun things to feed the fish besides flake food. Cause flake food is not real food either. They don't eat flake food in the wild. So I was thinkign that these fish could probably go for some fariety in their diets.

But I will stick to the processed flake and fish store foods for these guys. All the worms will go to the puffer fish I have. Oh and are earth worms ok to give to a puffer? (Live ones)

 

[madasafish]

Hmmm... I don't think anybody "freaked out." He he. You'll know it if somebody really freaks--the thread will be locked down!

Well, there are plenty of other things to feed fish that people commonly give. A lot of ppl drop blanched zucchini, cucumber, cabbage, carrots etc. into the tank for the fish. These are high in vitamins, so good for their system.

Your instinct is entirely right, though, Jasno. LFS fish food can be awefully monotonous for fish, and much of it isn't particularly healthy. Look of for Omega 1 food and other vitamin-enriched flake foods. By all means, try to vary your fishes' diet as much as possible!

 

[Menagerie]

Wow, no freaking out on this thread! People are sharing their advice in a kind way. madasafish is right, the thread would be locked and the key thrown away if there were tempers here

I'm not sure what tropicals you have, but in my community tank which has tetras, Apistos, rams, cories, and loaches, I feed flake, occasional blood worms, brine shrimp, algae wafers, zucchini (but only the loaches snack on it) and spirulina pellets.

 

[jasno999]

Ok boys and girls.


Sounds good. I do have a variety of food and will keep rotating things. No bread don't worry.

For now my biggest concearn is that my 29gallon is gettign cloudy and I think it is from an alage bloom that is free floating. I have to figure otu how to rid myself of it. Can't use chemicals cause I have live plants. I am goign to do massive watter change but I don't know if that will help or not.

 

[krap101]

i caight like a 20 earthworms cutem up and still my fish dont eat em.. im sure someone feeds their fish earthworms right... do i just have to cut em smaller? or just give up on it?

 

[madasafish]

Wow. Gross. Um, I think only certain fish will eat live (sorta) earthworms. Puffers, I believe, do. Really not sure on that one, though...

Jasno, an algal bloom is not solved by water changes. I'd recommend taking out all particularly sensitive plants and placing them in another tank or container with light. Then shut off the light to your tank for 4-5 days. Cover it with a blanket so that only a tiny bit of light comes in. Do daily water changes in the meanwhile. Because the green diatomaceous algae are photosynthetic, they will die when deprived of light for this long.