How to feed omnivores Vieja sp

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haloman02

Candiru
MFK Member
Jan 2, 2008
856
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Yonkers, NY
Hello, I am going to be getting 2 Omnivorous fish Vieja Argentea/Bifaciatus and I was reading that they require veggies in their diet to look their best as well as its good for their health. Now I have no problem giving them veggies its just that I have no idea how i should go about giving it to them. Would I just drop the vegetables in the tank and they will take bites at it or would i chop them up into bite size pieces im lost on this please help. Also what vegetables do you guys recommend feeding. I also Plan on keeping Pothos on the tank with the roots submerged would they feed on this? And is it harmful to the fish? Thanks
 
If you choose to do so, you can use frozen peas with the outer shell removed, slices of zucchini cut up or even spinach leaves...but they dont "need" vegetables in their tank to thrive or survive.

Just use a high quality pellet and youll be fine.
 
If you choose to do so, you can use frozen peas with the outer shell removed, slices of zucchini cut up or even spinach leaves...but they dont "need" vegetables in their tank to thrive or survive.

Just use a high quality pellet and youll be fine.

Oh, Okay sounds good. And Sorry if it sounds stupid but I would have to defrost the pea's first right i mean its only common sense? And I thought that the greenish blue hues where enhanced threw vegetables I forgot the what the pigment is call, kind of like caretanoids sp found in shrimp enhances the red coloring. Also is it safe to feed like live earth worms daily along with pellets that is.
 
Yes, defrost them first. The colors are enhanced by certain vitamins & caretanoids but a good pellet should (and usually does) have everything needed for great color & growth.

Id give the peas or worms once a week or so as a treat if it were me. I do so now with earthworms for my managuenese...and always have given insects/fresh shrimp/frozen krill as treats, but not as the staple diet. Actually, I did use fresh caught shrimp as the staple diet for a dovii pair because I was spending a lot of time at the marina by my house. They grew super fast but it fouled the water faster than a pellet and lacked all the nutrition/vitamins of a good pellet.
 
i have a moss ball my green sev goes crazy for and his green and blues pop out.
 
Yes, defrost them first. The colors are enhanced by certain vitamins & caretanoids but a good pellet should (and usually does) have everything needed for great color & growth.

Id give the peas or worms once a week or so as a treat if it were me. I do so now with earthworms for my managuenese...and always have given insects/fresh shrimp/frozen krill as treats, but not as the staple diet. Actually, I did use fresh caught shrimp as the staple diet for a dovii pair because I was spending a lot of time at the marina by my house. They grew super fast but it fouled the water faster than a pellet and lacked all the nutrition/vitamins of a good pellet.

Cool, I was thinking of conditioning them with Live foods for breeding but I don't want them to grow too fast. But if I hopefully breed them I would like their fry to grow fast so i guess i might invest in more live food for the fries. Haha your fish having a staple diet on shrimp sometimes we give our fishes better diets than we give ourselves

i have a moss ball my green sev goes crazy for and his green and blues pop out.

Cool Hopefully this works on Vieja's also by any chance anyone know if Pothos is safe for aquariums i mean like if a fish ingests it.

Thanks
 
i've kept several different viejas/paratheraps and i've always fed them the same as all my other ca's...just a quality pellet diet. :)
 
yeah you can do thawed frozen peas if you want, just thaw and then squeeze a little bit to pop the insides out and then plop them in, i do this every once in awhile for my arg but truthfully he much prefers the algae wafers, i feed all my fish mainly good pellet and then i throw in a couple algae wafers, a whole one for the pleco and then i break up a couple into smaller pieces for the arg, other wise he will go crazy and steal the whole piece and swim around with it knocking it against the wood until it breaks into small enough pieces for him to eat, he absolutely loves his algae wafers lol
 
I used veggie clips to feed romaine lettuce to them, like this:

Vieja_synspilum_070209_02.jpg
 
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