What vegetables are not suitable for a pleco???

[DLV082]

After recently reading the excellent sticky above about feeding fruit and veg to plecostomus's I have started giving my gibbiceps plecostomus veges and he loves them. I was wondering if there are any vegetable that should not be fed to plecos. So far he has been given cucumber, zucchini and spinach I was going to try apple but thought I should check first.

Thanks
Debbie

 

[shaggbark]

I'm not sure about the apple. I came to post here to mention that mango really messed my water up BAD! He loved it though 8(

He also loves any type of melon 8)

HTH, Michelle

 

[wataugachicken]

fruits like apples and oranges are not dangerous (except for the crazy mangos, stay away from them), but the sugars in fruits are very accessible to bacteria, so if you leave them in the tank for too long you'll get cloudy water from bacteria feeding off of all the free-floating sugars. it's not a problem if you minimize the time that the fruit is in the water, and the bloom should clear up on its own once the food source is removed. it just looks bad. i stay away from corn for the same reason - plecos love it, but it makes the water very cloudy.

 

[Malefic23]

Large amounts of high acidity fruit can cause changes in your water chemistry too. You would'nt want to put ten ounces of pineapple into a 30 gallon tank for example.

Also you need to be aware than some fruits and veggies are waxed, and this wax should not be fed to your plecos. It's not directly harmfull, but it's inert material they will ingest, and can cause blockage sometimes.

Finally, some stuff has pesticide or fungus on it. Blanching the veggies or fruits for a few seconds can kill any trace of fungus, and can help a little to remove pesticides. Also helps a little with wax, but not much. Peeling works well.

 

[fishorama]

I tried apple, clown loaches liked it ok but I didn;t see either the clown or scribble plec show any interest. After the mess with banana I only left it for a couple hours right before a water change.