Best Vegetarian Fish Food For Herbivorous Fish

Some fish are completely vegetarians, and feeding herbivorous fish is as easy as eating and sticking to your vegetarian diet. If your fish is Pacus, Molly, Farrowella, or Silver Dollar, you have a completely vegetarian fish.

However, a few fishes can do well with vegetarian fish feed as part of their diet, like catfish, goldfish, and guppy. Having herbivorous fish and finding the best diet for them isn’t a difficult feat. 

Whether you are a vegetarian or not, your fish shouldn’t skip some veggies in its diet. What is the best vegetarian fish food for your herbivore or omnivore fish?

You’ll find some suggestions in this article. Why don’t you find out?

Different Vegetarian Fish Food

The best vegetarian fish food ranges from fresh vegetables and fruits to other food forms. What matters most is that your fish gets all the nutrients they need in their diet.

The good thing is that vegetarian fish food is a healthy diet that’ll help improve your fish’s heart health and provide them with many nutrients.

Moreover, some of the best vegetarian fish food you can add to your fish diet include:

1. Fresh vegetables

Vegetarians love fresh vegetables, so you can never go wrong with including that in your fish diet. Fresh vegetables are rich in vitamins, folate, minerals, and other essential nutrients beneficial to your fish.

Some fresh vegetable options for your fish include:

• Raw zucchini
• Peeled fresh peas
• Raw cucumber
• Blanched lettuce
• Detached fresh spinach

Ensure the vegetables are clean before feeding them to your fish. Also, you should ensure that you cut them into the smallest size such that they can fit in your fish’s mouth easily. 

Lastly, for leafy fresh vegetables, you can attach them to the side of the tank using a vegetable clip, so they don’t just float in the aquarium.

2. Frozen vegetables

Another vegetarian diet for your herbivorous fish is frozen vegetables. You can keep leftover vegetables frozen for your fish, so they don’t waste away.

3. Vegetable pellets

You don’t have to feed your fish frozen or fresh vegetables daily. You could try other vegetable products that they will enjoy. Vegetable pellets are a good addition to your fish’s healthy diet.

Algae wafers are an excellent choice to add to balance up your fish diet. You can try the following vegetable pellets for your fish.

3.Vegetable flakes

You can also add vegetable flakes as part of your vegetarian fish diet. Flakes, especially dry ones, contain many nutrients that’ll do your fish a lot of good. Moreover, vegetable flakes contain protein and other nutrients.

When getting flake foods for your fish, ensure it is one your fish can finish within a month or less.

This is because flake nutrients deteriorate over time, and you don’t want to feed your fish dry flakes lacking essential health nutrients.

Vegetable flakes include:

5. Fresh fruit

Fresh fruits are some of the best vegetarian fish food, and often, herbivorous fish enjoy them. Therefore, when your fish isn’t eating frozen or fresh vegetables, vegetable flakes, or pellets, they can eat fresh fruits and stay healthy.

But of course, not in the same size and quantity, you would. Cut fresh fruits into very small chunks for your fish and watch it eat them. After, you should remove uneaten fruit after an hour, so they don’t mess up the aquarium or ooze a foul smell.

Feed your fish with fresh fruits like

• Banana
• Peeled grapes
• Melon chunks
• Apples
• Grapes
• Mango
• Plantain
• Pear, etc.

How To Feed Vegetarian Fish

You can include a few of the vegetarian fish food or all in your herbivorous fish diet, as long as you are sure they are getting the nutrition they need from the meal. You should also watch your fish as you feed them the diet.

When feeding your vegetarian fish, you should consider the size of the fish and food and how easy chewing the food will be for them. Finally, if you are feeding your fish food with seeds in them, do not forget to remove them.

With that said, you can feed your vegetarian fish following these steps:

Choose the vegetarian food

What you should do first is pick the vegetarian food you intend to feed your fish. Determine whether you want to feed your fish with pellets, flakes, vegetables, or fruit.

You may also want to consider what your fish needs at that point. Do they need more protein? Do you want them to grow fatter? Is the fish constipated and other needs? Of course, you would need to study your fish to know its needs; then, you pick the food based on their needs.

After deciding, you can then move on to the next step.

Cleaning the vegetable

This step is very important, especially if you’re feeding your fish fresh fruits and vegetables. Some vegetables and fruits can be covered in dirt, bacteria, or nasty pesticides, and you don’t want that anywhere near your fish.

You can clean them under clean running water or brush them slightly, and they’ll be safe for your fish’s consumption.

Preparing the vegetable

Here, you decide whether you want to feed them fresh vegetables or boiled ones. Therefore, you cut the fruit or vegetable into a size that your fish can chew.

Then, you can steam them slightly, especially for hard vegetables. Otherwise, you can feed your fish without cooking.

Feed your fish

After preparing, the next thing to do is to feed your fish with the vegetarian food you have prepared.

If the food isn’t vegetables or fruits, you can skip the cleaning and preparing steps and feed your fish right away.

Keep the aquarium clean

Finally, you have to ensure that the aquarium is clean for your fish. You have to remove the uneaten portion from the tank after 24 hours so they don’t mess up the tank. 

How To Make Homemade Vegetarian Fish Food

You can also make homemade vegetarian fish food for your herbivorous fish with easy to get ingredients and recipes. And sure thing, your fish are going to love it. You only need to get some greens and get to work.

Ingredients you need

• Spinach
• Oats
• Frozen peas
• Cucumber
• Unflavored gelatine

Steps to make

• Wash out the vegetables and leave them to cool down.
• Blend them in a blender to form a paste.
• Add the oat to the mix and blend again.
• Add the unflavored gelatine and hot water to a separate bowl and mix thoroughly.
• Put the gelatine in the vegetable paste.
• Then store in ice cube trays.

You can feed your fish the homemade vegetarian fish food when you are ready. Spice up their diet and not just with an already-made vegetarian food.

Finally, you need to store your homemade vegetarian diet properly, so they can last for as long as you need them to. The ideal place to store the food is in ice cube trays.

Then, you can transfer them into an airtight container where they remain frozen. If you store them properly enough, they can last up to a year. 

Final thoughts

The best vegetarian food for your fish is the one that is beneficial, highly nutritious, and healthy for your fish.

You should also ensure that your fish enjoys the food you feed them.

Lastly, you should always clean up the aquarium after feeding your fish, so the tank remains clean afterward.