Help Anyone has easy solutions for fish that snack on plants?

[Dennis Wong]

Many of the larger Hyphessobryon species I have seem to enjoy snacking on plants. They have rotate between different species, initially snacking on Syngonathus 'lago grande' and Eriocaulon 'san benidito', then blood vomit and finally now settled on mowing down Rotala florida. Seems to be getting quite serious though I have been feeding the fish more. Maybe the more pellets I feed them the more vegetable material they need to consume for a balanced diet? its driving me nuts

I think its either one or more of the fishes below:
Lapis tetra
Hyphessobrycon peugeoti
Emperor tetra

I wonder if I can tempt them with more tasty plant species? Some folks have suggested they also snack on surface plants? Duck weed ???

 

[Pepere]

It will be interesting to see responses…

Personally I would transfer to a tank where the plants would be simpler and exist solely for fish enrichment as opposed to visual appeal to me.. If the fish was enjoying those plants then the plants would be fulfilling their purpose in that tank…

The thought of adding Duckweed to curb fish aggression toward other plants certainly hints at your frustration…

Personally I can’t fathom myself ever introducing duckweed on purpose to within the confines of my house for any reason whatsoever…. I would be much more inclined to rehome the offending species of fish…

 

[*Ci*]

Maybe set up a tank with a few of the plants that are getting munched and transfer one species of fish at a time to determine the culprit. Then use that same tank to find something they like better (or simply delete that particular fish from your program!).

 

[Koan]

I wonder if I can tempt them with more tasty plant species?

It would be interesting to see how much of this snacking is really redirected grazing behavior by omnivore fish.

That is to say, it could be secondary to frustrated hunting activity in fish that would otherwise be chasing insects and microfauna in their environment.

Essentially, fish boredom

You could try offering a live-foods hunting experience once or twice a day, something really active like BBS or daphnia, and see if it reduces the pressure to graze and resolves your issue

Breeding cherry shrimp also helps, although for schooling fish picking live foods out of the water column is likely to drain more of that hunting pressure

 

[ElleDee]

How diverse is their diet now? Just a single kind of pellet? It's easy to add something with more veggies, or do something like frozen brine shrimp that's been gut loaded with spirulina.

 

[Burr740]

My experience is if they ever start nothing will stop them. Unless the fish are starving and eating the plants as a last resort, mine never were, Dennis' clearly arent, adding another food source wont change much

One time I had about a dozen Cherry Barbs that'd been fine for almost 2 years, breeding adults and various generations. Then all of a sudden, literally overnight they wrecked a whole group of Bacopa colorata and a couple more species. Looked like a plague of locusts came through

Fish Ive had do it; Tiger barbs, Cherry Barbs, Emperor Tetras, some kind of big blue tetras, Siamese AE and Flying Fox both, every Bristle Nose I ever owned - all wound up doing it

 

[Mr.Shenanagins]

SAE for me would decimate moss, H. Trip, and the the soft new growth of microsorum. I agree once they develop the appetite for whatever they are munching it won’t just cease.

 

[snowballs99]

No solution to be found once the food source is recognized.

Had to eradicate every pest snail I had with pea puffers once they started eating my buce. The more I fed them, the bigger they became and the.more buce they ate.

 

[Dennis Wong]

How diverse is their diet now? Just a single kind of pellet? It's easy to add something with more veggies, or do something like frozen brine shrimp that's been gut loaded with spirulina.

I feed 2 different compositions of pellets for now. They also pick off the CRS shrimp that are breeding in the aquarium. I've even seen them attack an adult once lol, but only a one time thingie, they ripped it apart. The CRS seem to roam about unmolested most of the time. All my aquariums have either CRS or Neos (since i don't keep any other forms of algae eaters except maybe otos).

Hmm I will try to experiment with some of the suggestions here since the fish are already in the tank and removing them will be quite troublesome. Thanks everyone for their suggestions ! I'll continue running the tank also as an experiment also to see how the plants grow under consistent fish biting.