Cucumbers are completely safe, when prepared correctly, to feed your pet fish, shrimps and/or snails.
You can take a look at this step-by-step guide from Aquarium Blueprints to see how you can safely add this fruit to your aquarium.
What cucumbers can you use to feed fish, shrimps and snails?
The organic cucumbers you normally find in the grocery aisle from your local food market should be safe enough to give to your aquatic pets.
How much cucumbers should you feed your pet fish, shrimps and snails?
We recommend feeding a small thin slice or piece of cucumber if you are feeding it for the first time.
If your fish, shrimps and/or snails managed to consume every single bit of the cucumber in less than an hour, then you can add more the next time you decide to feed this fruit.
How often should you feed cucumbers to your aquatic pets?
We recommend using cucumbers as a snack for your fish, shrimps and snails. Therefore, you should be feeding this fruit to your pets just once a week at most.
For a healthy meal, we recommend using pellets and/or flakes that are catered to your fish, shrimps and snails.
For fish, we have great success with the TetraMin Tropical Flakes. With shrimps, you can use the Shrimp King brand. Our snails will eat both leftover fish and shrimp foods.
How to prepare cucumbers to feed your fish, shrimps and snails
In order to prepare cucumbers so that your pet fish, shrimps and/or snails can safely eat the fruit, you can take the following steps:
1. To begin, you may want to peel the outer dark green skin of the cucumber.
2. Next, you can slice off a piece of this fruit.
You may want to cut them into smaller pieces if you want make it easier for your fish to swallow.
If you are planning to cut the cucumber into smaller pieces, then we recommend removing the outer dark green skin first if you haven’t done so already.
For shrimps, snails and bottom feeding fish, you just need to a sliced off piece.
3. Next, you need to boil the cucumber to the point where it will become soft.
You can boil with plain water over a stove for at least 5 minutes.
You can also add the cucumber into a bowl with plain water, put a plastic cover on top (make sure you leave a small opening for the steam to escape) and then microwave it for at least 3 minutes.
4. After boiling the cucumber, you can use a clean toothpick or fork to poke at it to see if the fruit has soften.
If it is still tough, then we recommend boiling it a little bit more. If the cucumber remains hard, then your fish, shrimps and/or snails will have a difficult time eating it.
5. After boiling the cucumber piece, we recommend letting it cool down in the same water. Otherwise, it will be too hot for your pet fish, shrimps or snails to eat.
To speed up the cooling process, you can remove the cucumber from the boiling water and then drop it into ice cold water.
In either case, you should leave the cucumber piece in water so that it will get waterlogged enough that it will easily sink when put in your fish tank.
6. After the cucumber has cooled down, you should be able to drop it right into your aquarium to feed your fish.
If you used tap water to boil the cucumber, we recommend adding a drop of a dechlorinator, such as Seachem Prime, in order to prevent any chlorine and chloramine from getting into your tank. Otherwise, these two chemical compounds may end up harming the beneficial bacteria on your biological filtration.
7. We highly recommend that you remove any uneaten portion of the cucumber from your aquarium after around two hours.
This is because cucumbers will eventually cause water quality issues in your tank, leading to an increase of ammonia, nitrites and nitrates.
How to get your fish, shrimps and snails interested in eating cucumber
If your fish, shrimps and/or snails don’t seem too interested in eating cucumber, then we recommend fasting them the next time you try to feed them this food.
If you don’t feed any food to your aquatic pets for at least 24 hours, then they may be more willing to accept cucumber due to hunger.
Recap
Cucumbers are safe to feed as snacks the fish, shrimps and/or snails in your aquarium.
To prepare this fruit, we recommend boiling it until it gets soft. After two hours have passed since feeding cucumbers to your pets, make sure you remove any uneaten parts to prevent water quality issues.
If you pets aren’t interested in cucumber, then you can try fasting them at least 24 hours beforehand to see if they are more willing to eat it.