banana newbies

[NancyD]

My loaches tried banana for the first time just now. Each species reacted differently. The sids took a few minutes to each try a taste, not thrilled. In fact 1 tried to wipe it off his barbels by bouncing his nose in the gravel & wiggling . The striatas are new so they were willing to try anything. It was OK but not exciting, the biggest is guarding it & pecking a little still. The clowns had a novel approach after the tiger barbs made the initial contact. They put their noses very close to it but had their bodies curved so their tails were also nearly touching the banana . 3 did that until 1 was brave enough to touch it & dash away. That made the barbs braver too, they like anything that can possibly be edible . Finally the "veggie loach" gave her seal of approval & everyone is actively feeding. It's been about 40 minutes & the 1/4 inch slice is pea-sized now. I'll definately try banana again!
Nancy

[Graeme Robson]

Good to hear it was a success.

[Emma Turner]

Glad they seemed to enjoy it, Nancy! Did you find that it clouded the water at all?

Emma

[NancyD]

Emma, it did cloud the water a little bit, also tiny pieces came off that the barbs mostly ate. I did a water change right after & sucked up a few specks. I had to weight the banana so it didn't float but after 10 minutes of nibbling the weight was off & fruit didn't float. I think someone said they mush it up so it sinks but I was worried about a major mess. Have you ever noticed the curved body behavior ? Some kind of lateral line sensing or just curiosity? Weird .
Nancy

[pedzola]

when I tried banana I only had it in there for a couple minutes but the whole tank was full of little floaty banana pieces.

The yoyos gave a couple nibbles, but anything they broke off they just spit back out. A couple clowns came to check it out but went back into hiding after a quick sniff.

Nobody seemed super-interested. Since it was messing up the tank so much I took it out.

Perhaps it was messing up the tank more though because I cut a slice length-wise so the softer middle would be available to the crew.

[Emma Turner]

Thanks Nancy - I think I'll give it a go with my Clowns soon. If they break bits off, I have over 20 large and very greedy barbs who should eat it all up!
I've never noticed the weird curved body behaviour that you described. Mine usually send the small ones out first to make sure it's ok, then gradually the slightly bigger ones come out, followed by the next size up and so on. Quite often when something new is added, they will swim up quite near to it, then dash off to hide. Then they come back, get a bit nearer, and hide again, until finally someone decides to brave it and then they all tuck in!

Emma