Guppies can certainly eat carrots. They won’t cause any harmful side effects and they’d be highly nutritious. However, carrots don’t have enough protein for the healthy growth of guppies. They can eat carrots, but should not survive exclusively on them.
Guppies love to eat vegetables. They could actually eat many of our vegetables. But what about harder ones like carrots? Can guppies eat carrots?
Carrots are slightly different from other vegetables because of their hard nature. There’s more to know and do with carrots before you feed them to your guppies. Read on for more insights.
Can Guppies Eat Carrots?
Guppies, like humans, are omnivorous. They could eat both meat-based and plant-based diets. Carrots are among many safe vegetables that you could feed to your guppies without worrying.
Carrots are highly nutritious and they are good food supplements for guppies, they contain:
- Calcium
- Vitamins B6, C, and K
- Biotin
- Iron
- Potassium
- Lutein
Now let’s get back to the fact that guppies are omnivorous. Not only can they eat meat and vegetables, they have to eat meat and vegetables in order to mature and stay healthy.
All of these carrot benefits are still not enough for guppies to grow. In fact, if guppies rely solely on carrots, their health will quickly deteriorate.
You’d start to notice that your guppies won’t have that iconic guppy bright color. This is the first sign that something is wrong with their diet.
In extreme cases, guppies may pass away when they’re deprived of protein for too long.
How to Feed Carrots to Guppies
If you decide to treat your guppies with some carrots, you need to do it the right way. Here’s how:
Provide Suitable Bites
Guppies will rush to any food you place in their tank and try to eat it even if it’s too big for their mouths; this could be dangerous.
The pieces you cut down should be smaller than the mouths of your guppies. If you’re not sure about the size of the pieces, you could always refer to the size of their favorite pellets; tropical fish flakes.
With time, you should be able to gauge how much food your guppies require. However, there’s a general way to know if you should add more food.
Add your usual amount of food in the tank, and watch as the guppies eat the carrots. If they finish all the pieces in less than two minutes, it means that the food wasn’t enough.
In that case, add a few more pieces of softened carrots for the guppies to complete their meal.
Soften the Bites
Don’t give your Guppies the carrots unless you soften them. Carrots are relatively firm and the fish will find it hard to swallow and digest them.
The carrot pieces may even lodge in their throats, which could be fatal.
After you cut down the pieces to suitable sizes. Boil them in water for around one minute, then they’d be ready to serve.
Remove the Excess
Once your guppies have finished eating, you should remove any excess you can find on the surface of the water.
You should wait for around 5 minutes for your guppies to completely finish eating before removing the excess.
The extra food should be removed to prevent bacterial reactions that might foul the smell of the water.
Healthy Guppies Diet
Guppies should be fed a mix of meat and plant-based diet to make sure their health remains good and their colors remain vibrant.
We did mention that protein is important, but just like vegetables, they won’t survive solely on protein. That’s why you have one of two choices for your guppies:
Feed Them a Variety of Home Food
Guppies can eat most of what we eat, from fruits and veggies to beef, as long as it’s cut down enough for their tiny mouths to eat.
Fruits
Guppies can eat some fruits like bananas and grapes. However, they normally don’t eat fruits in the wild.
The high sugar content in fruits isn’t healthy for the fish, which is why fruits should be restricted to small amounts.
Vegetables
Carrots aren’t the only vegetables that guppies could eat. They could also feed on zucchini, cucumber, and lettuce.
Just like carrots, any vegetable diet is not sufficient for guppies if they don’t eat meat as well.
Beef
Beef is highly nutritious and rich in protein. Make sure to cut it down to small pieces and remove any excess after they are done eating.
A mix between all of these diets will keep your fish in a good form.
Feed Them Tropical Fish Flakes
If you don’t want to bother with the sorting and cutting of food, you could always resort to the food manufacturers.
Tropical fish flakes contain the right mix of proteins and minerals that guppies need. The flakes are also easy to chew and cut into the right size for guppies to easily swallow.
Final Words
Guppies are notorious for rushing to eat just about anything you place in their tank. If it fits in their mouths, they will eat it. Don’t think that because they ate it, it’s healthy.
You should always consult a vet before you try to feed something new to your guppies. This includes carrots.
Most vegetables in general and carrots in specific are healthy “supplements” for guppies, but they’re not to be considered their main food.
Either offer your guppies a mix between proteins and minerals in the diet you prepare for them, or simply offer them fish flakes.