Gavinie

Folks,

Just to get peoples opinions... We have a balcony box herb garden and are producing more herbs than we can use. After reading some of the posts here, it occurred to me that our li'l darlins might be able to share in the bounty. Except for treating with safe soap for aphids, these herbs are entirely organic.

I've dropped in a couple of flakes of washed and dried and washed fresh curry plant and savory as a quick test. The curry plant went over great with the danios really defending what they got hold of. The tetras never got a chance to taste any of the samples.

Before going any further with chives, garlic chives, oregano, basil, rosemary, or parsley we thought we'd better do some research. How do we know some of these might not be poisonous to our slave masters? I know parsley may even be psychotropic particularly if gone to seed so I'll stay away from that. Are the little scaled ones going to get stoned on oregano?

Any comments?

COBettaCouple

i've fed ours fruits and veggies, but hadn't thought of trying herbs. i don't know what effect the herbs would have on the fish . Danios are pretty hardy and you might be in fairly uncharted waters with the herbs. fruit has been a trial & error thing for us with our bettas, so if you try other herbs, please let us know how they're received by your fish. i'd think they'd be safe, but i'm honestly just not certain.

griffin

sounds like a really interesting experiment. keep up updated!

Butterfly

Just make sure you wash them well first. Safe soap may not be safe for them
Carol

COBettaCouple

true.. a safe is made of heavy metals and you don't want that.. really, that's a good idea Carol has.

Butterfly

[quote=FLBettaCouple ]
true.. a safe is made of heavy metals and you don't want that.. really, that's a good idea Carol has.
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I'm not sure what effect herbs would have on fish. My Dog takes valerian, chamomile and vitamin C (called Ultra Calm) to keep him calm before storms. Works too. I guess saying wouldn't want to calm our fish too much.
Carol

Gavinie

Haven't taken the experiment much further as I was waiting for feedback first.

Yes, I did wash the herbs well first, and dried them well with a towel to avoid introducing chloramine. I haven't needed to treat the herbs for aphids for quite a while now as a couple of spiders set up house in the garden and are taking care of business quite nicely thank you very much.

The initial experiment was with fresh curry plant. All the lil darlins were quite interested, possibly because it is aromatic. The tetras made a valiant effort to get a share but danios are danios. Dried curry plant was turned into a game of keep-away by the danios. They were not interested in eating it, and these devils try to eat everything including me!

The dried savory was a bust as well. I was picking flakes out of the tank for several days after.

I'll try sticking only to the fresh washed stuff for now. Next will be oregano.

By the way -- anybody want some curry plant? The stuff is useless as a cooking herb and we have plenty.

Butterfly

if you have dried garlic they might like that because garlic juice is used to enhance fish food sometimes.
I love growing Herbs! I always have a big herb garden but this year we moved a good ways away and didn't get to plant any at the new place. But just wait until next spring.
Carol

COBettaCouple

they smell so good growing and using them fresh in what you're cooking.

Gavinie

Scrambled egg:
Add JUST PICKED oregano, parsley, garlic chives, sage and cheese.

Don't even bother if the herbs aren't fresh.

COBettaCouple

LOL