2 replies to this topic

[Betta132]

My warmouth keeps picking up bits of leaf litter while he's gathering up the food that hits the substrate. That's intended for my silver dollars, but nooo, the finned black hole keeps picking it up. I wasn't too concerned about him getting bits of mulm or tiny bits of oak leaf, but now he's got a 2cm piece of dead java fern rhizome in his mouth and he isn't spitting it out. I think the roots are tangled around something he picked up, and he seems pretty determined to just swallow all of it. Not sure he even realizes the rhizome is there. Is this a concern at all? I tried to edge in his direction with the tweezers and get it out (did that when he found a piece of moss that had thread attached- had tried to tie moss down, didn't work), but he won't let me get the tweezers into his mouth. I can catch him and pull out the rhizome if I really have to, but I'd rather not. 

Do I need to be worried about Mr Greedyface eating miscellaneous bits of dead plant, or is that a fairly normal thing for warmouths to end up eating? 

[Michael Wolfe]

Sandwich gets stuff caught in his mouth from time to time, but he always manages to either spit it out or get it down.

 

I have to assume that they get plant matter in their mouths in the wild as they ram into minnows, crayfish, etc. that try to escape.

 

like the old joke... (coach had the hick a football) "Do you think you can pass this, boy?"  "If I can swallow it, I can pass it, coach."

[gzeiger]

For many predators this incidental ingestion of plant material (and also gut contents of prey) is actually an important source of nutrients. I wouldn't worry about it. It's certainly a situation that comes up in nature.