# guppies eating plants?



## Annie2

Hi everyone!
Not sure if this's been asked already - my guppies are nibbling on my plants and are slowly mowing it down. They are regularly fed so I'm not sure why they would go for the plants. 
Has anyone ideas how to dissuade them from doing this?


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## coldmantis

Fish only eat plants when the plants are dying. Does it have holes, curled leaves, yellow tone, Turning brown/black if so its dying and your guppies are just helping it along.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 4


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## Annie2

coldmantis said:


> Fish only eat plants when the plants are dying. Does it have holes, curled leaves, yellow tone, Turning brown/black if so its dying and your guppies are just helping it along.
> 
> Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 4


Nope. The plants are fresh green, no rot, no holes....
I am puzzled.


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## Kimchi24

are they the only fish in the tank? doesnt sound right for guppies to be eating plants


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## Annie2

Kimchi24 said:


> are they the only fish in the tank? doesnt sound right for guppies to be eating plants


there's a pleco there too. The plant leaves are narrow and tall, I don't think it would reach up that high to chew on the leaves... or would it?


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## Annie2

I'm gonna put the plant in a separate tank and see if it recovers.


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## Al.Powell

I have had this problem before, I kept guppies, platties and sword tails and one of my guppy colonies( mixed with endlers) started eating the plnts in their tank. ultimatly once they start they wont stop, your choices become limited to fast growing and durable plants, all i was able to keep in the tank with them was amazon swords and java ferns


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## BillD

coldmantis said:


> Fish only eat plants when the plants are dying.


This isn't true, by any stretch. Lots of fish eat healthy plants. Some graze the plants for the biofilm and algae that may be growing on it. Even bushy nose plecos will eat healthy plants if there is nothing else for them to eat.


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## solarz

What kind of plant is it? I've had this happen with hygro corymbosa. The guppies literally tore it to pieces. They left all the other plants untouched, however.


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## mousey

I've had hygro with livebearers and they regarded it as salad!


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## Annie2

Plant the guppies are after is vallesneria nana. The mosses in this tank are untouched (so far). I also have baby tears in the tank - now that I have placed val. nana in a different tank, I wanna see if they'll be after other plants.

experiment in progress I guess...


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## Kimchi24

solarz said:


> What kind of plant is it? I've had this happen with hygro corymbosa. The guppies literally tore it to pieces. They left all the other plants untouched, however.


That is strange. I keep endlers and mollys, they have yet to touch any of my plants! i guess i should consider myself lucky then...


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## coldmantis

That is very strange, I kept every single live bearer species before. 6-7" plecos and hundreds of babies, 7-8" upside down catfish, 5-6" pink kisser, ballon rams, puffers and I don't have any issues. Even my axolotl(salamander) don't touch my plants and I have a carpet of hc Cuba in there.

The only livestock I have kept that eat plants are. Fancy goldfish, spixi snails, cichlids(more move and break, then eat), and red ear slider turtles. 

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## mousey

http://www.wetwebmedia.com/fwsubwebindex/poeciliids.htm

Livebearers are herbivores to some degree or other.


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## Sameer

Well recently one of my plant leaves were getting ripped off. I have only one fish in my tank, an SAE. Hes been a resident for over 2 years and Ive never seen my plant getting ripped like that. turns out hes extra aggressive about the algae Ive been getting on some of the leaves. So far 2 species of plants have gone through this terror.

But guppies with their tiny mouths? I guess they are piranhas in numbers


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## Annie2

Sameer said:


> But guppies with their tiny mouths? I guess they are piranhas in numbers


lol. I don't think my guppies are aggressive - they are just excessively curious.

So, to avoid them having a salad with their meal  I've put the plants in another aquarium. So far I don't see anything happening with the plants, i.e. not dying but not growing either, just 'stagnating'. I will be increasing the light output in a few days to see (experimentally) what'll happen.

I'm glad there's few people who had the same 'salad' problem. I was starting to worry my guppies were abnormal.


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## pyrrolin

I believe that the few hundred feeder guppies I had in a 75 gallon were eating my vals but not other plants. Others plants did ok but the vals especially once I had fewer of them looked like the tops kept getting chewed off.


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## mousey

guppies have small teeth. They can be awful pests too especially if they take a notion to harass other fish. They will gang up together.
Also if one of the guppies has to be separated from the others and can then be reintroduced to the tank you will see them go up to it and kind of nuzzle the returning fish. They will then swim together for a while. You see this especially with female guppies that are siblings.


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