My guppy & betta fish ignore cucumber

Question

To be honest I was a bit surprised when I heard that fish can eat cucumber. I though it's a joke till I watched it with my own eyes on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pt4ZdEKniQ.

From what I saw on the video, a bunch of fish seemed to enjoy eating cucumber. 3 hours ago I went to traditional market to buy a cucumber, I cut it then I put it into my aquarium but my fish seemed to ignore it and just swam around it.

Do I need to let the fish to starve a bit to introduce this cucumber?

There are 10 total fish in my aquarium:

• 2 bettas - one is bigger male and another one is smaller, I don't know it's female or male, tough
• 8 young guppies

I usually I feed my fish with pellets but I want them to eat cucumber too.

Answer 1

From my experience raw cucumber is often too hard/unattractive for aquarium fishes and snails, especially if they're unused to it.

• Put about 2 or 3cm of water in a pan or small pot.
• Boil the water and put 0.5cm thick slices of cucumber inside it (should be mostly covered by water, so not too many). Remove any seeds before, the fishes won't be able to eat those anyway.
• Then wait and continue boiling them. Don't worry about the cucumber floating.
• Once the slices become semi transparent they're done and you can try feeding them again.
• The longer you boil the slices the easier it is fur your fishes to eat them, but it might also become harder to move the slices in one piece.

Make sure to remove any remaining cucumber parts after a few hours.

Answer 2

In the video you can see a catfish and I think the cucumber is primary for him since they are vegetarians. Bettas are predominant carnivorous (insects, larvae) so they will not eat cucumber. For Guppys having some vegetables is fine. They are in general very curious and hoggish fishes. Mine always tested if my fingers are eatable so if you offer them cucumber I would expect them to taste it some day. But be careful: if you leave the cucumber in the tank for several days it will dissolve and this is really a mess.

Answer 3

I know the question is how to get your fish to eat cucumber but have you yet tried peas? Peas when fed correctly, have pea protein (Bettas will eat), and can help prevent and cure bloat. Try taking a few frozen peas and soak them in luke warm water for 15ish minutes, use your fingers to peal off the roughage (darker green peeling), and plop them in. Most freshwater fish love them, because they're a little sweet, adds diet change and texture and has protein for carnivorous fish. Remove excess that they don't eat within 4-6 hours to keep tank healthy. Good idea to add variety in their diet... Its been proven fish with a wider variety of diet are less likely to get viral septicemia.