# how do you prepare spinach and zuccini?



## snausage (Mar 8, 2010)

I just throw a piece of spinach into a mug and microwave it for 30 seconds. Then I let it cool for less than a minute and pop it in.


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## zxc (Nov 10, 2009)

spinach: boil 3 min/ chill 2 min for safe feel by yourself
i feed 5 big leaf and stay about 48h, they swamp till gone


zuccini : boil 4 min/ chill 3 min depend how thick do you slice the zuccini
i slice my 1/8" - 3/16"
i feed 1 slice approx 48h, they gone


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

I feed turnip leaves rather than spinach (cause I like turnip greens more than spinach for myself,) but it's much the same thing. Pop a piece in a cup or bowl of water, nuke it until the water boils, fish it out with a fork, spread it out so that it's not a folded over lump (this part is actually important), and throw it in.

As long as you're throwing very thin leaves into the tank, you don't have to let them cool at all IF you spread them out. They'll probably be cool as soon as you can get them out of the cooking vessel and unbunched, and certainly they will be as soon as they hit the water in the tank. If I were feeding a whole bunch of leaves at once I might take them out and wait until they had air cooled for certain, but that doesn't really take any time once they have good contact with the air. 

Never have leftovers, so I don't need to pull anything out. I feed enough so that the leaf is gone within a day, with nothing but the stringy bits left after about 12 hours.

I'm also trying to make frozen food for my shrimp by cooking a bunch of turnip leaves at once, sectioning them as I normally would, then balling them up and freezing them into pellets. I've got a little ice cube tray of sorts from frozen bloodworms that I am using. Add a piece of cooked turnip green, fill with water, freeze. If they'll take this, I'm thinking about trying it uncooked, as the freezing process should wilt the leaves fairly thoroughly. Moderate hassle all at once as opposed to a tiny hassle several times, basically.


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## msnikkistar (Mar 23, 2010)

I like that idea of the tray Jason. Please let me know if that works out for you. I'd like to do the same with the spinach cause quite simply put, I am lazy. lol


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## mordalphus (Jun 23, 2010)

Easiest method:

3 spinach leafs
Put them in a coffee mug
Fill mug halfway with tank water
Push spinach down into mug
Put mug in microwave
Microwave for 1:30
Let microwave beep at you for 3 minutes
Take mug out microwave angrily and shut microwave even more angrily
Apologize to microwave, it wasn't his fault
Don't put finger in mug, the water is likely nuclear
Dump water out of mug
Spread spinach on tank surface
Watch shrimp hang off of spinach until it falls to the bottom
Drink beer


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## SgtPeppersLHC (Dec 9, 2010)

mordalphus said:


> Easiest method:
> 
> 3 spinach leafs
> Put them in a coffee mug
> ...


Nice way to kick back after all that work.


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## mordalphus (Jun 23, 2010)

For advanced users, combine last step with all previous steps


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## shane3fan (Nov 2, 2009)

I wash and nuke a few leaves at a time then I just ball em up and put them in a ziplock bag and freeze em. Take a ball out at a time and drop it in the tank.


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## gowfan05 (Feb 16, 2010)

AWESOME!!! Thank you everyone for sharing your expertise/ experiences. Now I know how to feed them spinnach and zuiccini's.


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

msnikkistar said:


> I like that idea of the tray Jason. Please let me know if that works out for you. I'd like to do the same with the spinach cause quite simply put, I am lazy. lol


Worked quite well. The cubes thawed out in about no time and the greens were still devoured. I'm going to try it tonight with uncooked greens and see what I can see. I'll report back with my findings, dunno whether the freezing process will do enough cellular damage to turnip greens or spinach leaves to waterlog them though. Those are both hardy in cold weather, so they might not work just frozen, being all not easily damaged by freezing.

ETA: I also wonder about those blocks of frozen spinach. They cost nothing and are already frozen. Portioning would be difficult, but otherwise they're made for this sort of thing.


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## mordalphus (Jun 23, 2010)

Freezing works to "blanch" them, it causes enough cellular damage on spinach, collar greens and kale, I've done it with success. (mainly out of neccessity, I don't eat collard greens, and it takes my shrimp a year to go through a bundle of it)

But I froze mine dry in a ziploc, not in water, i think the water may cushion the freezer damage


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

Gotcha, that makes sense. I mostly wanted to freeze them into cubes so that they didn't stick together and because little shrimpy ice cubes are cute.


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## 10gallonplanted (Oct 31, 2010)

FYI, don't stick your finger in the water after the 1:30 in mordalphus' method... i jsut did that lol..


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## mordalphus (Jun 23, 2010)

Yah, i'll add that to the steps.

But if you do the last step 3 or 4 times it helps


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## 10gallonplanted (Oct 31, 2010)

I'll give it a try monday, for sure.


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

Freezing the turnip greens into ice cubes did work to sink them. The bigger shrimp immediately swam over and checked them out, then left. Juveniles are chowing down. Dunno if it was a cooked/raw difference or they were just feeling un-turnipy today. Time will tell. I fully expect the leaf to be gone in the morning either way.

Next up in the tests: Shrimp food from the back yard. Separate thread to follow.


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## [email protected] (Jul 17, 2008)

Zucchini doesn't have to be blanched. People do it so it sinks. YOu can feed them raw. Peel to remove pesticides, and quarter or halve them. Stick a fork in them so they stay on the bottom of the tank. 

Warning, plecos will grow a lot faster if they have veggies in their diet in addition to the normal sinking sticks and wafers.


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

Hrm, except for a few juveniles still nibbling on the thing, my uncooked but frozen turnip leaf hasn't been touched in 12 hours. Guess I'll stick with blanching them before freezing.


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## Betta Maniac (Dec 3, 2010)

jasonpatterson said:


> ETA: I also wonder about those blocks of frozen spinach. They cost nothing and are already frozen. Portioning would be difficult, but otherwise they're made for this sort of thing.


I pull out the block of frozen spinach, slice some off with a big knife, put in a tiny dish with water and nuke for 30 seconds. Drain and dump into the tank. Works great and they LOVE it.


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## redmary51 (Mar 17, 2011)

Are spinach leaves enough for shrimp, or do you supplement with something else?

I have just been putting in a little fish food and sometimes an algae wafer crushed up. My RCS are multiplying like crazy, so I thought maybe I needed something else.


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

They pick at bacteria and algae and whatever unmentionable stuff they find in the tank. I treat the vegetables as a treat, personally. The shrimp do perfectly well without them but they do seem to enjoy the variety.


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## redmary51 (Mar 17, 2011)

Thanks. I'm just trying to find out what I should feed to my shrimp. Since I took the fish out of their tank, they are multiplying like crazy. I'm afraid they won't be able to find enough for themselves in the tank.

I looked at PetSmart but I couldn't find anything specifically for shrimp.


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## kamikazi (Sep 3, 2010)

redmary51 said:


> Thanks. I'm just trying to find out what I should feed to my shrimp. Since I took the fish out of their tank, they are multiplying like crazy. I'm afraid they won't be able to find enough for themselves in the tank.
> 
> I looked at PetSmart but I couldn't find anything specifically for shrimp.



they eat flake fish food, wafers, pellets...pretty much anything except poop


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## [email protected] (Apr 27, 2011)

I don't blanch my veggies and have never had a problem with them not eating them. They get some once a week and flake food once a week and are doing great. The rest of the time they are constantly munching on the "cobwebs" growing from my wood.


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## SBPyro (Dec 15, 2009)

I only blanch my zucchini so the otos will start feeding on it. The shrimp go after the previously frozen zucchini with out much thought.


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## OverStocked (May 26, 2007)

I slice zucchini and lay it flat on foil and roll up and freeze. I just jab a fork through it or put it on a veggi clip and put it in the tank. Total labor involved is about 35 seconds. If it takes you any longer than that, you're doing it wrong. 

This isn't rocket science.


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## Higher Thinking (Mar 16, 2011)

mordalphus said:


> For advanced users, combine last step with all previous steps


HAHAHAHA



On a side note, cooling the vegetables isn't just to make them safer for your tank. When people blanch vegetables they are suppose to get plopped into ice water immediately after you boil them so that they stop the cooking process within the vegetable itself. This preserves the texture, flavor, color when done for cooking purposes. Don't really know if my plecos prefer a specific style or not, haha!


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## Coursair (Apr 16, 2011)

redmary51 said:


> Thanks. I'm just trying to find out what I should feed to my shrimp. Since I took the fish out of their tank, they are multiplying like crazy. I'm afraid they won't be able to find enough for themselves in the tank.
> 
> I looked at PetSmart but I couldn't find anything specifically for shrimp.


I feed my RCS/CRS 
Omega One : color fish flakes
Algae wafers 
Shrimp pellets
Shrimp Lab Shrimpball Cuisine 
Zucchini, Romaine,Spinach

I feed 1x daily. I rotate food. And I skip a day if they aren't eating that eagerly. I may skip 2 days here and there, but I love watching them eat. 

I have lots of plants, plus I have Indian Almond Leaves that they graze on. They love cleaning the Moss too. 

Mmm zucchini !


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