Phytophagous fish are fish that feed on plant foods, i.e. herbivorous. The most famous among river phytophages are grass carp and silver carp. They are grown for culinary purposes. There are also special recipes for their preparation.
Both grass carp and silver carp feed on algae and plankton. Their intestines are considerably longer than their bodies. In addition, they eat as much plant food per day as they weigh, so mature individuals have a significant weight, which attracts fish farmers. In addition, grass carp is specially bred in ponds and cooling ponds of power plants, since it cleans them of unnecessary vegetation. This fish eats not only aquatic vegetation, but also vegetation on the banks of rivers, and does not hesitate to peel vegetables, cabbage leaves, potato skins. Cupid can even jump out of the water in order to grab a branch of a plant he likes with his teeth. Together with an increase in their own weight, carp and silver carp improve the hydrological regime of rivers and lakes. In addition, these fish are resistant to infectious diseases, undemanding to the conditions of keeping. Herbivorous fish winters at the bottom of the pits. At a water temperature of +10 degrees C, phytophages stop feeding, and at a temperature of +5 degrees C, they turn off altogether, stop responding even to external stimuli. The only danger of breeding phytophages in reservoirs is that they are able to destroy all vegetation in a pond or lake and disrupt thus ecological balance. Artificial breeding of phytophagous fish has become popular and profitable for some time now. They are bred in ponds along with carp, where juveniles of grass carp and silver carp are planted. There are also aquarium phytophagous fish. These are everyone's favorite goldfish, large cichl fish. They also feed on plants, so be careful when populating them. In addition, some species of cichlid fish feed on fouling from stones and require special alkalized water, which is unacceptable for other fish. Some fish, catfish, are specially planted in the aquarium to clean it. But other types of phytophages, beautiful abramites, for example, are capable of destroying the entire flora of an aquarium in a few minutes.
