live food cultures

[tiga]

I live in manitoba and I am wondering what types of live food are available in canada. I have micro worms, vinegar eels, white worms and red wigglers available localy (that I know of).

[CACAdmin]

The only ones I have been feeding my fish are gammarus shrimp. (I picked up microworms and vinegar eels at the VAHC auction the other night to give them a try.)

[tiga]

I have never seen them where did you get them from and how are they to culture

[CACAdmin]

They are tiny (< 1 cm.) freshwater shrimp which breed easily. Mine breed in my HOB filter. My mollies love to chase them down. As they are freshwater, they survive in the tank and thus uneaten ones provide an additional food source if I go away.

I don't have any surplus right now but when I do, I put them up on the CAC Auction (http://www.canadianaquariumauction.com). Melody also has some but I'm not sure if she has any available. You can also get them from CanadianAquatics.com (http://www.CanadianAquatics.com).

[Melody]

There are a few places in Canada that focus on live food & you 'll find them in the Online Merchants (http://www.canadianaquariumconnection.com/forum/showthread.php?t=348) section.

I find Gammarus are very easy to keep in an estabished tank. I recently read that they eat hair algae so I dumped all of the extra ones I had into a problem tank. There's an intro to keeping food cultures here (http://www.canadianaquariumconnection.com/forum/showthread.php?t=256).

[tiga]

does anyone else have any live food cultures going?

[Laura]

I've got microworms and white worms.

[GaryofMontreal]

I culture white worms and wingless fruit flies, and hatch a lot of brine shrimp.

[tiga]

how are the fruit flies to culture

[GaryofMontreal]

Wingless fruit flies are easy, but also easy to lose. You have to make new cultures every 3-4 weeks. If you wait too long, you lose them. You have to keep winged flies out too, or you have an angry spouse.
You end up blaming the house plants...
I make a culture with dried potato flakes, mashed bananas and vinegar.
Only surface oriented fish eat them, and while they walk on the water (attracting our little predators), they escape if you have duckweed.

[tiga]

I have mollies and swordtails tha would eat them very well also some of the shellies that I have would take them

[CACAdmin]

You have to keep winged flies out too, or you have an angry spouse.
You end up blaming the house plants...
Am I correct in assuming this is based on previous personal experience? :wink:

[tiga]

I now have walter worms, banana worms and confused flour beetles coming.

[CACAdmin]

Confused flour beetles? Be sure to keep them contained. Don't let them anywhere near your bag of flour or boxes of cereal, or anywhere near the kitchen for that matter... or you'll have them in everything. :wideeyed:

[Melody]

You sparked an idea - I posted a Live Culture Swap (http://www.canadianaquariumconnection.com/forum/showthread.php?goto=newpost&t=6029) thread ::D: .

[OldMan]

Gary, your wingless fruit fly culture sounds a bit dangerous. It is similar to what I use for microworms. If I don't seal my microworm cultures fairly well, they end up full of fruit fly maggots. The ones that find my culture come seemingly from nowhere and have wings. You would not want to have any of those get into your culture. I find a sealed container with a hole cut in it for air exchange and the hole covered with a piece of cloth is good enough to keep the fruit flies away from my cultures. I don't know if that would work for yours. Of course you could always blame the house plants I guess.

[tiga]

I just punched some holes in the lid for air and I have not had any problems yet.

[OldMan]

I had tried that Tiga but come summer, I had wild fruit fly maggots in my microworm cultures. That is when I cut a small hole in the plastic lids and securely taped down a cloth cover to act as a screen.

[tiga]

Thats good to know I will have to watch for that this summer

[tiga]

does anyone else have any live foods

[tiga]

I have to add walter worms banana worms and confused flour beetles to the list. they finaly came

[Edgezilla]

Is there a substitute for bbs yet? microworms just doesn't cut it with the protein and bbs is too time consuming to hatch. I need to find something for bottom feeder.

[Laura]

I know someone who keeps paramecium cultures and suchlike - I think some are very small. He occasionally sells some, but I don't know if he ships. Let me know if you want to get put in touch to see if they would fit your needs.

[Melody]

Is there a substitute for bbs yet? microworms just doesn't cut it with the protein and bbs is too time consuming to hatch. I need to find something for bottom feeder.

You can buy BBS frozen and in a jar. There's also a manufactured replacement that comes in various sizes for feeding fry - Golden Pearls. It's supposed to flitter around like Brine Shrimp. Decapsulated Brine Shrimp Eggs are also nutritious. You just have to rehydrate them and feed directly to the tank.

Microworms aren't as nutritious and they're high in fat, but you can gutload them to improve the nutrient levels. Although Paramecium can be a lot of different things, all of them are generally accepted as a good first food for small fry and I agree that they're a good alternative.

[GaryofMontreal]

There are substitutes for bbs, but none come close to the real thing in my estimation. Artemia is a pain, but it is a great food. Microworms fall to the bottom, and golden pearls haven't impressed me. Cyclop-eeze is smelly but good, but it is pricey. I've used krill fines for surface feeders, and regularly sprinkle in decapsulated bbs.

[Melody]

Good point - freshly hatched always seems to get 'newborns' to the stage where they can enjoy a more varied diet, and that egg attached is one rich supply of growth nutrients.:yes: I like that the frozen variety is enriched, but the fish may not eat as much of it as they do the live BBS. Some fry won't eat it at all, I hear.

They really don't need to have the BBS for very long. If you can survive the pain until they reach the next growth stage, it's not so bad (says the girl who buys frozen...lol..but I haven't spawned a fish that needs BBS for quite some time).

[GaryofMontreal]

BBS is my staple food. I guess that comes from many years keeping mainly killies and dwarf cichlids. I have two inverted pop bottle hatcheries and make a teaspoon per day. I've been trying to move to live artemia every third day, and using substitutes on the others due to the high prices of brine shrimp cysts this year. I haven't used frozen in ages.
It's easy to raise a lot of bbs. I can do that since I have a fishroom. If I had a couple of tanks, it would be different.

[tiga]

I have

vinegar eels
walter worms
banana worms
micro worms
white worms
confused flour beetles

I have some new cultures on the way

daphnia
grindle worms
red wiggles