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From:
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Subject: AQUARIA FAQ: Food
Followup-To: rec.aquaria,alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria
Date: 13 Mar 1996 08:06:12 GMT
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FAQ: LIVE FOOD
contributed by Oleg Kiselev with Steve Bartling (
[email protected]) and
Don Wilson.
The advantages of live foods over frozen and prepared foods are:
1. the uneaten food will not immediately decay and load up the
filtration system,
2. foods can be raised in controlled conditions and be free of
pathogenic (disease causing) bacteria
3. most importantly, fish _love_ grabbing things that try to run away
(plus, fish owners _love_ watching their fish chase live food).
Here are some live foods the aquarist can easily culture at home, to
the extent that some people on the NET have had experience with them.
Contents:
* Baby Brine Shrimp
* Adult Brine Shrimp
* Cyclops
* Mosquito Larvae
* Blackworms
* Grindal Worms
* White Worms
* Earthworms
* Infusoria
* Microworms
* Fruit Flies
* Feeder Fish
Baby Brine Shrimp
(Artemia spp., usually A. salina)
Uses:
Baby brine shrimp are a food of choice for the newly hatched
fry of egg-layers and other small fish. They're also eaten
voraciously by some surprisingly large marine fish and make a
good substitute macro-plankton for some filter-feeding
invertebrates.
Culturing:
To hatch brine shrimp, one needs very little. A hatchery can be
built out of almost anything, such as 1 gal plastic milk jug to
12 oz soda bottles. Also, stores sell "shrimpolators" and
plastic hatching cones. Everything works, but a container with
a concave or conical bottom is the best because the water flow
has no dead spots. Add air tubing connected to a small pump,
put a light over it and keep temperature around 85 degrees if
the shrimp are to hatch faster.
Ed Warner's book suggests 3.5 table spoons of uniodized salt
per gallon of water. He suggests using the cheapest salt
available, like the water softener salt at $3 for 50 lb. SF Bay
Brand recommends hardening the water to improve hatching and
shrimp survival, so adding some Epsom salt and a tiny pinch of
baking soda may be a good idea.
In order for the shrimp to hatch and not die, the water in the
culture must be vigorously turned over to keep the shrimp in
suspension. This can be done by aerating the water just like
everyone else, using a 12 inch length of rigid air tubing
attached to a 3 inch tail of flexible tubing attached to an air
pump. The rigid section keeps the hose from slipping out of the
container. Aquarists using airstones may find that they crud up
and clog too often in this environment.
To get nauplii (hatched brine shrimp) out, turn off the air,
put a piece of rigid air (1/8") tubing with 2-3 ft of flex
tubing attached into the culture, and let the stuff settle. The
shrimp egg cases will collect on top of the water, the shrimp
ought to sink to the bottom (if the water is not too saline).
Then just siphon the wriggling shrimp off into a brine shrimp
(fine) net, dump the lot into a cup of water and use an eye
dropper to dispense to the fish.
The nauplii will live in the tank for up to 24 hours.
Sources:
Eggs can be bought in most aquarium and pet shops or by mail
order. Eggs bought in bulk (such as 1 lb cans) will be much
less expensive than the tiny ampoules sold in stores. The cans
may be held in the freezer, with 2-3 weeks worth of supply held
in a small, tight-lid jar.
Ed Warner insists that the eggs of brine shrimp need at least a
year of incubation to become ready to hatch. He goes on to say
that a low yield from a newly opened can of shrimp eggs may be
due to insufficient incubation time and that the best hatches
come from the eggs that had been kept for a few years, with the
eggs kept for 5 years in a vacuum packed airtight container
giving perfect 100% hatch rates.
Adult Brine Shrimp
Uses:
Just about all fish under 5" long will readily eat brine
shrimp.
Culturing:
Don't bother. The yields from the cultures are very low and
it's easier to culture Daphnia and buy live brine shrimp in the
pet shops.
Those who REALLY want to try to culture brine shrimp should get
a large open top container (an aquarium, a garden tub, a baby
wading pool), fill it with real or synthetic salt water and
seed it with some green water and nutrients (fertilizer tabs or
what have you) and wait for the water to turn yellow-green.
Throw in some baby brine shrimp or live adult shrimp (available
from the pet shop) and wait. Adding small amounts of brewers
yeast, APR and other micro-foods will help promote the shrimp
growth. It helps to put the culture in a brightly indirectly
lit place to promote microalgae growth.
Sources:
See above.
Daphnia
Uses:
_Daphnia_ (also known as "water fleas") are tiny crustaceans of
_Daphnia pulex_ and _D. magna spp._ They are probably the most
ideal food for the smaller fresh water -- Daphnia do not die in
the tank and will eat microscopic garbage while they live. They
come in a variety of sizes -- from hardly visible to over 1/8".
This is a typical source of food for many fish in the wild.
Culturing:
Daphnia can be cultured in everything from betta bowls to 32
gal trash cans. Indoor cultures can be fed various algae
scrapings and tank sludge, as well as deactivated brewers
yeast, powdered milk and APR (artificial plankton stuff from
OSI). The best food to use is green water, and can be used in
outdoor cultures. Green water can be grown using a weak
solution of Miracle Grow and chelated iron in dechlorinated
water, seeded with "pea soup" water. If water full of nutrients
is left out in full sun, within weeks it will turn green from
the airborne algae spores.
Blender-pulverized lettuce is rumored to work well in small
amounts.
Fry tanks and bowls can be seeded with Daphnia -- the Daphnia
eat the bacteria that may be hazardous to the fry and generally
purify water and the fry will eat them as they get larger.
Freshly hatched fry can also be added directly into Daphnia
cultures (about 2 fry/liter) and will feed at their leisure.
However, fry kept in equivalent sized tanks and fed more
intensively grow faster.
A shrimp net or a fine fish net can be used to catch Daphnia.
Sources:
A clean Daphnia culture may be obtained from a local aquarium
club or mail order.
Daphnia can also be gathered from local lakes with a plankton
net. An inexpensive net can be constructed by the
do-it-yourself aquarist. Sew a conical fine mesh net with
something like sheer curtain material, and attach it to a
circular piece of wire (such as a clothes hanger, bent into a
circle). Add some weights to one side of the wire frame and
hang it from a three string harness. The net can then be slowly
dragged behind a canoe or rowboat in a lake known to contain
Daphnia. The wire frame will keep the mouth open, and the
weights will act like the tail of a kite, to keep the net from
rotating when it is dragged. Such as setup can be remarkably
productive, but the aquarist must beware of parasites like
Hydra and various carnivorous insects, like glass worms.
Capturing glass worms are a mixed blessing, because larger fish
will happily eat them, but the glass worms will also eat fry,
if present.
Cyclops
Uses:
Same as Daphnia, but predatory. Can damage eggs and very young
egg-layer fry. Nauplii can be used like brine shrimp nauplii.
Culturing:
As Daphnia (but less numerous per the same volume).
Sources:
Often comes with the culture of worms or as contaminants in
Daphnia cultures. Very hard to eradicate once they start
breeding in the tank. Also mail order and club auctions, as
Daphnia.
Mosquito Larvae
Uses:
Most adult fish of smaller species love them. As long as fish
are bigger than the larvae, they'll eat them. Aquatic larvae of
flying insects is the main ingredient in the diet of many small
fish in the wild.
Culturing:
Very simple. Put a wide-mouth bucket or a barrel or a tub of
water outside. Throw in small amounts of evaporated milk or
grass clippings in a nylon bag to seed the water with bacteria
and promote the growth of infusoria, mosquito larvae's food
sources; green water works well, too. Some people even use
manure! If there are mosquitoes in the area, 2-3 weeks later
there will be larva in the water.
Another means of culturing is to use a child's wading pool with
a small amount of grass clippings (no herbicides, please) added
to encourage the water to stagnate, then wait for the
mosquitoes to breed in it. After a couple of weeks, large
numbers of larva can scooped up with a coarse fish net. In this
sort of "wild culture", one must sneak up on the pool to net
them, so that the larvae don't dive to the bottom when they
detect movement.
Other methods include filling a one gallon bucket with garden
pond water (tap water takes too long to age!), then adding a
cup or two of fine soil and allow it to sit for a few days.
After the larvae begin to appear, one may use a large aquarium
net to strain the water into another bucket, thus capturing the
mosquito larvae that are now present.
The major problem with these techniques is that the neighbours
make take exception to mosquitos being cultured. However,
provided all the larvae can be captured and used, an optimist
might see it as a means of population control since the
mosquitoes are no longer breeding in a pond somewhere where all
control is lost.
Sources:
Wait for the little bloodsuckers to discover the container of
evil-smelling bacterial soup (=culture), or go find "floats" of
mosquito eggs in a nearby lake or puddle. They look like rafts
of eggs, all glued together.
Black Worms
Uses:
These disgusting, bacteria-infested stinkers are among the best
sources of protein for the fish and are an excellent
conditioning food for breeding preparation.
WARNING: frequent feedings will cause the fish to become fat
and impair breeding. Also, diseases are far more likely on a
steady diet of worms.
ANOTHER WARNING: if too many worms are fed to the fish at one
time, the worms will burrow into the gravel and hide, risking
fouling the tank.
Culturing:
May not be worth it. Worms will live on the bottom of a tank,
eating scum and breeding. They can be fed banana peels. Filter
water intensively. Collect them by sieving gravel with worms
through a net. Messy, laborious and there are easier sources of
protein.
Sources:
Most aquarium shops have these uglies.
(Tubifex are even uglier and stinkier and the aquarist should
not attempt to raise them. It _is_ possible, but consider --
they live and feed in sewage and may carry hepatitis or other
potential pathogens)
Grindal Worms (very small worms)
Uses:
These worms are small (up to 1/2") and can be fed to a variety
of small fishes. Because of the way they are raised, they are
totally disease free. They do not burrow as readily as other
worms and live in the water for a few days. Great for bottom
feeders and any fish fast enough to grab food sinking to the
bottom or smart enough to look for it (i.e. just about all
fish).
Culturing:
Get a plastic shoe box (available at Target on sale for $1),
fill it with sterile potting soil and peat moss mix (50-50), or
just potting soil, get it moist, perhaps nuke it in the
microwave oven for 5 minutes to thoroughly sterilize it, let it
cool, inoculate with a small starter culture of worms and add
some high protein cereal powder (Gerber, for instance) every
time the previous feed disappears -- and watch them breed!
Cultures should be kept at 70 F or warmer. Put a piece of glass
on the soil and the worms will crawl on it. The worms can be
washed off the glass into a cup with clean water and dispensed
into the tank with a large medicine dropper (1 tsp). If food is
placed in troughs in the soil, the glass will be free of
potentially water-clouding soil. One healthy culture produces
enough to feed about 100 small fish.
Remember to keep the culture moist but not soaked and soupy.
Spray it with dechlorinated water now and then.
Cultures like this often get over-run with mites and/or gnats.
Both pests can be fed to the fish and are readily eaten, but
soon become a nuisance. Should this happen, take some worms and
keep them in a cup of water for 3-4 hours. This will drown the
infestation and the worms can be used as a new starter culture.
Old infested cultures can be salvaged, but it may not be worth
the effort.
If the worms are not growing well, try adjusting the soil's pH
by mixing a bit of baking soda into it to neutralize the peat's
acidity.
An interesting technique of culturing worms is used by some
German killi breeders. They use open-celled foam that sits in a
tray filled with water and is covered by a piece of glass. This
method is cleaner than the soil/peat one.
Sources:
Friends, local aquarium clubs and mail order.
White Worms (small worms)
Uses:
These worms are up to 1" long and are good for feeding fish
3"-6" long.
Culturing:
Similar to Grindal worms, but these worms do not do well at
high temperatures. Keep them under 70F; during the summer, they
will survive if kept moist, and in a cool place, i.e. a north
facing carport. White worms can be grown in potting soil in
plywood boxes, about 16" x 12" x 6" deep. They will eat the
same foods as Grindals, but a number of sources suggest that
white bread soaked in milk is a very good food for these worms.
Another option found to work extremely well is to raid the
materials heading for the compost, and prepare a mixture of old
lettuce, fruit, and bread crumbs or oatmeal. Add water and
blend it, as thick as the blender can handle, and still be able
to turn over this soup. Add maybe a cup each week (it's mostly
water anyway, which the worms need to keep the cultures moist),
in a small trench dug down the center of the dirt.
Keep these worms in complete darkness. They will come out of
the soil and coat the food, devouring it shortly and clustering
in a writhing mass. Pluck this mass of worms from the soil and
use it to feed the fish. The worms will hide in the soil as
soon as the light strikes them, so be swift about grabbing
them! Another means of separating worms from the dirt is to get
a tin can with both ends removed and fasten a piece of plastic
window screening over one end (with string, an elastic band, or
whatever works). Sit it in some type of tapered glass container
(such as a measuring cup) with water in the container, so the
can sits above the water (1/2" between the top of the water and
bottom of the mesh). Place some of the soil and worm mixture in
the can and place a light over top (i.e. a gooseneck lamp, with
one of those mini-spot lamps). The heat will drive the worms
out, through the mesh, and into the water. This takes a couple
of hours or more. The worms come out clean, and can be fed to
the fish directly, placed in a worm feeder, or frozen for
future use. This works well for white worms, large and small,
so assuming Grindal worms can be grown in soil, it should work
for them, too.
Whiteworms should be fed with a worm feeder, so that the fish
can eat them over time. Be careful not to overfeed with
whiteworms by adding them directly to the tank; the excess will
burrow into the sand, where they will be inaccessible to all
but the most eager diggers, such as _Hoplosternum_. Where the
aquarist has separated too many worms for one day's feeding,
the remainder can be frozen and used the following day.
Sources:
same as Grindals.
Earthworms
Uses:
Feeding of medium and large fish (over 4" long).
Culturing:
To raise earthworms cheaply and easily:
1. Build a box out of wood (any size is fine, a bigger box =
more worms) (apartment dwellers can make do with a 1' x 1' x
8" box)
1. Attach the top with two cheap hinges.
2. Drill/cut two 2-inch holes in the front of the box in
such a way as to line up the bottom of the hole with the
bottom of the inside of the box
3. Paint the box with any outdoor rated, oil based paint.
4. Place a small piece of fine plastic screen against holes
that were drilled/cut. Make sure the screen is placed on
the inside of the box. Firmly nail the screen into
place. The screen will allow the box to drain, but will
not allow the worms to escape.
The box is now complete.
2. prepare the box for worms
1. Buy enough peat moss from a garden supply store or
nursery to fill up the box (remember the peat moss will
compact after it gets soaking wet).
2. Place the peat moss in the box and completely soak the
peat moss (stir it up until it is uniformly wet).
3. Get 6 bricks.
4. Place one brick at each front corner and two bricks at
each rear corner so that the box slopes forward and can
drain from the holes.
5. Place a pan under the holes to catch the future runoff
(unless the box is placed outside). Note, after worms
are growing, the runoff is great for plants.
3. Now, for the worms
1. Go buy three or four boxes of the smallest worms that
can be found at a fish and tackle shop.
2. Put the worms in the box
3. Buy some corn meal (a small bag will last forever). This
is all the worms need for adequate nutrition.
4. Every three or four days, sprinkle a _light_ layer of
corn meal on top of the peat moss. Note: before each new
layer is applied, use a small, tined garden hand tool to
stir up the peat moss and to mix the corn meal left over
from the previous feeding into the peat moss.
5. After about a month, there will be literally millions of
worms ranging in size from tiny little young worms to
fully adult worms. The baby worms can be used for small
fish and very young fish, while the larger worms will
easily satisfy the live food requirements of even the
most ravenous large fish.
6. This is an infinitely renewable resource, which is
difficult to overharvest!
7. The peat moss must be kept damp by periodic watering.
Don't over water! Do not allow it to dry out! The worms
will die QUICKLY if the peat moss dries out.
Fortunately, peat moss retains water very well, and
watering is rarely needed.
8. The worms must not be allowed to freeze. The worms and
the worm box will not smell and can be kept in garages
or closets during the winter. The worms do not like
being baked in the full evening sun in the summer (they
will be killed). Place them in a shady location if they
are left outside.
9. keep the lid closed, worms like it dark.
4. Other uses for Earthworms--
1. Potted plants love earthworms!!
2. Gardens love earthworms!!
3. Lawns love earthworms!!
Sources:
the backyard, bait shops, gardening shops, gardens, aquarium
clubs.
Infusoria (microscopic aquatic protozoans)
Uses:
Feeding of newly hatched fry.
Culturing:
One option is green water (i.e. natural algae growth) and
banana peal. Another is yeast, drops of milk, boiled lettuce,
other plant material, alfalfa pellets, etc. If the culture is
aerated, the odour will be kept down. One means of
concentrating the culture before use is to turn off the
aerator, then place a small spot lamp beside the culture
container; the infusoria will tend to be attracted to the
light, and can be selectively siphoned out. The infusoria can
be added to the fry jars using an eye dropper.
Sources:
Old tank water, friends, mail order.
Microworms (Nematodes)
Uses:
These microscopic worms are good for feeding newly hatched fry
and the smallest fish.
Culturing:
Get some Oatmeal pablum or Gerber high-protein cereal mixed
with enough water to form a paste, put it in a dish. Add some
live yeast (Fleishman's) or a generous portion of deactivated
brewers yeast (the latter method does not create nearly as
smelly a culture as the active yeast!). Seed with a small
quantity of Nematodes. In about a week, start "harvesting" the
Nematodes off the sides of the dish with a Q-tip or a brush or
place a flat piece of plastic or wood onto the culture and
scrape the worms off with a razor when they become numerous (a
popsicle can be used stick as this "collection platform"). Wash
them out in a glass of clean water, dump them into the tank.
Remember to keep the culture wet and when it starts turning
dark and intolerably stinky, clone it to a clean container
being careful not to transfer any of the fouled substrate --
just the Nematodes that had climbed up the walls of the
container.
Another culture media which works well and is cheap is cooked
oatmeal, (cooked so it is thick) with about a teaspoon of
brewers yeast added. They can be cultured in 500 ml. yogurt
containers, made out of type "5" plastic (the type of plastic
will be marked in the recycling information on the bottom).
This material is fairly thick, flexible, and cheap, and the
worms will crawl up the sides in thick enough concentrations
that they can be wiped off with a q-tip or a finger. The
thinner, more brittle plastic containers just don't work worth
a darn, for some reason - the worms do not grow well in these,
and they can't seem to climb up the sides. Cultures can be
grown in the house, and as many as 24 containers still make up
a compact, but very productive source of live food. As long as
the culture media is fairly fresh, there will not be any
significant odour.
Microworms can be fed to fish over time, by placing them in a
worm feeder stuffed with filter floss; the worms will find
their way out of this fairly slowly.
Sources:
friends, clubs, mail order.
Wingless Fruit flies (Drosophila species)
Uses:
The fruit flies are the closest analog to the natural diet for
most killifish and many other small fish.
Culturing:
1/2 gal fruit juice bottles can be used as culture containers.
The media is a mail order instant mush that seems to be some
sort of instant mashed potatoes substance that smells like pure
starch mixed with fungicides. Use enough to get a 1/4-1/2"
layer of media at the bottom of the bottle and add enough water
to get it to a sour cream-like consistency. It should be dense
enough to not run when the bottle is tilted. Next, place a 2
layer roll of plastic "bug screen" mesh into the bottle, so the
flies and maggots have somewhere to climb out of the wet goo --
it seems to help their survival. Dump in a few fruit flies,
perhaps a dozen. Finally, stopper the bottle with a wad of
filter floss, so the flies can't get out and wild fruit flies
and other critters can't get in.
Two weeks later there will be newly hatched fruit flies ready
to be fed to the fish. The culture keeps producing for 2 months
or so and should be "cloned" after some 6 weeks of operation.
When the previously cream-colored media become dark and "used
up" looking, it's time for the new culture. It's probably
easier and safer to clone the culture every 4-6 weeks and be
ready for the eventual crash of the old culture.
To feed the fish, sharply shake the bottle to knock the flies
away from the stopper, open a fish tank cover, open the bottle,
turn it up side down and give it a few taps, shaking out a
dozen or more flies every shake. The media gets thick enough by
then to not drip out.
CAUTION! These flies are wingless and flightless, but not
legless. They will walk up the sides of the tank, crawl out
through the cracks and head straight for the fruit which has
been left out in the kitchen. They may be fish food, but they
are still fruit flies. Feed them to fish in small doses.
There are several different strains of usable fruit flies. Some
are smaller than 1/8", others are over 3/16". Some are
completely wingless or have vestigial stubby wings (wingless),
others have the wings that are so large that they are useless
(flightless).
CAUTION! The "wingless" fruit flies will sprout functional
wings if they are kept at high temperatures, so keep the
culture cool. If this becomes a problem, open the jar outdoors,
let the winged flies fly away, then make sure the rest pupate
at a cooler temperature.
HINT: a jar of _Drosophila_ can be chilled in a refrigerator
for a few minutes to make them sluggish and/or immobile. This
makes them lots easier to handle when a new batch is being
bred, and also makes them less likely to wander off. The fish
might prefer them to be more active, though.
Feeder Fish
Uses:
Several large fish, including cichlids and piranhas will eat
live fish as part of their diet.
Culturing:
Generally not necessary. Many fish stores stock offer
inexpensive "feeder guppies" or "feeder goldfish" as part of
their ordinary stock. However, a colony of prolific cichlids,
such as convicts, can practically be used as a source of feeder
fry. For fish like piranhas, a small piece of raw chicken or a
strip of fish fillet will work just as well as a live fish.
Sources:
Pet stores; excess brood stock; deformed "culls".
