Misc. Foods
Contents:
- (B) Basic Questions (not in FAQ)
by frazier-at-oahu.cs.ucla.edu (Greg Frazier) (Thu, 27 Feb 92)
- (B) Basic Questions (not in FAQ)
by oleg-at-Veritas.COM (Oleg Kiselev) (28 Feb 92)
- (B) Basic Questions (not in FAQ)
by frazier-at-oahu.cs.ucla.edu (Greg Frazier) (Thu, 27 Feb 92)
- Raising Daphnia/Brine shrimp question
by Howard Homler <76212.32-at-CompuServe.COM> (12 Jul 1995)
- frozen food
by "Richard J. Sexton" <richard/aquaria.net> (Tue, 5 Jan 1999)
by frazier-at-oahu.cs.ucla.edu (Greg Frazier)
Date: Thu, 27 Feb 92
Newsgroup: rec.aquaria,alt.aquaria
xku-at-vax5.cit.cornell.edu writes:
>1) What are the various pros and cons about live food? Specifically
>micro-worms, blackworms, grindle worms, daphnia, brine shrimp, white worms,
>tubiflex, or vinegar eels. Which are large enough for adult fish (tetras,
>gouramis, or mollies)? I'm thinking about ordering some, but want some info
>first.
Microworms and vinegar eels are *easy* to culture - they require
very little attention. Both are excellent for fry. Microworms
are easier to harvest.
Grindle worms and white worms are good occasional food for
juveniles and adults. Too fatty for every day feeding.
Grindle worms are supposedly easy to cultivate, but I know
lots of people (including myself) who've lost cultures.
One of those things you have to practice.
Daphnia are supposed to be the ultimate fish food. Basically,
you need a supply of green water to keep them. A friend has a
simple recipe: one tank out on the porch, another inside on a
window sill. The outside tank has a goldfish and green water.
The inside tank has daphnia and green water. When the inside
tank starts losing its green, that means a daphnia population
explosion is going on - harvest heavily and put in a pint of
green water from the outside tank. Daphnia are good for fry
(baby daphnia) and adult fish.
Black worms and tubifex worms are too much of a pain to culture,
and purchasing them is just asking for fish to die (I've had it
happen several times, as have others on the net). Nasty, dirty
creatures. Mind you, if you take care with them, they can be
a great source of protein for your fish - purging them in water,
etc. I'll not bother.
I have heard of keeping a brine shrimp culture going. Dig an
outdoor pool, fill it with brine, wait for massive algae to
grow (you promote it by dumping in some grass clippings, if
I remember correctly), then dump in the shrimp and wait. Sounded
ugly, particularly as you have to be careful to not poison
your property via the brine. Buy dollar portions from your
fish store. Newly hatched shrimp are *awesome* fry food.
Too easy to be believed, and I've always had good success.
Oleg feeds many of his adult fish on baby brine, including his
tetras, I believe.
>2) Where does one get #2 or #3 gravel? I can't find it in any pet stores around
>here and I've been looking for 1-2 years. Would sandblasting sand work (it's
>very corse)?
The best gravel I've ever had was a 100lb bag of #3 sandblasting
gravel. Smooth-edged gravel, finer than what you usually find
in fish stores but still coarse enough for a UG filter. Actually
bought it at a local fish store, but I'm sure a construction supply
place would have it. I will always try to find this stuff for
future tanks.
--
Greg Frazier frazier-at-CS.UCLA.EDU !{ucbvax,rutgers}!ucla-cs!frazier
by oleg-at-Veritas.COM (Oleg Kiselev)
Date: 28 Feb 92
Newsgroup: rec.aquaria,alt.aquaria
xku-at-vax5.cit.cornell.edu writes:
>1) What are the various pros and cons about live food?
Pro: more nutritious, fish like to eat them more, essential for conditioning
fish to spawn, some fish will eat nothing else, food will not rot in the
tank if not eaten immediately.
Con: some live foods (worms) are fattening, some life foods can harbour
infections (worms) or parasites (worms can cary hydra eggs; hydra, cyclops
and predatory relatives of the cyclops that come with daphnia collected in
the wild), live foods are often a nuisance to culture.
>Specifically
>micro-worms
Fry food. Smaller than brine shrimp nauplii and live in the water for a
while, crawling along the bottom of the tank. I culture mine on Gerber
High-Protein cerial and pasteurized powdered brewers yeast.
Clone the culture every 4-6 weeks (or more if you use more yeast and can
stand the smell). Try to trasfer only a buch of worms, not the live
yeast and bacteria paradise that starts up around them.
>, blackworms
A Tubifex (NOTE THE SPELLING!) species that is usually raised in the duck
and trout pond run-offs, i.e. on bird and fish shit. Good food to get the
egg production up in non-herbivorous egg-layers, but carries to many
diseases and is too fattening for regular use.
>, grindle worms,
Grindal worms are good food for small fish and large fry. Easy to culture,
despite the lack of success some people are having with them, clean as far
as disease carrying goes, high in proteins and fats. I culture mine
in sterilized potting soil and feed them Gerber High-Protein cerial.
Eventually the culture starts smelling REALLY bad and it's time to start
a new one from a clump of the old. Preferably, clone the culture BEFORE
it gets too smelly to open.
>daphnia,
It's a wonderful food for fresh water fish because it's full of various
vitamins and minerals that come from their food supply (yeasts, bacteria,
unicellular algae), an excellent laxative and stomach cleaner for the fish
because of the high amount of "roughage" (the chitin of their bodies). The
really great thing about daphnia is that they will live and breed in the
aquarium until eaten by the fish. Mean while they will eat the bacteria
and unicellular algae that are in the water cleaning it up for you.
Daphnia are the natural cure for "green water". I often put a bunch of
daphnia in fry cultures so they keep them clean and the fry get to eat the
baby daphnia.
I have been culturing daphnia on and off for years and have often had very
lousy luck with them. The problems, I think, are the contamination of
the culture by Cyclops (which eat daphnia nauplii) or hydra (which just
eat the daphnia), or the lack of proper food, or the culture exhaustion.
Recently I managed to find a fairly clean culture at a local auction and
been feeding them OSI brand's APR food mixed with pasteurized powdered
brewers yeast. The daphnia seem to be getting along fairly well. I
suppose "cloning" a culture every couple of months is a great idea.
>brine shrimp,
Adult brine shrimp are a good source of nutrition and a good source of
roughage to keep fish from getting too fat. In the wild brine shrimp eat
unicellular algae and that makes them a good vitamin source. To culture
them in sufficient numbers takes a lot of space and adequate filtration
(though nothing like the marine tanks need).
Newly hatched baby brine shrimp are a good alrenative to baby daphnia as
fry food. They are not as good as daphnia for fresh water fish, but they
are easy to hatch in large quantities and I feed them to any fish under 2"
long if I have nothing else live to offer.
>white worms,
Think of a tiny white earthworm and you have them. They'll eat most things
and spawn quite well, but they die if it gets warm (I always lose my
cultures in the summer) and I have not found any acceptable way to get the
bastards out of their culture and cleaned up. They dislike light, they
like moisture. I feed them the same old Gerber High-Protein cerial plus
whatever else is around. They make a great food for conditioning fish
to spawn and are incomparably safer than Tubifex or black worms.
>tubiflex,
Note the spelling: Tubifex. Filthy, evil-smelling critters that live in
waters "rich in organic material". The ones sold in very few shops in
California are brought in from Mexicio where they live in the sewers.
I.e., they are raised on human shit. Can you say "hepatitis"?
Stay away from them. Freeze dried Tubifex are a decent fish food, though,
if your fish will eat it.
>or vinegar eels.
Vinegar eels are like microworms, but instead of crawling through yeasty,
rotting, nasty-smelling pablum or whatever, they swim through a vinegar
solution which, at least for the first 12 months and if you have a large
enough jar of it will smell like a slighly "off" vinegar. They are harder
to collect than microworms, but they swim through the waterrather than
sink, which makes them a good food for the fish that are not into bottom
feeding. I keep mine in 50% apple cider vinegar solution in a couple of
1 gal jars and a few soda bottles. Clone the culture when the layer of
dead vinegar eel bodies at the bottom gets very thick and the vinegar
nolonger smells acceptably benign.
And don't forget INFUSORIA! They make an excellent newly-hatched fry food.
>Which are large enough to give to adult fish (tetras,
>gouramis, or mollies)? I'm thinking about ordering some, but want some info
>first.
Just about all foods larger than baby brine shrimp (inclusive) will feed
fish up to 2" or larger. They may not be too pleased about having to chase
50 baby brine shrimps instead of grabbing just one worm, but they will
still eat all they can catch.
>2) Where does one get #2 or #3 gravel? I can't find it in any pet stores around
>here and I've been looking for 1-2 years. Would sandblasting sand work (it's
>very corse)?
Yes, the sandblasting stuff will work, but make sure it has few or no shell
fragments in it -- calcium in those things will increase your water's
hardness. To get the #2 or #3 gravel, try your local gravel and cement
supplier.
>Are there are GOOD books on growing aquatic plants out there? I've checked the
>local libraries to no avail.
Innes Scheurmann's book on aquarium plants published in English by
Barron's is a good place to start, especiall since it's under $6.
Barry James' aquarium plants book published by Tetra/Salamander Press
is also very good, but more expensive, around $10.
--
"and a letter in your writing doesn't mean you're not dead" -- Pixies.
Oleg Kiselev oleg-at-veritas.com
VERITAS Software ...!{apple|uunet}!veritas!oleg
by frazier-at-oahu.cs.ucla.edu (Greg Frazier)
Date: Thu, 27 Feb 92
xku-at-vax5.cit.cornell.edu writes:
>1) What are the various pros and cons about live food? Specifically
>micro-worms, blackworms, grindle worms, daphnia, brine shrimp, white worms,
>tubiflex, or vinegar eels. Which are large enough for adult fish (tetras,
>gouramis, or mollies)? I'm thinking about ordering some, but want some info
>first.
Microworms and vinegar eels are *easy* to culture - they require
very little attention. Both are excellent for fry. Microworms
are easier to harvest.
Grindle worms and white worms are good occasional food for
juveniles and adults. Too fatty for every day feeding.
Grindle worms are supposedly easy to cultivate, but I know
lots of people (including myself) who've lost cultures.
One of those things you have to practice.
Daphnia are supposed to be the ultimate fish food. Basically,
you need a supply of green water to keep them. A friend has a
simple recipe: one tank out on the porch, another inside on a
window sill. The outside tank has a goldfish and green water.
The inside tank has daphnia and green water. When the inside
tank starts losing its green, that means a daphnia population
explosion is going on - harvest heavily and put in a pint of
green water from the outside tank. Daphnia are good for fry
(baby daphnia) and adult fish.
Black worms and tubifex worms are too much of a pain to culture,
and purchasing them is just asking for fish to die (I've had it
happen several times, as have others on the net). Nasty, dirty
creatures. Mind you, if you take care with them, they can be
a great source of protein for your fish - purging them in water,
etc. I'll not bother.
I have heard of keeping a brine shrimp culture going. Dig an
outdoor pool, fill it with brine, wait for massive algae to
grow (you promote it by dumping in some grass clippings, if
I remember correctly), then dump in the shrimp and wait. Sounded
ugly, particularly as you have to be careful to not poison
your property via the brine. Buy dollar portions from your
fish store. Newly hatched shrimp are *awesome* fry food.
Too easy to be believed, and I've always had good success.
Oleg feeds many of his adult fish on baby brine, including his
tetras, I believe.
>2) Where does one get #2 or #3 gravel? I can't find it in any pet stores around
>here and I've been looking for 1-2 years. Would sandblasting sand work (it's
>very corse)?
The best gravel I've ever had was a 100lb bag of #3 sandblasting
gravel. Smooth-edged gravel, finer than what you usually find
in fish stores but still coarse enough for a UG filter. Actually
bought it at a local fish store, but I'm sure a construction supply
place would have it. I will always try to find this stuff for
future tanks.
--
Greg Frazier frazier-at-CS.UCLA.EDU !{ucbvax,rutgers}!ucla-cs!frazier
by Howard Homler <76212.32-at-CompuServe.COM>
Date: 12 Jul 1995
Newsgroup: rec.aquaria
Bill, get a hold of "Plankton Culture Manual" by Florida Aqua
Farms, Inc. Phone 904-567-8540. It's more than enough info on
culturing rotifers, daphnia, brine shrimp, phytoplankton, etc. I
got a rotifer culture kit from them, but they do not stock
daphnia starters. I'm still looking for that, myself. H2
--
H2
by "Richard J. Sexton" <richard/aquaria.net>
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1999
>> I'd say optimal feeding (that is, not to much, not too little)
>> is more important than water changes; that is I can chanage water
>> religiously, but if I use frozen food, I still have a problem.
>
>What is it about frozen foods you think causes the problem, and what do you
suggest as
>an alternative? I ask because I use strictly frozen foods and, while I
have had some
>algae problems recently, I have seen nothing leading me to believe there is
a link
>between the two.
Freezing works very well for peas and broccoli, but whenyou
freeze thing slike brine shrimp and bloodworms whihc are
essentially little fleshy sace filled with water, the ice
crystalizes and ruptires cell membranes, not to mention
the obvious mechanical damage involve din making and thawing
this stuff. The end result is... juice!
Put 10 live bloodworms into a tank and they will all
be eaten. Put 10 frozen bloodworms in a tank and
maybe 8 are good and nice and fa and red and perhaps
2 will be brownish, cut in half and may not ge
eaten, plus you have some residual blodworm jiuce
that nothing is going to eat, cannot be filtered
out and immediatley enteres the ecosystem. Do this
every day and, well, that juice adds up.
I only feed live food any more. I no longer have
any algae problems.
- --
Richard J. Sexton richard@aquaria.net
Maitland House, Bannockburn, Ontario, Canada, K0K 1Y0 +1 (613) 473 1719
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