Boston Aquarium Society Message Board

I was wondering what are people's top choice for live food, in terms of nutritive value, availability/cost, ease of culturing, ease of feeding, etc. I guess people might have different top choices for adults vs. fry.

So far I've tried blackworms, whiteworms, microworms, and brine shrimp. Although blackworms are supposedly difficult to culture, I've had the best luck with them - easy to collect, they last months in the fridge with daily rinses, only thing my dwarf puffers will eat. Of the other 3, whiteworms have been by far the easiest to culture. My microworms cultures go bad real quick, and brine shrimp are too much work. Although, I've only raised livebearer fry so far, so haven't had a real need for the small stuff.

Ryan

_________________
Ryan Keane
100g mbuna
75g SE asian community
20g nano-reef w/ ocellaris clown pair
10g mbuna fry

I've had poor luck culturing whiteworms, but I think I just need to find a spot in my basement thats the right temp (it was too hot this summer, and the refrigerator seems to be too cold).

I actually have awesome luck with microworms, using cornmeal (uncooked) mush as the medium.

my fish go nuts for the blackworms, but they tend to be an occasional treat (ie only when Alan sells them at the meetings! )

my other secret ?
mosquito larvae !
I almost always have something out in the yard collecting water (the puppy's swimming pool, or a fishing bucket, or the bowl I soak wood chunks in for my smoker, etc) - as soon as I see wigglers I pour the water thru a brine shrimp net, and invert the net into a cup of water (or a kritter keeper full of water if the net is really full).
I think my initial pearl gourami spawnings were triggered by lots of 'sketo' feedings, and my baby gudgeons love the smaller larvae.

(I usually dump the puppy pool out every few days so it isn't a breeding ground for EEE, and the other containers aren't out there all the time, they just occasionally get left out in the rain by accident - I'm not driving my neighbors nuts, I swear !)

_________________
Rich
-- ---------------------------------------
Its new, its improved (its still a work-in-progress)
its http://redpaulhus.com !

I was keeping my whiteworms in the fridge and they were doing great. Eventually, the culture went a bit off, so I restarted a new culture and tried one in the fridge, one at room temp. They're a couple weeks old and don't have much worms (room temp have very few), so I don't know if I'll be able to get them back up and running.

I was adding yeast to my microworms, which I think was making them go off too fast. Do you keep them at room temp? Dark?

I've thought about mosquito larvae. My wife doesn't care so much about neighbors - she's concerned that some I add to a tank might not get eaten and then emerge into the room - I've tried to convince her I can make sure they all get eaten, but as my puffer tank has lots of blackworms in the substrate, she doesn't believe me.

_________________
Ryan Keane
100g mbuna
75g SE asian community
20g nano-reef w/ ocellaris clown pair
10g mbuna fry

Skeeters in the house has never been a problem for me. The fish will hunt them down until they're ready to burst! If you are careful and don't drop in the ones that are ready to fly, they hang at the water's surface like big blobs of dirt, you reduce the chances even further.

I figure that every time I feed skeeter larvae I'm trimming the population of those biting fliers and reducing the chance of EEE. Best part is they are free and easily obtained.

A little bit OT, but wouldn't it seem that setting up a small "pool" with guppies or such in your yard during the summer would act as a sort of "Mosquito Magnet"?

The eggs would be laid and wigglers hatch but most would get eaten.

_________________
Alan

http://www.flickr.com/photos/alanruben/

That's half the reason I like to put a temporary pond out in the summer (plus I like how it looks, and the fish grow fast and color up really nice)

_________________
Rich
-- ---------------------------------------
Its new, its improved (its still a work-in-progress)
its http://redpaulhus.com !

I used to keep flightless drosophila (fruit fly) but became too lazy.

I've been getting mosquito larvae from a bucket on my deck pretty regularly. There are chunks of coconut husk "bark" I've been aging for my orchids I've been meaning to repot all summer, and it just attracts the 'skeeters like nobody's business! I transfer the bark over to a different bucket, fill it with dechlorinated water, and harvest everything in the "old" bucket.

Once or twice I've had a flier in the house, but those mosquito larvae put nearly ALL the fish into breeding mode! Then it became Caviar for Everyone!

The teensy tinsy ones will elude the larger and/or mid-water fish, and I love watching the sparkling gouramis hunt them down! They will meticulously examine every square millimeter of the tank. They were breeding this summer, and a few babies even survived in the community (planted) tank!

Now I'm thinking I should get and keep some sort of live culture over the winter because the difference was remarkable! But........ NOT mosquitos!

-Jane