Live Foods

[Laura_Leigh]

do any of you feed live foods? If so where/how do you get the live foods?

I'm looking into something for my gouramis.

[DavidZ]

I am constantly hatching brine shrimp, but they are probably too small for the Gouramis.

I got a jar pf the wingless fruit flies from Petco the other day and am making some starts of those if you want some. The Angles seem to love them so the Gouramis should as well.

If you take care of them, the fruit slies should keep breeding indefinately.

I might order some vinager eels from AB but they would be too small as well.

[Laura_Leigh]

I'd definately be willing to give it a try! From what I've read, I need to feed some live foods to help bring out the colors in my gouramis as well as prime them to breed...

[DavidZ]

I'll see how these do and may have some to give at the meeting.

[Laura_Leigh]

what recipe are you using for your media?

[DavidZ]

I use a mixture of potato flakes, sugar, yeast and vinager.

[Laura_Leigh]

well, my two cultures molded out.... But I ordered a culture kit from Josh's frogs. Came with Media, containers and excelsior or whatever that straw looking stuff is. Gonna try to get a couple started on that today. Also got in a microworm start. I've got the media cooling off for that now.

[DavidZ]

The vinager in mine keeps them from molding. The flies seem to like it.

[jikin junkie]

David maybe you could do a live food culture demo for one of our monthly meetings?

[Oldman]

OK. Today we had the live foods seminar and it was well attended. I handed out starter samples of banana worms and David provided starts of vinegar eels, microworms and wingless fruit flies. If anyone was unable to attend please let any of us know and we should be able to help you get a viable starter sample of live food.

As was requested, I now post some of my microworm /banana worm/ Walter worm experiences.
I find the same culture methods work with all 3 types of worms(they are really nematodes). I use regular oatmeal, prepared as if I would eat it, to be a good basic starter culture. I parse out the batch into small containers, about 4 inches on a side, and lay it in about 1/2 inch deep. On top I add rice baby cereal, the dry stuff, to about half of the thickness of the oatmeal, and add enough moisture that when I mix it thoroughly it resembles tooth paste in consistency. Wetter will work but the culture will work faster and will require a restart sooner. After the whole thing has cooled to room temperature, I add a light sprinkling of yeast, the kind you use to make bread, and a sample of the old microworm culture to get things started. In about a week or less, you will have microworms crawling up the side and ready to be harvested. After about 2 to 3 weeks, the microworm culture will not smell as sweet but will be producing huge amounts of worms. At this point it is best to start a new culture using a spoonful of the old culture to inoculate the new one. A week or two later, the old culture will begin to smell bad and should be rinsed out and the container can be used again. Note that any microworm culture requires ventilation to remove CO2 and allow oxygen to reach the culture. I use a vent about 2 cm square cut into the cover and covered with a simple piece of cloth to provide that vent while preventing fruit flies from contaminating my culture. If you leave any opening unprotected, you will quickly find fruit fly maggots on your culture surface. Do not despair. You can feed the maggots to adult fish while you fashion a better screen to protect the microworm culture. If you do not vent the culture, you will kill your microworm culture from an excess of CO2 and a lack of oxygen. The yeast's action produces CO2.

[DavidZ]

I don't have much to add to that except I don’t bother cooking the oatmeal. I just use luke warm water and soak the oatmeal in it until it's a touch mushy. You don't want standing water on top of the oatmeal. I add a touch of sugar to the oatmeal for the yeast to eat, the 'worms' eat the yeast.

For the fruit flies I combine equal parts apple cider vinegar and water to make a paste with the pototo flakes. I again add a pinch of yeast and sugar.

As we discussed st the meeting, I find the vinegar eels to be a bit more of a hassle to harvest than the microworms, although they do live much longer in the aquarium.

[DavidZ]

I have some Albino Halfbeaks that i've found love the wingless fruit flies. Of course the Angels all love them too. Anyone know if WFF are nutritional? Not much on the WWW about them.

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