live foods for livebearers

[MuddyWaters]

I feed my hatchets flightless fruit flies. The angels end up getting them too. The only other live food I've been using is brine shrimp and then just occasionally. I feed them frozen blood worms, tetra flakes (just finishing off what I have), tubifex (freeze dried), a couple of kinds of pellets, and algae wafers.

Someone at my club is always auctioning off white worm cultures, but I have yet to take the plunge. Maybe I'll get some next time.

I will not be party to bringing one more mosquito into this world, regardless of the purpose, although it would be satisfying to see them get eaten.

 

[fish48]

I also breed flightless fruit flies When I get a large populations i freeze some. well mosquito larvae will soon be available my water butts get full of them Throughout the summer months.

 

[sharkweek178]

I feed my hatchets flightless fruit flies. The angels end up getting them too. The only other live food I've been using is brine shrimp and then just occasionally. I feed them frozen blood worms, tetra flakes (just finishing off what I have), tubifex (freeze dried), a couple of kinds of pellets, and algae wafers.

Someone at my club is always auctioning off white worm cultures, but I have yet to take the plunge. Maybe I'll get some next time.

I will not be party to bringing one more mosquito into this world, regardless of the purpose, although it would be satisfying to see them get eaten.

To my thinking, what we do actually helps control the mosquito population. If we didn't have our mosquito bins out there then the mosquitos would just lay their eggs somewhere where the larvae grow up to be mosquitos instead of getting eaten by our fish. Now of course we have to be responsible about it and make sure none of them make it out of our bins alive. Check them every day or two and when disposing of the water, dump it on cement instead of dirt where the larvae can possibly survive.

 

[sharkweek178]

One of the coolest things I saw in my aquarium. I was feeding mosquito larvae one day. One of them had made it to the pupae stage. When they get there, they look rounder than larvae. They're also a little faster and tougher. One of my neon tetras saw the pupae, swam up to it and took a bite out of it. Now neon tetras are related to pirahnas and mine reminded me. Because the next thing I knew, the rest of my neons were swarming this pupae and taking bites out of it until they destroyed it. It was awesome.

 

[fish48]

A guppy enjoying a mosquito larvae

 

[fish48]

first time this year collecting Daphnia

 

[fish48]

daphnia moina easy to keep and culture I keep mine in a 10- 20 gallon tank and feed it on bakers yeast,
This tiny daphnia will grow and multiply very fast

 

[fish48]

My fruit flie culture set up for the next two weeks I feed them on ready breck and banana, fruit flies can be cultured without fruit. Instant mash works well it's quick and easy to mix. I put a piece of cardboard in jar for them to climb up and add between 20 to 30 flies to each jar enough to get a good culture started, The fruit flies that I use are flightless so can't fly, they move very fast many of them escaping before fish can eat them, To solve this problem, i sometimes put the flies into a small plastic container with very little water put lid on and shake for about half a minute which will then knock flies out or put them into the freezer and then can be fed to fish at a later date.