How 'clean' are live foods

[Wyld-Fyre]

A friend of mine has been feeding his fishes for a while on the likes of purchased live foods such as bloodworms and daphnia. Normally, there aren't any problems with this type of food, but just this morning he had noticed one of fishes had dropsy. The other fishes were healthy.

Now, this bacteria can come from any number of sources, but as he rarely interferes with his fishes or the tanks' environment, other than cleaning his external filter and water changes, where else could this disease have come from?

That got me thinking about the type of live foods he gives to his fishes. That day was daphnia.

Questions......
How secure are we in the knowledge that these food types are 'safe' to our fishes?
How are these creatures bred? (I'm thinking factory style vats pumped full of medication)
Can disease that occur in live foods also be carried to fishes?

I am very reluctant to go down that route of feeding my fishes live foods, but as a treat on the odd occassion. Am I being too paranoid?

 

[kent]

i read somewhere that the chances of introducing parasites are high when you are feeding live foods or frozen ones..I've been feeding my fishes with frozen food but i don't get any problems.

 

[FishDan]

It depends. Some factors to consider are your source, how "fresh" and the conditions they live in. There is a greater risk for disease being transmitted via live foods than there is when using frozen, freeze-dried or other. The process of freezing, etc kills off the disease.

I am still deciding whether or not I want to use live food as a treat for my fish. I know in general fish prefer live food. And it would be neat to see the fish acting more "natural". If you can gfet a culture from a fishkeeper you know/trust you are less likely to find your food source contaminated. Of course, even that is still no positive assuranace.

\Dan

 

[Wyld-Fyre]

Freezing only slows down the 'activity' in cellular organisms, As for viruses, I don't think these are even affected, as they're not classed as 'living'. I am sure someones gonna correct me on this.......

 

[Opcn]

Freezeing can also denature certain proteins which viruses have

 

[nero]

Most frozen foods are gamma irratiated, which kills everything. Thats how alot of our food/ medical supplies are sterilized. So check the pack to see if it says "bacteria free" or "irradiated."

 

[CFC]

Live foods bought from the lfs should be pathogen free and safe for use since they are farmed in water that has never contained fish, ask your lfs if the food is collected or farmed to make sure, collected foods carry a risk since they may have come into contact with disease carrying fish. Also if you collect your own live foods make sure you only collect from fish free water sources such as your own pond or container left in the garden.

 

[Stryker]

aahh CFC, container in the garden, good idea. I've got a small 20L tank with some plants in it (tropical plants getting a boost in my conservatory).

There are some wiggly little worms in the tank. They kind of hang near the surface with their tails poking upwards (for air?).

I take it these fellas have something to do with flys? can I feed them to my fish?

 

[CFC]

There are some wiggly little worms in the tank. They kind of hang near the surface with their tails poking upwards (for air?).

Those are mosquito larvae and make exellent food for small fish, particually if you are conditioning a spawning pair as the appearance of mosquito larvae often triggers spawning.

Throughout the summer i leave several buckets of water in positions under bushes around my garden and leave them there to become stagnent and full of rotting leaves and drowned bugs, after a few weeks these buckets become full of the larvae of several types of insect which i harvest as live food. The most common ones are black mosquito larvae, followed by blood worms which are the larvae of a non biting mosquito species and finally a few glass worms which are the larvae of gnats.

 

[Kitt_81]

followed by blood worms which are the larvae of a non biting mosquito species

Blood worms are basically larvae midgies and midgies do bite believe me I live in Scotland there's millions of the little critters! if any excess are not eaten they can later develop into midges and leave the tank to come after you!!!!! They're not dangerous though just annoying.

 

[Stryker]

Those little bugs went down a treat, the fish loved them.