I need the lo-down on live food

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TheTenthDoctor

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So I've decided to try to start a live food culture. The last time I did this it was with mosquitos and the neighbors complained that I was literally breeding mosquitos. So yeah. How do you do this? What is the best live food for bettas and live bearers. Please tell me!
 
Personally I like micro worms. I think you have to order a culture first though and continue it from there. If you want to know how to keep them you should watch aquarium coop as that’s what I did and my fish have been really healthy.
 
The following link has information about culturing food for baby fish. There is a section on daphnia and cyclops and rotifers, which can be fed to various fish.

Starter cultures can be obtained from places like Florida Aqua Farms
or ask at your local pet shop of fish club.
 
I looked on ebay, and there are some cultures there. However I am unsure of how to continue a culture
What do you want to culture?

The link I provided in post #3 (Back to basics when breeding fish), tells you how to culture green water, daphnia, rotifers, cyclops and microworms.

The link to Florida Aqua Farms is where you can get dry cysts/ eggs to start cultures.
 
Cultures require a lot of space usually 3 tanks plus jars of smaller cultures if a colony collapses. You'll need a reliable algae farm for most live foods as well
 
Most everyone here is mentioning small live foods for fry. For adults try grindal worms and wingless fruit flies. Any live food culture will require you to maintain it. You will have to periodically replenish or replace culture medium and also feed the culture. This is not difficult but if you are habitually lazy ( like me) you will fail in your endeavor. All you need do is check it a few times a week and take care of it. You take care of your fish. Culturing supplies are cheap and commonly available. The fish love live food so this will make your tropical fish keeping hobby more fun. Look up a guy called fish guys place. His internet site has tutorials that show just how simple it can be.
 
Idk having a green water tank/ algae farm without collapsing for micro/regular daphnea is probably that worst part it seems. Its stable for a few months then just gets hit with a bacteria bloom. Summers the best time for that sort of stuff so it can be outside and just grow in tubs. Also if your breeding you'll need small live foods to start depending of the fry size. Raising killifish take 3 different types while growing up
 
I don’t suggest mosquito larvae. (Not that this was mentioned, I’m just warning you)

So one day I went out to my mosquito larvae bucket and scooped out about 150 larvae. I brought them up to my room to feed them to my mosquito fish. The next day, the left overs all became adults. Let’s just say I had a very itchy and day and a very mad mother. :lol:
 
Outdoors in season, I culture daphnia and harvest mosquito larvae from outdoor bins. Every larvae harvested for fish food means a hundred or more fewer mosquito's in the neighborhood!
Indoors I culture daphnia, micro worms, and a warm temperature strain of white worms. Hands down the white worms produce the most food for the fish. Check out Dave Ramsey's Youtube "The 10 year method that works". White worms are very prolific and the strain I have does well from 55F to 75F and are even more prolific in warmer temps (Unlike many strains that must be cultured in a wine cooler (at 55F). Nutritionally, white worms ar 50-70% protein and 15% fat making them a super food for fish...and the fish go nuts for them!
Edit: I would never rely solely on any live foods as it just makes good sense to also feed a high quality commercial food as a staple. I mix a blend of three high quality flake foods for this purpose.
 
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Hmmmm....lots of work, this seems like more then I am willing to get into.
You know what @TheTenthDoctor ? I think the greatest majority of aquarists get by perfectly fine with frozen brine shrimp and flakes. That's all I used for years and I was happy. Even had a lot of fish breed and I raised young. It will be worth your while to play with a live food culture just to see it work. As long as you have prepared foods that your fish like and you are not totally dependent on your live food ( an unlikely scenario ) play around and have fun. Wingless fruit flies might be a good one to get your feet wet with. Pun intended. A place called The Fruit Fly Shop in California sells a complete starter set for $20 bucks. You've probably blown twenty bucks on worse things.
 

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