Improving live feeds.

[Martyn87]

Hi all, so my fish get live feed every other day be that black worms, bloodworms, daphnia, brine shrimp etc. When I buy some of these packs from my local store the food occasionally looks questionable. Is there anything I can do to improve the quality of the food before I feed my fish?

 

[Colin_T]

Smell it and look at it in the bag. If it smells bad don't use it. If it isn't moving, don't use it. If the water looks cloudy, don't use it.

You can culture live foods at home and have your own clean fresh supplies.
Daphnia, bloodworms (chironomid midge larvae) and blackworms will live on green water and or infusoria.
Brineshrimp will also live on green water but they need saltwater not freshwater.

The following link has information on culturing green water and other things for fish food.

Back to Basics when Breeding Fish

STARTING OUT Make sure you have a pair, (1 male + 1 female). There is nothing worse than spending your hard-earned dollars buying a couple of fish to try and breed and ending up with a pair of fish of the same sex. Let's face it, to reproduce fish you need a male and a female. Two males won't do...

www.fishforums.net

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You can feed the fish on raw or cooked prawn/ shrimp, fish and squid. Most pet shops sell frozen foods and marine mix is made from these 3 main ingredients and is a great food to use.

Other frozen foods include Mysis shrimp, Rotifers, Brineshrimp, Daphnia and bloodworms. You have some of these as live so that is fine.

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You can use live insects and larvae for some fish. Small moths, flies, ants & ant eggs, mozzies & mozzie larvae, and aphids can all be used. If you find lots of them, freeze them and use later.

 

[Martyn87]

Thanks Colin, sadly my other half isn’t a big fan of me keeping live foods out of the packet and if I have another tank I’ll likely end up divorced or at least sleeping in the garage with them.

I won’t buy anything that isn’t moving or has dirty water but what I was wondering is can I improve the quality of the live packaged foods before I feed them? Can I put them into clean conditioned water? Can I feed them or somehow get additional vitamins into them prior to feeding to the fish?

Thanks for the advice on the shrimp mix I was looking into this for my rainbows as I’d heard it’s good.

The nipper and I do catch insects when we can, 5e fish have a regular feed of ants that they like Andy flys when one unfortunately wonders into the house!

 

[Colin_T]

I won’t buy anything that isn’t moving or has dirty water but what I was wondering is can I improve the quality of the live packaged foods before I feed them? Can I put them into clean conditioned water? Can I feed them or somehow get additional vitamins into them prior to feeding to the fish?

You can put them into clean water for 24 hours and feed them on green water. That will mean the fish eat the organism and the algae in the live food too. But that is about all you can do. And if you're going to do that, you may as well tell the other half to leave and set up a proper fish room

You can set up green water cultures outside in the backyard somewhere and add daphnia and blackworms to the cultures. You will get mozzie larvae and bloodworms (chironomid midge larvae) in the cultures too and all these organisms can be fed to the fish. It wouldn't take up much space and you could conceal them behind some pot plants.

 

[Martyn87]

Hahaha... in for a penny in for a pound goes the saying...she has been warned, when I retire the fish room project is starting!

I like the hidden culture that may work as it’s me who does the gardening! It could be a wild aquatic pot...is there any risk of getting rogue organisms in a culture?

Cheers for the help Colin.

 

[Colin_T]

Dragonfly larvae can appear in cultures but you notice them due to their size, they are much bigger and completely different shape than the other stuff. But baby dragonfly larvae will get eaten by most fish so as long as they don't spend several months in the culture, there shouldn't be any issues.

You get mozzie larvae and bloodworms in cultures too. The bloodworms live on the bottom and feed on rotting plant matter and anything small they can catch. Mozzie larvae will eat baby daphnia, algae and infusoria. If you scoop the mozzie larvae out each day they make a great food for the fish and don't harm the cultures.

You can freeze daphnia, mozzie larvae and other things in ice cube trays and when they are frozen, put the ice blocks in a zip lock bag and leave in the freezer.

If you have an auto defrost freezer, put the ice blocks in bags and put the bags in an esky in the freezer to stop them defrosting when the freezer does its defrost cycle.

 

[AbbeysDad]

I jump in here as I currently culture micro worms, daphnia, and white worms, as well as collect mosquito larvae outdoors in season. (also early stage of redworm culture). I culture a warm weather strain of white worms in my unheated (northeastern US) basement. They are very prolific and up to 70% protein, 15% fat - a super food that fish go crazy for. I use a modified David Ramsey Method. (Now David cultures a cold weather strain in a wine cooler. The warm temperature strain I culture does not require cooling in my basement and does well from 55F to 75F and are even more prolific in warmer temps.
Food for thought if nothing else...