Infurosia

[pinkdolphin_113]

I am planning on starting an infurosia culture using potato peelings in a jar of 1 litre of water.
I understand sort of how it works but, as usual, have a few questions.

I kno this will smell bad, so am I gonna be able to cover the top of the jar with cling film?

Also, as it will take a week or 2 to be ready, is there anything I could do to speed up the forming of the culture? like adding sugar?

thanks,

pink.

 

[Colin_T]

Infusoria for fish culture purposes are generally single celled animals called Paramecium. Numerous recipes for their growth are available. The most common being crushed lettuce leaves in a bucket of water and then left to grow for a few weeks. Any non-toxic plant matter (lawn clipping, etc) can be used instead of lettuce leaves. Use a plastic container and add one whole lettuce for every 20litres (5 gallons) of water. Rinse the leaves well (make sure they are free of chemicals & pesticides) and crush them up before adding. Have an airstone bubbling away in the culture. Put a lid on the container and leave it to bubble away for a few weeks. The water initially goes dark and smells awful (especially if it isn’t aerated). After a few weeks the water will clear and smell not unpleasant. Once this has happened you can harvest the infusoria. To harvest them you remove the airstone for about 10mintues and allow all the rotten plant matter to settle to the bottom of the container. You should now see clouds of tiny white specks moving around the container. These are the infusoria and can be scooped or syphoned out and added to the fry tank. Keep these cultures covered to prevent insects calling them home.
A tank of snails, (mystery snails are frequently used) that are kept and fed on lettuce or other plant matter, will produce infusoria as well. The infusoria feeds on bacteria that eats the rotting snail poo. The infusoria can be harvested and fed to fry. For a snail tank to produce quantities of infusoria you need to reduce or remove the filtration in their tank. This can be a problem if lots of snails are kept as the water quality can deteriorate quite quickly. Air stones bubbling away and frequent water changes will help keep the water suitable for the snails, but not filter out all the infusoria.
A 1 litre jar won’t produce much infusoria and if you plan on rearing any number of fry, then you need to be working with a much bigger culture. I used a 60litre plastic storage container and that supplies me with enough infusoria to feed 1-200 fry.

Sugar won’t help and it generally takes 3 to 4 weeks for a culture to be ready. Warm water (28C) will speed the process up a bit.

What sort of fish did you want to feed?

 

[pinkdolphin_113]

Infusoria for fish culture purposes are generally single celled animals called Paramecium. Numerous recipes for their growth are available. The most common being crushed lettuce leaves in a bucket of water and then left to grow for a few weeks. Any non-toxic plant matter (lawn clipping, etc) can be used instead of lettuce leaves. Use a plastic container and add one whole lettuce for every 20litres (5 gallons) of water. Rinse the leaves well (make sure they are free of chemicals & pesticides) and crush them up before adding. Have an airstone bubbling away in the culture. Put a lid on the container and leave it to bubble away for a few weeks. The water initially goes dark and smells awful (especially if it isn’t aerated). After a few weeks the water will clear and smell not unpleasant. Once this has happened you can harvest the infusoria. To harvest them you remove the airstone for about 10mintues and allow all the rotten plant matter to settle to the bottom of the container. You should now see clouds of tiny white specks moving around the container. These are the infusoria and can be scooped or syphoned out and added to the fry tank. Keep these cultures covered to prevent insects calling them home.
A tank of snails, (mystery snails are frequently used) that are kept and fed on lettuce or other plant matter, will produce infusoria as well. The infusoria feeds on bacteria that eats the rotting snail poo. The infusoria can be harvested and fed to fry. For a snail tank to produce quantities of infusoria you need to reduce or remove the filtration in their tank. This can be a problem if lots of snails are kept as the water quality can deteriorate quite quickly. Air stones bubbling away and frequent water changes will help keep the water suitable for the snails, but not filter out all the infusoria.
A 1 litre jar won’t produce much infusoria and if you plan on rearing any number of fry, then you need to be working with a much bigger culture. I used a 60litre plastic storage container and that supplies me with enough infusoria to feed 1-200 fry.

Sugar won’t help and it generally takes 3 to 4 weeks for a culture to be ready. Warm water (28C) will speed the process up a bit.

What sort of fish did you want to feed?

It would be feeding corydoras sterbai. I think I may just stick to giving the filter media a little squeeze over the water to feed the fish...I heard this can produce infurosia, or release it, too.
I was hoping to get my corys spawning during this week, probably thursday, as they all seem pretty lively and the females are getting rather large...they just need something to trigger them off!
A good 20% water change with cold, softer RO water and a good filter clean out will do haha!
if the "filter media squeeze" doesn't work, I will definatly give culturing a go

thanks,

pink.

 

[Inchworm]

Hi pinkdolphin_113

You don't need to go to all that trouble for cory fry. After the first few days they will be big enough to eat microworms which are a lot easier to cultivate and keep going.

 

[JoshH]

There's a guide I stumbled across in the killi section describing how you can make a culture using dried milk powder I think