Live Food, And How To Make It Last...

[Eclecticoldsod]

I have a number of tanks, containing greatly differing stuff. I feed my lot dry food every morning, a mixture of flake, pellets, and vegetables prepared the night before for 'lights up' at breakfast time. Every afternoon, they get some live food. Sometimes, if I am feeling generous, they just might get some frozen stuff in the evening. Nothing lasts much more than a brief 20 second feeding frenzy. (Never known a fish to die from LACK of food – quite the reverse..!)

My LFS gets the tubes of live food in on a Thursday. I buy one of each to last the week – tubifex, glass worms, blood worms, daphnia, and brine shrimp. (I never add the water they come in to any tank..!)
Thursday is brine shrimp day. I sieve out the big ones for the big guys, through large mesh, and then re-sieve the small ones for little gobs, through fine mesh.
Everything else goes into a glued-together leaning-tower-of-plastic prawn-cocktail tubs, from my local supermarket (I ate the prawn-cocktail first...) Daphnia at the top, then glass worms, then blood worms, with tubifex at the bottom. The whole lot goes under the cold water tap in the bathroom sink – set to about a dozen drips a minute. Each tub drips into the one below, supplying fresh, cold water to keep everything alive and healthy. Try it and see...

 

[BigC]

Nice work, I like the seperate container/tower idea.
The way I do it is
I syphon water (6mm airline) from the toilet cistern out the overflow pipe and down the back of the downpipe and keep my tubifex in a shallow bucket tilted over the drain. (outside)
Regards
BigC

 

[Dorkhedeos]

Nice work, I like the seperate container/tower idea.
The way I do it is
I syphon water (6mm airline) from the toilet cistern out the overflow pipe and down the back of the downpipe and keep my tubifex in a shallow bucket tilted over the drain. (outside)
Regards
BigC

You keep worms in your toilet?

 

[Tolak]

I know a guy who runs his ro waste through a series of tubs with overflows, full of blackworms.

 

[Eclecticoldsod]

I know a guy who runs his ro waste through a series of tubs with overflows, full of blackworms.

What exactly is a blackworm? I don't think we get them in the UK..?

 

[blue acara]

There is a place you can get them buy they are expensive, so really to have to 'grow' them yourself and they don't double that quickly. (once per month I have read)

I buy the same live food as you Eclecticoldsod and get through 15 bags per week. They are all gone by monday/tuesday.

When it get a bit warmer I will set up a daphnia breeing tub outside. An earthworm farm is a very cheap way to get quality live food.

 

[BigC]

You keep worms in your toilet?

NO definately not..
The airline syphons water from the toilet cistern... down the overflow pipe and outside...
Regards
BigC

 

[Eclecticoldsod]

There is a place you can get them buy they are expensive, so really to have to 'grow' them yourself and they don't double that quickly. (once per month I have read)

I buy the same live food as you Eclecticoldsod and get through 15 bags per week. They are all gone by monday/tuesday.

When it get a bit warmer I will set up a daphnia breeing tub outside. An earthworm farm is a very cheap way to get quality live food.

Hi, Blue Acara.
You are probably more up to date than me, and clearly need more food than I do. I have only come back to fish-keeping after 30 years, but I will add what I once knew from the dim and distant past...
1...Always collect your rainwater off the roof, into a wooden or plastic rain butt.
2...Do not keep a lid on it – as a fish keeper, you will wish to scoop mosquito larva from the surface – your neighbours may not be so keen on the idea (as you will miss many of 'em at hatching time..)
3...The out-flow should lead (very gently) down a dozen or so feet of rock- and mud-filled guttering in which tubiflex worms will live and breed happily.
4...To a shallow tub of mud (in which you can try bloodworms – but will probably only get even more tubiflex...
5...Dripping into a shallow (at least five foot wide), muddy-bottomed pond for Daphnia. This needs to be in warm sunlight and, I seem to remember, a trace of blood always made it thrive best!

Worms must be chosen carefully. The red stripy (brandlings) found in compost heaps are always distasteful – avoid these! The soft pink ones found under almost every big rock in the garden are the ones to go for – the smaller the better. If you have to chop up a worm, you have chosen the wrong size of worm for the size of fish..!

Sorry for sounding like a sad old sod, but I am a sad old sod! Got me first tank in 1957 – and I ain't learned nearly enough yet...