Populating tanks with live food

[cjking]

Does anyone have any thoughts on how easy it would be to set up a community tank with live food growing and reproducing in it, so that fishes would only need supplemental food one a week or once a month or never? I've never heard of anyone doing this, but surely it must be possible?

After a six year break from fish-keeping I've recently set up a small fairly heavily planted tank. While watching my dwarf Gourami eat thread algae growing amongst the Java moss (and knowing Gouramis live off algae in the wild) it occurred to me that if it wasn't for my tetras I could probably switch to only feeding flakes say once a week. (Apart from the gourami and the tetras, I have an otocinclus affinus that lives entirely of all types of algae other than thread algae.)

The tetras apparently eat small creatures in the wild. The ideal would be to find something that lives in the tank which they can eat and eats algae itself. I think Daphnia eat algae, but apparently it's not healthy for fish to exclusively eat daphnia. I also don't know whether Daphnia would survive and reproduce in a tank.

It occurred to me that I could replace the tetras with livebearers (I had in mind guppies and platies) as I think these can eat thread algae. I don't know how healthy it is for them to live off it though. (I haven't checked what they eat in the wild.)

I haven't done a search on this because I'm not sure what to search for.

 

[cutecotton]

hmmm i don't know how you would be able to sustain a live food source like that forever. Most likely i think they wouldn't reproduce fast enough for hte fish to eat, and would eventually die off.

I dont' think livebearers will really work either, they only give birth several weeks, as pregnancy can take a while, i doubt they can live off only thread algeae either

definiteliy an interesting idea though. maybe some kind of algae eating shrimp?

 

[Silly me]

a shrimp or two in a planted tank.. maybe a otto or three

but cant see any good reason for it?? you'll need a min of 55 gallons well lit and fertilized with only 2-3 small fish on total..


You could always start with a planted tank see how things are doing, growing for a month or three and then add some ottos to keep the algae down. A molly or two could also work, they might be easier to see.

 

[Pearlie]

I've also thought about this, especially for my Beaufortia kweichowensis. These guys aren't the algae eaters the pet stores try to sell them as. In fact, from my reading, in the wild they live off tiny vertebrates, which in turn live amongst the rocks in the river. How to feed my little dude without the dominant Pearl Gourami eating them all?

*waits for a guru to show up*

 

[Chasing Puck]

The basic problem here is that most of the aquatic food sources are not going to be welcome in our homes. For example, mosquito larvae are a great food source, but they will eventually turn into mosquitos--not quite as welcome! Very few of the animals most small fish eat are aquatic throughout their lifecycle. Fish tend to occupy a larger area than our aquariums, so even the algae eaters will be hard pressed to survive without supplemental feeding unless you stock very, very lightly--much closer to natural density levels than most of us maintain. Even then, you'll have difficulty keeping a constant supply of food available. In the wild, fish rely on different food items at different times of the year, and insects hatches tend to be spread out, and algae growths vary with the season as well.

It would be cool, but very tough to accomplish. Locally, many people have ponds that they stock with game fish, and they usually need to feed their ponds to keep the fish in good shape, since the small ponds are normally stocked with far more fish than could be supported naturally.

 

[Wyld-Fyre]

Good question, cjking.

Naturally, most fish tanks have a population of Planarian worms that live, feed and reproduce in the substrate or filter medium.

After seeing my fishes eating them, I had decided to allow Planarians to breed in my fry tank/snailarium. This they did, and as long as you supply the Planarians with left-overs they'll continue to breed.

I've seen most of my fry tackling them, and I'm sure some have grown as a result.

 

[FishDan]

I agree. This would be great, but the problem is having a continually renewing food source. And on top of that, you have to keep feeding the food. Seems to me this would be a never-ending cyclical problem. If you are trying to stop feeding fish flakes etc to your fish, but are willing to continually feed whatever is lowest on your food chain, I'd say that somewhat defeats the purpose.

\Dan

 

[cjking]

I was thinking algae would be at the bottom of the food chain, and I was assuming that it would always be possible to grow as much as you want of that, if you really, really tried.