I have a big jar full of um but i found it too time consuming trying to get the beggers out and cleaning them off to give to my fry. After all once an MW culture has devloped its just a swipe of a bush, no "cleaning" required
here is some gumph on it:
Vinegar eels are small nemotodes (1/16 of an inch) found in unpasturized cider vinegar and used as food for fry and baby fish with small mouths, i.e. those that are too small to take baby brine shrimp (e.g. rams). They are good as a supplement for feeding fry for a few days unil they can handle other food. They also swim about the tank and encourage the fry to swim, although they will not re-produce in fresh water. The eels are ideal for feeding to Killifish, rainbows, cyclyds, rams and catfish fry.
Vinegar eels are longer than brine shrimp naupill but have a smaller diameter. Fish can handle the eels before they can handle freshly hatched brine shrimp. In a tank the worms will flow with any current, if there is no current they will work thier way to the surface. This is a big advantage over microworms.
Vinegar eels live in acidic water and feed on bacteria in formenting vinegar. They can survive for extended periods of time in alkaline water including tank water.
They are very easy to culture and need very little attention, they can be ignored for weeks at a time and harvested at a moments notice. It takes 2-3 weeks at room temperature and out of direct sunlight for the culture to mature enough to begin to feeding to your fish.
Temp
Cultures are best kept warm [room temperature] and in the dark or covered.
Breeding
You will need a container such as a half gallon pickle jar or a one gallon demi-john, cider vinegar, and a few cubes of peeled apple any type. You can cut your vinegar with water, half water and half vinegar maximum. Pop in your apple cubes, a handful will do a gallon. Then add half water to your culture and cover. I use a coffee filter paper held in place by a rubber band. This allows air in and keeps flies out. Leave this for about 24 hours to allow the bacteria to get established then add the remainder of your starter.
After about a month a glass or cup of your medium, syphoned off near the top of your culture should be cloudy with wriggling eels.
Harvesting
Method 1:
Pour the medium syphoned off your culture through coffee filter paper. Keep the vinegar, return this to your culture. Now rinse the eels trapped in your filter by running some fresh water through this. Finally invert into a glass of clean water. Leave them in the water to purge themselves before feeding.
Method 2:
Syphon off some of your culture from near the top into a long necked bottle [ie a vine bottle]. Fill the bottle until the vinegar just starts to enter the neck of the bottle. Then take a small amount of filter wool to form a plug. Push this down until it sits on the vinegar, leaving most off the neck empty. Fill it up with fresh water. The eels will crawl through the filter floss into the fresh water. They can then be harvested with an eye-dropper or turkeybaster,and fed to your fry.
