Yay! Free fish food!

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

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I should have known you'd have an article about this!! Love it! Have read through it and bookmarked

Really enjoyed this part;
"I’d collect the flies, then close/remove the bag as I turned the vacuum off. I then smack the bag ‘o bugs against a hard surface to stun them. Then I’d invert the bag into a deli cup of water (or directly into a tank) and then feed the fish. This also works well out in my Earth Machine compost bin to collect tiny fruit flies.

I know, this perhaps seems a little crazy to family and friends. But live foods, whether cultured or collected are a great natural food for your fish. And fish get very excited over fresh live foods. Imagine if all you ever had to eat was cereal (commercial fish food)! If you’re worried about family, friends, or neighbors, just put a bin or two out behind the garage, shed, or whatever…and mum’s the word!"

The folks did laugh at me when I warned them not to use the ice cubes full of insects Fortunately for me, they were in the aquatic trade and hobby for decades, so they get it! My father did joke about me killing them them and tried to make me feel guilty, so I apologised to the bugs when I put them in the freezer, but that they're annoying as adults and make great fish food!
Had never thought of vacuuming up annoying flies for the fish... the fruit flies that will inevitably appear this summer are gonna be in for a shock! picturing you banging the bag of bugs to stun them made me laugh!

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

@Slaphppy7 what kind of fish do you have at the moment? Wonder if your alien bugs are edible!

Wish I still had mollies. They go wild for live food. The cories are having a great time hunting through the substrate now though, has kept them occupied for hours.

 

[I Like Rare Fish]

My fish outside eat all the mosquito larvae layed in their tanks, plus the occasional dragon fly nymph.

 

[Colin_T]

You can buy daphnia eggs online. Just do a Google search for them in your area. They are small and light weight so don't cost too much to ship.

Getting dry eggs means you won't get diseases with them.

Booooring! I wanna capture some!

Go get a pair of waders and a 12 inch fine mesh fish net and bucket. Find a local pond/ lake and put the waders on. Then walk out into knee deep water and look for Daphnia. Use the net to scoop them up and put them in a bucket of pond water. Take them home and start growing them.

Try to avoid getting Daphnia and other live fish foods from waterways that have water birds and from lakes/ ponds that stay wet all year round. These places are havens for diseases and intestinal worms.

The best places for live fish food are ponds that dry up during summer and fill up with rainwater during winter, and that have no fish or birds using them.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Go get a pair of waders and a 12 inch fine mesh fish net and bucket. Find a local pond/ lake and put the waders on. Then walk out into knee deep water and look for Daphnia. Use the net to scoop them up and put them in a bucket of pond water. Take them home and start growing them.

Try to avoid getting Daphnia and other live fish foods from waterways that have water birds and from lakes/ ponds that stay wet all year round. These places are havens for diseases and intestinal worms.

The best places for live fish food are ponds that dry up during summer and fill up with rainwater during winter, and that have no fish or birds using them.

Thank you for the info, but I think just buying the eggs will be cheaper than buying a pair of waders...

It's fun collecting live food from my own garden, but that sounds like a lot of hassle

 

[Colin_T]

Thank you for the info, but I think just buying the eggs will be cheaper than buying a pair of waders...

It's fun collecting live food from my own garden, but that sounds like a lot of hassle

It is. You need to wash the waders after being in the lake otherwise they get all gross from the bird poop and bacteria. You need to be careful because lots of lakes have soft muddy bases and you can easily go down 2 or 3 feet in mud. You have to hope you don't step on needles, nails or rusty metal that has been thrown into the pond/ lake.

 

[Slaphppy7]

@Slaphppy7 what kind of fish do you have at the moment? Wonder if your alien bugs are edible!

Wish I still had mollies. They go wild for live food. The cories are having a great time hunting through the substrate now though, has kept them occupied for hours.

Mainly tetras...with plecos, gouramis, barbs, otos, kuhlis, and a few others...but the alien bugs have disappeared, don't see any burrows anymore, for some reason (?)

 

[emeraldking]

Well, over here it's not forbidden. I also use those larvae to my fish. They just grow in my outdoor tubs.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Mainly tetras...with plecos, gouramis, barbs, otos, kuhlis, and a few others...but the alien bugs have disappeared, don't see any burrows anymore, for some reason (?)

Oh no!
Maybe they've all grown now, and their breeding season is over or something?

Or, my personal theory - they returned to their home planet!

 

[Slaphppy7]

Oh no!
Maybe they've all grown now, and their breeding season is over or something?

Or, my personal theory - they returned to their home planet!

LOL....we are in the midst of a near-severe drought, with temps near 100F...don't see many bugs of ANY type in this kind of weather...relief is on the way next week...supposedly...I'll believe it when I see it

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

I did my duty as a good citizen today, and swept up a ton of mosquito larvae from the tub again and froze them. To prevent them hatching into adults and obeying the law of course! Should be pretty set for fish food when I eventually reach a point of wanting some more fish to spawn again or as a special treat over winter.

 

[Slaphppy7]

Good on you...when's the "mozzie" cocktail party?

Where I live, it SHOULD be illegal to purposely grow mosquitos outdoors, in any type of vessel of water...when I see one, I tip it over

We have enough that spawn in ditches, marshes, and leaf piles naturally, as it is...during the summer months, without mosquito repellent of some kind, you'd be a fool to even step outside in the grass, for most of the day...unless during severe drought...and they'll still find a way to breed....particularly, in any outdoor vessel containing untreated (raw) water

When the mosquitos are particularly bad here, we have trucks and even low-flying aircraft spraying chemicals all over the place

Besides that, and the fact that I live in a refinery town, I'd never try leaf litter from my yard in my tanks, for obvious reasons...shame, because I have many different tree leaves I could use, free of charge

I've actually fed dead adult mosquitos (that I smacked dead) to my fish in the past, with mixed results...random fish mysteriously died...they devoured them, but something just wasn't right...still a mystery...won't do it again, that was a few years back

I'm guessing if they can spread disease in humans, they can in fish, too...who knows

 

[Colin_T]

The diseases people catch from mosquitoes are usually viruses transferred via contaminated blood that is left over in the female mozzie after she has bitten someone with a virus. They don't transfer diseases to fish. However, if the mozzies were contaminated by something, that could poison the fish.

Having containers of water around the house and scooping any mozzie larvae out can reduce the ones breeding in the bush. The female mozzie will lay eggs in any water so if you provide the water, you can control how many larvae survive and turn into adults. In the mud puddles and local waterways, the mozzies can all turn into adults, thus making the problem worse.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

My mozzie collection paused for a few days, went to collect some today, and while there were still mozzie larvae, there were also a ton of damselfly or dragonfly nymphs


One of my tanks has shrimp, the other has breeding pygmy cories including tiny newborn fry, so I really don't want those in my tank!
Hoping I didn't accidentally transfer any dragonfly/damselfly eggs to the tanks when I fed live.

@Colin_T @AbbeysDad @emeraldking , I've tipped out, rinsed and refilled the tub, and sprayed down the sword plant with the hose pipe, going to see if I get fresh mozzie larvae again, hopefully without the damselfly nymphs! The sword plant is looking interesting, the new leaves it's been putting out are so red - it's an echinodorus 'rose', so I'm guessing all the direct sunlight is making it so red. I was concerned that it being in a black tub might be too light limiting, but it's getting plenty of sun from above and lots of nutrients in the soil it's planted in. Below a reminder of what it's sitting in and where I've been collecting mozzies from;

If I collect more later, given that there were nymphs in there, it would still be okay to catch and freeze them, right? Will bigger fish like the bronze cories eat the nymphs if frozen? Any eggs wouldn't survive freezing, right? Crossing fingers I haven't accidentally transferred any nymph eggs to my tanks when I fed the live mozzies... hadn't seen any signs of nymphs then, but I'll keep a close eye on my tanks anyhow. I was still tempted to collect and freeze them, but decided it against it for now without more advice from experienced folks!

 

[connorlindeman]

My mozzie collection paused for a few days, went to collect some today, and while there were still mozzie larvae, there were also a ton of damselfly or dragonfly nymphs


One of my tanks has shrimp, the other has breeding pygmy cories including tiny newborn fry, so I really don't want those in my tank!
Hoping I didn't accidentally transfer any dragonfly/damselfly eggs to the tanks when I fed live.

@Colin_T @AbbeysDad @emeraldking , I've tipped out, rinsed and refilled the tub, and sprayed down the sword plant with the hose pipe, going to see if I get fresh mozzie larvae again, hopefully without the damselfly nymphs! The sword plant is looking interesting, the new leaves it's been putting out are so red - it's an echinodorus 'rose', so I'm guessing all the direct sunlight is making it so red. I was concerned that it being in a black tub might be too light limiting, but it's getting plenty of sun from above and lots of nutrients in the soil it's planted in. Below a reminder of what it's sitting in and where I've been collecting mozzies from;
View attachment 162394

If I collect more later, given that there were nymphs in there, it would still be okay to catch and freeze them, right? Will bigger fish like the bronze cories eat the nymphs if frozen? Any eggs wouldn't survive freezing, right? Crossing fingers I haven't accidentally transferred any nymph eggs to my tanks when I fed the live mozzies... hadn't seen any signs of nymphs then, but I'll keep a close eye on my tanks anyhow. I was still tempted to collect and freeze them, but decided it against it for now without more advice from experienced folks!

Is that duckweed in the corner