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[anchar]

Types of Live Foods you can feed adult fish and fry

by Brett aka Crabros

Hi guys,

There are a lot of different types of live food that you can feed your fish. In this article I will try and give you some information on a few I have used with great success. Live foods are very good source of food all fish from fry to adults will go nuts when you feed them any type of live food. Live food is great to condition your fish and it isn’t messy like a few foods that can be feed like flake and pellets. If you over feed on these foods they always sit on the bottom which can mess up your tank. Live food can live up to 2 hours in aquarium water sometimes longer. Only feed in small amounts at a time until food is consumed.

Microworms – They are called a nematode the first part Nema means thread so you could also refer to them as threadworms. Nematodes are a minute, colourless, unsegmented, smooth cylindrical worm. They are no bigger then a sixteenth of an inch in length. Females are bigger then the males. Microworms are live bearing and in most cultures they are mainly female. The worms shed there skin several times before becoming sexually mature. Microworms are as good as newly hatched brine shrimp. Even some smaller adult fish will eat them. These guys are highly nutritious for fry and one of the easiest cultures to start.
I use a large Tupperware dish drill a lot of holes into the lid for aeration if you don’t the culture will die very quickly. I add about 5 cm of rolled oats into the container covering the bottom. I add water to make the mixture wet. I pack the oats down and remove any excess water from the oats. You want the mixture damp and firm but not saturated. I then add a spoonful of the culture and let it sit in a cool place. After about 3 days the worms will start climbing up the side of the container in a white mass. Run your finger around the side of the container collecting the worms then feed to your fry. Be careful not to get any oats on your finger this is the last thing you want in you nice clean tank. After about 4-6 weeks as the culture is dropping in numbers start another culture using your old mix.
Then the process starts again. Sometimes the culture can stink you have been warned.
You can get you cultures from other hobbyists or some shops.

Vinegar eels – their scientific name is Tubatrix aceti. They are a little worm that lives in vinegar. They congregate at the upper surface of the vinegar. They can tolerate a wide range of temperatures preferring it around 24-32 degrees. They can also tolerate very acidic water to very alkaline water. All you have to do is obtain a large jar, bottle add half apple cider vinegar half tank water and a few pieces of apple minus the skin. Add you culture within a week there will be millions on them swarming at the surface of the water. I keep my culture in the dark when the water starts to smell badly start a new culture up using some of the old culture to start it again. This is the best small fry food available besides baby brine shrimp in my opinion. I sometimes try watching the fry eat this I cant see the worms but the fry can they will go off when feed this live food.

Brine Shrimp – Scientific name is Artemia sp. When the brine shrimp have hatched they are known as Artemia nauplii. In the wild they are found in natural salt lakes in the United States around Utah, California and New Mexico. They are found all over the world but most are supplied from USA and Canada. In Australia they are shipped over from the USA in egg form to supply wholesalers and aquarium shops. The correct terminology for brine shrimp eggs is really brine shrimp cysts. However everyone calls them eggs. The price on brine shrimp eggs can sometimes be quite expensive due to bad seasons in the lakes.
Adult brine shrimp are approximately one half of an inch in length the females are slightly bigger then the males. They are slender, pale red in colour and sometimes greenish looking. They have two eyes when adult which project from each side of their small heads. Newly hatched brine shrimp only have one eye later in development the second eye develops. Brine shrimp have eleven pairs of feet fringed with long hair on them. When they swim these beat the water in rapid succession giving this creature movement. The young brine shrimp are very active and are hard to see when just hatched. The eggs are a light brown in colour when you open up your tin or packet. I make a hatchery with a plastic coke bottle with the bottom removed. I drill a hole into the lid and place an airline joiner which is siliconed to stop leaks. Add your airline with an air control valve in the airline. You can adjust your water aeration using this. Slowly bubble the water.

Tip: Don’t have a strong bubbling current as they don’t survive very well.

The water I use is straight sea water you can make it up by adding rock salt to your water until the salinity is between 1.010 -1.020. The temperature should be around 25c.When you have placed some eggs into your water they will start hatching within 24-48 hours. The egg shells will float to the top when the brine shrimp hatches. When the baby brine shrimp hatch they are a bright red / orange colour. To feed to fry turn off your air supply let the brine shrimp settle to the bottom of the lid. Using the airline from the bottom of you lid, drain over a fine mesh into an empty container for easy collection of water. After collection add the water collected back to the brine shrimp hatchery. There you have it perfect fry food.
Now to raise brine shrimp to adults you can feed them infusoria, or dried yeast. Larger fish love them also.

Daphnia – sometimes referred to as ‘ditch fleas’ they are a bit bigger than a flea and have a similar compressed shape of a flea. They have two long, branched swimming arms which constantly move to prevent the animal from sinking to the bottom of the pond, lake, dam in which these guys live. This would happen if daphnia don’t have small currents to keep the afloat as they don’t have an air bladder making them heavier then water. They are members of the plankton group. There are a few different types of daphnia size being the differences. As stated previously daphnia is found in pond, dams, lakes they live in places where there is organic decomposition. Daphnia like the water temperature between 10-18 C and don’t mind the water being slightly alkaline.
Daphnia are best found in spring just under the surface of the water. Daphnia like clean water. I have never cultured them however all you need is a drum either horse, cow manure, grass clipping or banana peels into water. This starts the organic break down of materials in the water which the proper bacteria may develop and continue to be present in sufficiently large numbers over a long period of time. After this has been established you locate a nice clean dam and observe to see if there is daphnia present. I have been around a far few dams in Sydney and most dams I have found daphnia in them. You bring some home place into your drum about 2-4 weeks you should start to see an increase in daphnia. I have been told to feed them with dried yeast. I always just collect them and feed straight to my fish. They love them. I use a fine fishnet and slowly move it above the leaf matter in the pond or dam to gain the best results. You can also catch another type of water flea called Cyclops when searching for daphnia.

Cyclops – so named because it has a single median eye located in the middle of its forehead. They can be identified with the naked eye. Cyclops has a forked tail, four pairs of swimming legs, and a pair of antennae that are sense organs and can be used for movement. They move quiet quickly something like a water hopper. They eat algae, bacteria, protozoa. These are also very good for young fry. They are quiet transparent again can be found mainly during the months May to November can be located all year round if you are willing to put in the extra yards.

Mosquitoes – These guys are a little harder to obtain then daphnia, brineshrimp but during Spring, Summer and Autumn I place a drum at the side of my house add yeast or curdled milk and sit and wait. After a few weeks the mozzies lay their eggs they look like little rafts on top of the water, they hatch and you get pupae these can be feed to your fish at this stage or when they become wrigglers which is the larger stage. The wrigglers have straight bodies hang head down from the surface of the water and are about quarter of an inch or slightly bigger. They feed of the decaying matter in the water. You can also find mosquitoes at the beach where there are rock pools of fresh stagnant water. If there are a lot of mozzie wrigglers I usually scope them out of my drum, drain the water then place them into a zip freezer bag and freeze them for another day. Remember that if you don’t harvest at this stage you could be invaded with live mosquitoes.
The wrigglers also dive quickly when they see you coming so sneak up with your net in hand and scope them up. My fish go crazy when I feed them mozzie wrigglers.

Glass shrimp – I also go out to the Nepean river and collect these for my larger fish. They are just a miniature version of a prawn except freshwater and you can see straight through them. They grow between 1-3 cm. I usually take a fish net and look in the weeds in the water after about 30 minutes my mate and I have a bucket each to feed our fish. Once they are home place them straight into the tank and watch the fish go crazy chasing them. These are also good as if the fish don’t get them the first time they will live in your tank for a long time until eaten.

There are so many different types of live foods which could be sitting just outside your house or just down the road. This is my experience on a few I use all the time and I enjoy collecting it also. I believe the fish grow quicker and look better. If you feed live foods every couple of weeks it breaks up the fish’s diet and they are not getting the same thing like flake or pellet week in week out. Live food I believe is why I’m spawning some of these harder to breed fish that I have. Give it ago your fish will love you for it.

Until next time

All the best

Brett