What's a good live food...

[val]

for my tanks.

I'll admit I've always been a little intimidated by live foods. I don't really know why, except I've never seen any, so I read about them, but I've never seen any, so it's all a little academic to me.

I'd like to branch out for my tanks. I have 4 tanks:

2 with fantail GF

1 with a pair of keyhole cichlids

1 with cardinal and emperor tetras.

What would be a good live food that would work for all three tanks that I have? If I could find one that would work for all three, especially the tetras and cichlids, then its probably time I branched out a bit.

TIA

Val

[VoodooChild]

Brine shrimp is loved by all. Black worms are well liked too, but they usually come with leaches, so be careful. Rotifers if you can find them, though that probably won't be easy. Try and find someone who's trying to unload a batch of baby convicts. That would be a treat.

[goldfish freak]

Check this web site out http://www.lfscultures.com/index.html they have a wide variety of live food for sale, I am sure you could find something that would work for all of your three tanks.

[wetmanNY]

If you're culturing them yourself, go for Grindal worms. If you're just testing the waters about feeding livefoods, try blackworms.

There's a lot of stuff and links about live foods at www.skepticalaquarist.com

[125gJoe]

wetmanNY,
What do you know, or have heard about live blackworms from CA? (supposed to be a Discus specialty food (?) )

[ChilDawg]

Everyone loves brine shrimp, but the aquarist might not. Unless you buy them already grown, you will have to culture them (there are many articles out there on how to do so with eggs from your LFS). Also, brine shrimp (Artemia salinas), as their scientific name states, live in salty water (salt flats, to be precise). This kind of precludes a long life-span in freshwater. Why do I mention this? Overfeeding! They will die after a short period, and, if you overfeed, you will have brine shrimp carnage with which to deal, not to mention a little extra salt in your tank, which may not be good for its occupants.
All that having been said, brine shrimp is good fish food, IF used properly, but I would recommend starting the livefoods process with something else (i.e. Grindal worms).

Also, be careful with Daphnia (water fleas). I read in TFH's reprint of Wolfsheimer's Betta book that the chitinous exoskeleton will cause a laxative effect on fish with prolonged exposure to eating them. Plus, they are rather expensive and contain possibly 1/20th (I may have this number wrong) the nutritional density of brine shrimp (Pronek, "Oscars").

The one with which I am most skeptical is Tubifex. These are anecdotally known to cause disease in fish which eat them. Again, in Pronek, there is a list of how to properly purchase a batch of Tubifex and keep them alive for days, but take it with a grain of salt (perhaps the ones left in the tank from Artemia feedings ;)) and learn much, much more about Tubifex, as well as the husbandry practices used for them at your LFS.

Sorry for the long winded reply, but I hope that this helps.

~Matthew

[125gJoe]

Ever heard of 'Live Blackworms'?

Good or not good?

[Darkangel]

You folks have missed a lot of live foods that could be used by val. White worms, chopped earthworms, mosquito larvae, fruit flys, fairy shrimp and a slew of others. These can all be easily cultured and those that can not are easily collected. Mosquito larvae are one of my favorite live foods and depending on where you are one of the easiest to collect. For me that is only in the spring but for you more southerly folks that is likely almost year round. I collect all that I can find and whatever I can not use right away I freeze in an ice cube tray for later use. While you did say live food val there is also a host of other items to feed to your fish to give them a boost. Shrimp, beef heart, fresh vegetables, rice, and a lot of other stuff.

[wetmanNY]

80gJoe, I have some blackworms here just about all the time. They are in a low dish mostly filled with Java Moss, with about three-quarters of an inch of aquarium water just to cover them. I just shake out a hank of Java Moss in the tank and the worms go flying in the current. They live on and on in the gravel without dying, til a fish roots them out. They even reproduce slowly in the dish. What could be easier? --except if you cultured them. Prof. Charles Drewe's culturing techniques are at www.skepticalaquarist.com

A drawback: they're a little high in protein to feed more than every other day or so.

[maaltan]

80gJoe, I have some blackworms here just about all the time. They are in a low dish mostly filled with Java Moss, with about three-quarters of an inch of aquarium water just to cover them. I just shake out a hank of Java Moss in the tank and the worms go flying in the current. They live on and on in the gravel without dying, til a fish roots them out. They even reproduce slowly in the dish. What could be easier? --except if you cultured them. Prof. Charles Drewe's culturing techniques are at www.skepticalaquarist.com

A drawback: they're a little high in protein to feed more than every other day or so.

do you feed them anything extra? how much light are you giving the moss?

I am trying the java moss substrate "method" of culturing them. basically because im not disciplined enough to keep up with the rotting rags method.

Unfortunatly we seem to be more or less pioneers in this method since the most information i've found about using the moss is "some people choose to use live java moss as a substrate"

[Raskolnikov]

Ever heard of 'Live Blackworms'?

I use them frequently when I have fry that have outgrown BBS. If I try to switch to non-live foods at that stage I lose more of the population to cannibalism than w/ the worms.

[Ms.Bubbles]

Shrimp & beef heart? Do you cook these, or put them in the tank raw? If raw, does this make the water dirty? I'm even afraid to put frozen brine shrimp in my tank because of the raw meat bacteria...

[maaltan]

I would have to say no on the raw beef heart at least. i've not needed to use it myself but i've read of several people that had planaria outbreaks shortly after adding it to tank.

I've also read people fishless cycle a tank with a piece of raw shrimp.

[Raskolnikov]

Raw shrimp make up a large portion of my fishes' diets. I've used beefheart in the past, but no longer do so. (I never had a problem with it, I just found it time-consuming to process and ultimately unnecessary.)