Parasites in Microworms, Vinegar eels, etc?

bradlgt21

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May 9, 2009
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Brad
I am trying to rear sparkling gourami fry and keep failing. I think it's the lack of early food. I caught the fry eating tiny swimming organisms in the water but there aren't many and the frozen BBS were to small still and they all died. So next time I am going to try to be prepared and get some live cultures. But I had a bad experience with them last time.

I purchased a microworm culture off ebay for some guppy fry a while back. I fed the fry microworms and they were eating and growing but then started getting sick. All the guppies in the tank ended up getting sick and dying. They all got some long thin white worm that was attached to the gills and killed them. My hillstream loach never got infected and was fine. Could this have been caused by some hitch hiker parasite in the worms or just something that spread from guppy to guppy and was always there from the fish store which is where the parents came from and yes they ended up going in the same tank.

So pretty much what I want to know is how safe are the small cultures, I am not worried about Baby Brine shrimp because you can get them frozen I am talking the tiny newly hatched fry stuff I would have to use to make the fry survive.
 
I think baby Gouramis need Infusorium as first food for about a week or two----I hope I spelled that right.
 
Fill a 5 gal bucket with used tank water. Add some plant leaves. Put a clamp light with a PC bulb on it and run the light 18 hrs a day. In a few days you'll have what Sparkling Gourami fry need for the first few days after they go free swimming.
 
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