My go to for spawning bottom feeding meat lovers is the Repashy Spawn & Grow. It is what I used to get the WC 173 going. I usually mix it with about 20% Soilent Green to get the little Hypans their needed veggies.
I am also big on frozen. It is my closest answer to live. My list includes Brine Shrimp, Brine Shrimp gut loaded with spirulina. Mysis Shrimp in two sizes, Blood Worms in two sizes, Daphnia, Cyclops, Rotifers, BBS. My favorite fry food used to be Cyclop-eeze until the lake crashed and company folded
My clown loaches shred The Repashy Igapo Explorer which Dr. Tanner formulated: "Our formula for all Rainforest Species. Contains Invertebrates, Nuts, Fruits, Seeds, Legumes, Herbs and Greens."
Just as an intersting aside. At the 2019 NEC weekend they had breeders roundtable. A panel of well know breeders took audience questions. One of the panelists was Rosario laCorte. a legend in fishkeeping. One of the questions for the panel was what was their favorite food to condition fish. I expected to hear the standard answers- blood worms, black worms. cyclops. The biggest surprise was Rosario when he answered- tubifex. He recounted collecting from ditches and getting them clean and safe for the fish.
((If you are not familiar with Rosario, you can see a bio of him here if your scroll down a bit http://www.njas.net/speakers.html )
Because of this I ordered a couple of frozen tubifex slabs. Most of my fish eat them fine except the Altums. They refuse to eat them.
I am also big on frozen. It is my closest answer to live. My list includes Brine Shrimp, Brine Shrimp gut loaded with spirulina. Mysis Shrimp in two sizes, Blood Worms in two sizes, Daphnia, Cyclops, Rotifers, BBS. My favorite fry food used to be Cyclop-eeze until the lake crashed and company folded
My clown loaches shred The Repashy Igapo Explorer which Dr. Tanner formulated: "Our formula for all Rainforest Species. Contains Invertebrates, Nuts, Fruits, Seeds, Legumes, Herbs and Greens."
Just as an intersting aside. At the 2019 NEC weekend they had breeders roundtable. A panel of well know breeders took audience questions. One of the panelists was Rosario laCorte. a legend in fishkeeping. One of the questions for the panel was what was their favorite food to condition fish. I expected to hear the standard answers- blood worms, black worms. cyclops. The biggest surprise was Rosario when he answered- tubifex. He recounted collecting from ditches and getting them clean and safe for the fish.
((If you are not familiar with Rosario, you can see a bio of him here if your scroll down a bit http://www.njas.net/speakers.html )
Because of this I ordered a couple of frozen tubifex slabs. Most of my fish eat them fine except the Altums. They refuse to eat them.
