Live food options for adult fish?

[cheeboonyong]

Hi,

I have read most of the posts on the various live food on this forum as well as the Killifish website proper and found them to be very informative, e.g., Grindal worms, vinegar eels, etc.

However, I noticed that Daphnia is not frequently discussed.

My main interest is feeding live food for ADULT fish, not for fries, mainly to induce them to spawn (not necessarily Killifish but other types as well)

Just wondering if anyone actively cultures Daphnia and what are the associated problems with culturing them?

And is it actually possible to have a "clean" culture, i.e, free of hydra/cyclops and other "nasties"?

Another reason why I'm interested in Daphnia is that I read they are free-swimming, i.e., they will not dive into the substrate and multiply from there. I'm dead scared of critters (or worms) that are not eaten and then survive in the substrate and multiply from there. Only solution would be to do a complete teardown, which is such a nightmare. I guess this is not a problem for people with bare tanks. In relation to this, does grindal/vinegar/blood/tubifex worms "tunnel" into the substrate?

[cheeboonyong]

actually, I've tried feeding my fish the weevils from the rice. Some of them seem to like it, but some will spit it out after eating it. Maybe because of the hard carapace.

One thing I can confirm though: fish don't like to eat house spiders or ants. Suspect there's some chemicals that's secreted that offends the fish or something like that.

Haven't tried cockroaches yet though. Probably too big anyway...

[hwchoy]

Haven't tried cockroaches yet though. Probably too big anyway...

don't be like my friend, who sprayed a cockroach in the evening, and next morning, having forgetten completely about the spraying, picked up the cockroach and gave it to his arowana.

[stormhawk]

Boon Yong, in response to your post these are what I know so far about daphnia cultures.

1) These free-swimming critters feed on particulate organic matter. Most people utilise green water to feed them but others use dissolved milk and various other foods. They feed on bacteria present in the water too.

2)Daphnia cultures obtained from wild sources always contain some other unwanted critters such as freshwater leeches, cyclops, the dread hydra and occasionally some odd disease.

3)Daphnia cultures usually require a high pH level perhaps somewhere above 7.5? and they require a source of calcium which you can provide with using coral chips.

4)These critters are rather subsceptible to slight changes in water values so take care when changing water.

5)Aeration for their cultures should not be via an airstone as the fine bubbles get entrapped under their carapace, thus causing them to float to the surface of the water where they eventually die.

In short, there's a degree of risk involved when you try feeding live foods to your fish. For us here who use live foods to induce our fish to breed, we are all dealing with a risk factor. Possibly one of the safest live foods to use would be live baby brine shrimps but they too come with some forms of coliform bacteria at one stage or another.

Vinegar eels do not burrow into the gravel and they remain wriggling in the water column for a long time. However, they are rather small and may not be enough nutrition for adult fish. When dealing with the issue of burrowing worms, you can use a small dish sunk to the bottom of the tank where it meets the gravel. use a large enough dish and place it directly underneath your worm feeder. This prevents the worms from getting into contact with your gravel bed. A few corydoras catfish will wipe out the worms that land on the dish. :wink: