Culturing Live Foods for the home aquarium

[Royston]

Wow instant BBS any info. on which LFS carry that product?

[stormhawk]

I bought mine from C328. They should be available at any store that stocks Ocean Nutrition products. The container requires refrigeration after you've opened it for the first time and lasts for 6 months from the date you opened it, according to the packaging.

[edwardchuajh]

Maybe I'll give it a try next time I head to C328

[stormhawk]

Good news! I managed to salvage the walterworm and microworm cultures from the gutter. Some survivors made it in the subcultures I made right after the first ones crashed. Now I'm just hoping the bananaworms will survive and bloom again.

On the other hand, my grindals and vinegar eels are blooming.

Going to offer starter cultures on the vinegar eels soon.

[edwardchuajh]

congrats!

my grindals are not "blooming" at all =( more like each day it only produces like 10-20 worms, which is just nice for my 3 juveniles only.. =P

[stormhawk]

My scrubber pads are overrunning with worms. Some even drowned in the water bath.

All 3 worms back in business.

My older moldy cultures came back to life for some reason.

[RonWill]

Jian Yang,
If they're migrating into the water bath, look into air exchange. Lack of oxygen will drive them elsewhere, as observed during my early trials.

Other possibilities are overcrowding, fouled scrubbers, etc.

[stormhawk]

I think it's overcrowding Ron. The scrubbers are literally crawling with worms. I made enough holes for air exchange and preventing mites at the same time. Might poke another hole later today. Is it possible that the heat is causing them to migrate into the water bath? I got all sizes drowning in the bath.

[RonWill]

My best wager... the ambient heat + food decomposition will reduce the O² level in the culture boxes. If overcrowding, what are you waiting for?? We're still talking about grindal cultures, right? Put these up for sale and bring some money in for the red ANNs!!! Jian Yang, these reds don't grow on trees, you know.

[stormhawk]

LOL Ron. I'm not interested in the clowns for now. Haha.

I am going to subculture the grindals soon. I find that they grow extremely big on a diet of oatmeal. Have you tried baby cereal with yours?

[RonWill]

Diet was mostly cheap rolled oats. Yep, baby foods too... I think it was Gerber carrot and peas. Then again, my memory ain't what it used to be!!

[stormhawk]

Hmm, I haven't given the cereal a try but according to sites online, their grindals went into overdrive with cereal based foods.

[RonWill]

...then wait till you try cat food!!!