Sammy

Split the cultures again. Now have 4 Mother cultures, 4 growing cultures and 4 starter cultures. Every tank gets a feed every 3 or 4 days. Keeps the CPDs, Daisy's Ricefish, Ember Tetras & Kubotai in prime condition. Add 1 light feed of chopped blood worms and everybody is on their spawning grounds in the morning. Gel food for Omnivorous fish is the bomb - less mess than bread, yeast and yogurt combos. No mold to clean out with gel food - it's gone before it molds. White worms love it too (but I like to keep up with the fish flakes/ spirulina/ baby cereal combo rotation). That food experiment seems to have just increased their size and numbers. I freeze any gel food leftovers (after 4 days worm feeding) and grate it into my community tanks, they love it. Corys and Plecos go nuts on anything that gets down to them. Zero waste. LFS said they have requests for Grindals and white worms... all those unused deli cups are about to come in handy ☺️. Going to supply the gel food mix too. I dont know if gut loading actually helps the fish but the Grindal worm population is large enough to sell/ trade in under 2 weeks. Now to finish the egg harvesters and grow out tanks... and start the Paramecium farm

Thanks for this write-up. Just started the VPD fry journey and caught myself on a couple errors already. Really helpful. My CPDs breed constantly and I've seen fry trying to hide in the water lettuce roots but I don't see them around for long. Building a egg trap and transfer system into the large hang-on breeder box. I hope your brood is doing well. Thanks again

Well, the separate tank feeding may be difficult to gauge. While showing my son the cultures, I noticed that the sheer volume of Grindals has exploded - the gel food is almost gone while 50% or better of the cereal/ yeast flakes remains. The difference in the numbers of worms is noticeable- many small/baby worms are visible on the gel food. As for the Daisy's (and a CPD tankful where the excess goes), the fish don't care either way. They attack the worms voraciously. None reach the bottom of the tank. Cost estimate for Grindal worms feeding with Mazuri on three 20gals (36 fish) = $0.0085/day. With that kind of ingredients gut-loading, I wish I could feed the Grindals to the fish every day... high quality, clean & cheap

Don't know if it's gut loading or not but the Mazuri Omnivore gel food disappeared faster than any previous food source - gel food chunks the size of the 1/2 dog food pellets were gone in 12 hours in the Grindal worm cultures. Loaded up the same size last night, all gone this morning. The Grindals moved right off the Weetabix/ nutritional yeast flake combo (which they've always loved) and onto the gel food. I'll do a feeding this morning and see if the numbers increase as well. Started 3 new cultures last night on coconut fiber scrub pads (trying to get cleaner feedings as opposedto substrate). 1 with 2 feeding zones - gel food and flakes/crushed cereal sides (because I'm used to the volume the yeast and cereal produce). 1 each with only the yeast/ cereal mix & Omnivore gel food. If the cultures become stable, I'll feed each gutloaded worm to individual tanks of Daisy's Ricefish and see if health and egg production are affected. Should be interesting.

I'm thinking along the same lines. Unless I harvest them moments after they feed, digestion alters all the compounds (the law of conservation of matter). I still believe in feeding them properly and avoiding unnecessary bacteria. Keeping them healthy and breeding is enough. ... but I'm still going to dedicate 2 cultures and try it for myself. I just can't help myself. Gotta tinker.

My cultures are all doing fine but after reading some threads about gut-loading just prior to feeding my fish, I'm still unclear on a couple points... Firstly, I find that people want to increase the proteins, color-enhancing properties, etc but I feel that once these items are consumed, would they not be broken down quickly by the worms digestive system and be "altered" (for lack of a better word)? Secondly, has anyone tried moistened gel fish food to gut load worms? I use a commercial high grade gel food to feed fish from CPDs to Discus and it has the highest protein available to non-commercial users. If I did use it, would it be better to feed it in its raw form moistened or the prepared, gel form? All anyone mentions is that the food needs to be wet/ moistened. Thanks for your time and consideration. 😊

Clumping is bacteria. Early death is bacteria too. I mix in 1/8 teaspoon of Epsom salt (plain) to the water. Make sure it's premixed before adding to the water. I also add 2 drops of bleach - eliminates the bacteria before they can multiply and use up oxygen- the chlorine gasses off before it can affect the BBS. Not my idea, found it here: https://www.tfhmagazine.com/articles/freshwater/a-scientific-economic-and-commonsense-approach-to-brine-shrimp-hatching

White & microworms and BBS get all my females producing eggs next day. I put 1 male, 2 females in a hang-on breeding box with an egg separator & a bit of yarn with small clamp-on fishing weights to keep it down close to the egg separator bottom (though few fall through). Feed every 8 hours, remove breeders when eggs are visible, put mops into hatching box (same as breeding box, just smaller), put new mops and breeders in. In a week I have 40 eggs (25 average are viable and hatch). Once the fry are feeding well, I pour the hatch box into a grow out tank. Keep the same "week" brood stock together - if some grow bigger quicker, they sometimes eat the new little guys. The hard part is feeding the babies. Infusoria & moina are hit & miss with some broods. Good luck

Medaka/ Ricefish. I LOVE my Platinums and they don't even care about the shrimp. It's fun watching them share the same plants to breed and feed. In a tank with lots of easy plants, it makes it even better. Just my 2 cents 😊

Biofilm is a very generic term for microscopic life in any aquarium. The clear stuff is largely autotrophic bacteria that feed on (absorb) dissolved organic compounds (including ammonia & nitrites) ... which is the reason for their clear structure. Good stuff to have

Just my 2 cents... I've had very poor hatch rates with 3 different brine shrimp suppliers with my temperature around 75°-78°F because of my lack of a decent heater. Now I use the DIY bottle technique with a clear incandescent bulb in a small gooseneck lamp I found in my basement. I fiddled around the distance and even made a little cover over the bottle rack. It stays around 82°F pretty consistently now and my hatch rates have easily gone to 85-90% in 24hours. I also add a pinch of baking soda and one drop of bleach per liter (suggested by another forum - sorry). The bleach and chlorine from my tap water easily gas off so there's none going into your tanks when you feed. Switched back to Aquarium Co-ops eggs too - they seem to be a consistent color compared to others, not sure if that's a way to 'grade' them... but I've finally got it dialed in and won't change now. Finding the temperature and recipe that works is worth the trial & error. BTW, write each recipe down so when you hit the sweet spot, you won't be guessing again. Good luck 🙂

All my UGF tanks are planted. Even the ones with matten foam bottoms. One slit to insert the plant, another right beside to insert a root tab. No real fancy plants or CO2 high tech for me though - I like self sustainability 😊

I still use UGFs. Lowest maintenance, zero leak potential (I still remember my first major leak - annihilated my living flooring). I buy every one I can find for sale used. They work well for most of my requirements. Most hobbyists prefer newer technologies. Lights on 12, off 12 depending on the light/ spectrum. Welcome back

Hi everyone. Long time stalker/ gawker here. I started my first aquarium when I was 10 and 20 years later, sold all 17 tanks & equipment and moved out of the city. Fast forward to last Christmas (2022), we received a a tank of goldfish as a rescue mission when we moved from an acreage into town, as the previous owners were moving across country. (My husband used to have fish! He'll take care of that aquarium for you!", I be the conversation went...). 6 goldfish in a greasy green 5 gallon, but my son was smitten so I gave it a shot. Sad ending as before I had the new tank cycled for transfer, Epistylis ravaged the tank, even with 2 additional filters and weekly water changes. Antibiotics are impossible to get in northern Canada quickly for pets. So I cycled the 20 gallon and popped in harlequin rasboras, a couple Amano shrimp and 3 albino corydoras. The powerhead driven under gravel filter with matten bottom (an idea from Gardenman from ACO) and small canister filter kept that tank crystal clear and still does. Then the addiction kicked in again... three 37 gallon tall tanks fully stocked & planted, two 10 gallon planted neocaridina (Sunkist, Blue Dream & Yellows) tanks with Daisy's & Platinum ricefish and a 5 gallon red cherry tank with a booming daphnia culture that helps feed the critters (Ember tetras, glowlight tetras, Glofish tetras, cherry barbs, Blue eyed red neons & Gertrudes CPO dwarf crays round out the stock)- all in my living room. The culls and babies are paying for the renovations and equipment in the basement fish room. Almost 30 years later, here we go again. Anyone else get vacuumed back into the hobby? 😊

ACO Easy Fry Food? Do you culture daphnia for them?