Vinegar eels - how to collect them

[Karen B.]

Greetings!

I saw Cory’s trick to put some floss in the neck of a bottle and pour water.

But I am paranoid that I may push it too far, that the vinegar solution will affect my fry.

Plus it worked for some times, and now no more worms are coming up. I am kinda panicking because I hace clown killifish fry currently hatching.

I bought a new worn culture but until then, what can I do? The fish don’t seem to want to eat the Hikari first bite.

[Fish Folk]

25 minutes ago, Karen B. said:

Greetings!

I saw Cory’s trick to put some floss in the neck of a bottle and pour water.

But I am paranoid that I may push it too far, that the vinegar solution will affect my fry.

Plus it worked for some times, and now no more worms are coming up. I am kinda panicking because I hace clown killifish fry currently hatching.

I bought a new worn culture but until then, what can I do? The fish don’t seem to want to eat the Hikari first bite.

Here is what we do for harvesting our vinegar eels for feeding our Killis...

 

[Karen B.]

1 hour ago, Fish Folk said:

Here is what we do for harvesting our vinegar eels for feeding our Killis...

 

Love love love that you have a dedicated tank for your fry. So cute!

Thanks for the baking soda trick. The liquid mix of water/baking soda/apple cider vinegar do not bother the fish?

How long will the eel survive in the baking soda?

[Perrow]

• I pour some of the culture into another container.
• I place a funnel into the flask I keep my culture in and a coffee filter in the funnel.
• Pour the culture back into the flask through the filter.
• When all vinegar has filtered through I "wash" the filter in some tank or tap water (we have low chlorine and not much else to worry about in our water).
• Then just pour the water into one or more tanks.

I typically reuse the filter many times. Oh, and I "split" the filters so I have a continuous piece of filter paper with no seam, the seams (on my filters at least) have bigger holes that does'n matter when you make coffee but the vinegar flows right through.

Edited May 20, 2021 by Perrow

[Lowells Fish Lab]

18 hours ago, Perrow said:

• I pour some of the culture into another container.
• I place a funnel into the flask I keep my culture in and a coffee filter in the funnel.

Learned from this, great idea! 

I pour mine into a mini coffee filter (one of those reusable Keurig style) and rinse with tap water. Culture liquid is lost the way I do it.

I never worried about dumping the liquid because apple cider vinegar is cheap. What you're doing is so much more conservative though, why waste anything if you don't have to? 

Thanks!

[Jim b]

Place cotton ball on top of culture and slowly pour water to slightly higher than  cotton ball. Eels will swim through cotton to get air. Takes 30 minutes or more. Use eye dropper to suck up eels in water to feed fry.

[FrostiesFishes]

I just use a wine bottle like in aquarium coops fish room tour of Greg sage. You don’t need much and I don’t worry about it effecting my ph, as I’m only putting in a few table spoons. 

[Marlies]

I started with using a bottle with a long small neck to put in a piece of cotton and (very gently) pour fresh water on top so I can just collect the vinegar eels from the fresh water. But it can really take a while for them to collect in the fresh water. So when you have very intense care fry, it can be a benefit to be able to collect a lot faster.

Since I also have sieves to harvest infusoria, I just used those. I pour a bit through a 38 micron filter and then collect what is left in the 10 micron sieve below that. That way I can wash them before I feed them. The 38 micron also collects the bigger vinegar eels. I just put those back in the culture. 

 

(unfortunately my fry don't seem to go for them though).

[Hobbit]

On 5/18/2021 at 9:50 PM, Karen B. said:

But I am paranoid that I may push it too far, that the vinegar solution will affect my fry.

If your fry are in a relatively large container and the container shares water with an even larger tank, like the commercial fry boxes do, a few drops of vinegar will dissipate quickly. To be extra safe, the baking soda trick works well to neutralize the acid. And the resulting solution is perfectly safe. 🙂

On 5/18/2021 at 9:50 PM, Karen B. said:

Plus it worked for some times, and now no more worms are coming up. I am kinda panicking because I hace clown killifish fry currently hatching.

Hmm. You may have over-harvested, or your filter floss may be too tight for them to get through? I’m sure there are still some below the filter floss, but their population may be a little small. How long has it been since you saw eels above the floss?

[Hobbit]

3 hours ago, Marlies said:

(unfortunately my fry don't seem to go for them though).

I’m in the same boat. 😛

On 5/18/2021 at 9:50 PM, Karen B. said:

I bought a new worn culture but until then, what can I do? The fish don’t seem to want to eat the Hikari first bite.

You could always find a local lake, pond, or large puddle and grab a jar of water from there. It will have lots of microorganisms your fry can eat!