Anyone get good starter culture from amazon/ebay

[Odd Duck]

@KentFishFanUK I may be crazy, but this kind of thing is fun for me.  It took only a few minutes of “food prep” and a few minutes of observation for each feeding.  And isn’t feeding the fish the most fun part anyway?

@Torrey Since I left the cotton with water above it overnight to collect a *lot* of eels, there was a distinct vinegar odor to the collected eels and water I pipetted off the top of the culture.  It was nowhere near the full strength of the culture, but still notable.  Not enough to worry me when adding small amounts to a 10G or a 12G (especially with my liquid rock), but potentially a legit concern if feeding into a small container of tiny fry.

Previously when I collected eels after a shorter time frame, I didn’t notice any more than the faintest trace of vinegar odor to the collected eels and water.  I wouldn’t expect it to be an issue in that situation, but it would probably be smart to always have water ready to do a partial water change after feeding vinegar eels if there isn’t active water circulation from a larger body of water in the fry grow out containers.

Very good point about the size of the mouth!  Chilis certainly have tiny little mouths and that isn’t such an issue with pea puffers.

Overall, I’m glad I did this little test because it definitely pointed out a gap in the sizes of live foods I have.  Since part of my reason for getting the tiny live food cultures was to be able to raise pea puffers if mine can be convinced to breed, I need to fill this gap.  I’ll also be glad to be able to feed other kinds of fry if they happen.

I completely agree on amphipods.  I suction them out of my shrimp tanks regularly to keep them under control.  Those go straight in the pea puffer tanks.  Great fun for the puffers and more nutritional variety for them.  I should probably do a tank for amphipods, too.  I’d love to figure out a way to reduce their numbers even more in the shrimp tanks.

If anyone has tips for me for Daphnia cultures, I’m all ears because I’ve completely failed at them x 3 tries.  I’ve done 10 and 5 gallon tanks by themselves (partial depth only), with blackworms, even with blackworms and snails.  Always with low flow sponge filters, 25-50% weekly water changes, removing water with old panty hose over the end of the siphon while using a light to draw them away from the siphon.  Trading off between feeding yeast, Sera micron, and fine spirulina powder.  I can’t grow green water to save my life unless I’m growing it in a display tank.  🤦🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️  I’ve not had any crashes, the cultures just slowly faded away.  I had the best luck by themselves and zero luck when I tried to grow them in the same tank with anything else.  I’ve had cultures long enough they had to be reproducing, but can’t seem to keep them going long term.

[Odd Duck]

On 7/21/2021 at 9:17 AM, KentFishFanUK said:

No worries, yeah you are probably right they are probably just too small for adults. Will have to look into white worms and black worms etc! 

I think I read somewhere that you have to he careful the black worms don't establish themselves and infest your substrate too much, have you had any issues at all?

My Endlers and Neon Tetras seem to be just fine eating off the bottom alongside my cories so probably won't matter where in the tank their food goes! 

And yes I've noticed your writing is fantastic, if you do some journalling especially with pictures as well I will definitely be reading! 

Thanks for your replies. 

I’ve tried to get blackworms established in my substrate but between corys or pea puffers, they didn’t stand a chance.  I haven’t put them in any shrimp tanks, of course, so I can’t speak to a tank that doesn’t have corys or puffers in it.  Blackworms don’t truly reproduce in tanks, they’re a larvae.  We can make them “reproduce” in a way because stirring them breaks them and each part will regenerate the broken part they lost.

[Torrey]

@Odd Duck I got the amphipods out of my shrimp tank by temporarily rehousing the shrimp in a QT tank.

 

Siphoned out **all** the water (and vacuumed the gravel), then transferred the water (and ~50 amphipoda) to the newly dedicated rearing tank.

 

Refilled, and added assassin snail to finish off the rest. After 4-5 days, the assassin snail is ready to go back to its tank, and shrimp can be returned to their tank.

[Odd Duck]

@Torrey Thank you for this info.  It sounds like the most effective method I’ve heard so far.  I guess I’ll have to round up a couple assassin snails.  But I have to have a QT tank available first, so it will have to wait a couple weeks.  I’ll keep aspirating them out in the mean time.

Edited July 30, 2021 by Odd Duck