Needed new product

[Jason A.]

So I've looked and I can only buy this product over ebay from out of country. I would love to breed some chili rasbora and for that I need infusoria and I've failed creating an infinsoria culture 3 times and I'm worried if I try a 4th it could cause irreparable harm to my marriage( seriously the look on my wife's face! Omg!) This product could help me so much and I'm sure a lot of other spouses as well. This product as I understand it is very much like brine shrimp where you add product to water and wait and boom you get live food for your fish.

[GameCzar]

Let us know your experiences with it.   Is it prohibitively expensive?

[Griznatch]

How are you trying to start a culture.. just curious. I've only ever tried the piece of lettuce in tank water, sitting in a window.

[Daniel]

In a nutshell, search for the tag 'green water' on this forum. Read what to do to get rid of it, and then do the complete opposite and you will have infusoria out the yin yang.

One of the frequent problems encountered on the forum is what do about 'green water'. The cool thing about the 'green water' is that it is really just a microscopic free floating algae bloom that serves as the food for paramecium and rotifers, i.e. infusoria.

Here is what green water looks like under the microscope.

The standard solutions for getting rid of green water are to cut back on light and remove the source of the excess fertilizer from the tank.

You can see where I am going with this. Excess light and a source of nitrogen are the recipe to produce a lot of infusoria in a short amount of time. The usual formula is a lettuce leaf in a jar placed in sunlight and left until the water is cloudy. But what I use is an overly well lit aquarium with soil for substrate. Sort of a Walstad gone wild type setup. These things turn green in a heart beat and will stay that way for months.

Dirt plus sunlight in an aquarium equals green water, it is almost mathematical. Here is what my 1930s tank (in front of a south facing window) looked like for a few months after I put an inch of dirt in as substrate.

In the meantime, I used that green water, which also had paramecium and rotifers in it to feed fry, like baby sparkling gouramis.

 It is a paradox that the people who don't want green water can't get rid it, while others can't seem to make it happen. 🙂

 

 

[Jason A.]

I've tried taking organic lettuce and putting it in a half gallon jar then pouring boiling water over it filling halfway then letting it fully cool and next day filling rest with tank Water and even some plant trimmings, and set it by the window but with second and third time that I tried I had used a lamp to give some extra light did that with my tank water twice and then 3rd time I got tank water from my local fish store and ended all same, stuff decayed and water turned brown and I got b.... talked to by the wife

[Griznatch]

Not to de-rail the topic, but really cool cast iron sewing machine stand! Ahh, the memories of pinched fingers and toes as a kid, lol...

[Daniel]

On 8/2/2021 at 5:12 PM, Jason A. said:

I've tried taking organic lettuce and putting it in a half gallon jar then pouring boiling water over it filling halfway then letting it fully cool and next day filling rest with tank Water and even some plant trimmings, and set it by the window but with second and third time that I tried I had used a lamp to give some extra light did that with my tank water twice and then 3rd time I got tank water from my local fish store and ended all same, stuff decayed and water turned brown and I got b.... talked to by the wife

Put dirt/ditch soil/grass clippings in a 5 gallon bucket in bright sunlight for a couple weeks and if that doesn't turn green, I'll give you your money back. 🙂

Or put excess aquarium plant fertilizer in a 10 gallon aquarium with something like a Fluval 3.0 running 18 hours a day and if that doesn't give you green water....

[Griznatch]

On 8/2/2021 at 3:12 PM, Jason A. said:

I've tried taking organic lettuce and putting it in a half gallon jar then pouring boiling water over it filling halfway then letting it fully cool and next day filling rest with tank Water and even some plant trimmings, and set it by the window but with second and third time that I tried I had used a lamp to give some extra light did that with my tank water twice and then 3rd time I got tank water from my local fish store and ended all same, stuff decayed and water turned brown and I got b.... talked to by the wife

Bummer, I wish you were local, I'd give you gallons of the green stuff.

[Griznatch]

On 8/2/2021 at 3:20 PM, Daniel said:

Put dirt/ditch soil/grass clippings in a 5 gallon bucket in bright sunlight for a couple weeks and if that doesn't turn green, I'll give you your money back. 🙂

Or put excess aquarium plant fertilizer in a 10 gallon aquarium with something like a Fluval 3.0 running 18 hours a day and if that doesn't give you green water....

This might be a better solution. Instead of stinking up a windowsill, or having rotting vegetation in the house, outside in a bucket would be better. Think of the stuff you used to see in a  summer mud puddle when you were a kid. That green slimy stuff in there was teeming with life. That's why they were always full of beetles, tadpoles etc..

[Odd Duck]

I can grow green water like nobody’s business in my display tanks, but in a culture tank?  Hasn’t happened yet.  And I waaaaaay overfeed my snail culture tanks.  Plus they get some sun on top of full spectrum plant lights (the used ones I got cheap and second hand).

If I was smarter, I’d have saved a bunch of green water in a jug.  In fact, I’ve got a little going in Bad Pea Daddy’s tank and I’ve got a sun tea jar that’s sitting around, wasting space.  I’m going to go set something up right now!

[GameCzar]

On 8/2/2021 at 4:38 PM, Odd Duck said:

I can grow green water like nobody’s business in my display tanks, but in a culture tank?  Hasn’t happened yet.  And I waaaaaay overfeed my snail culture tanks.  Plus they get some sun on top of full spectrum plant lights (the used ones I got cheap and second hand).

If I was smarter, I’d have saved a bunch of green water in a jug.  In fact, I’ve got a little going in Bad Pea Daddy’s tank and I’ve got a sun tea jar that’s sitting around, wasting space.  I’m going to go set something up right now!

Your solution is obvious, you simply have to re-name your tanks. 😉

[Odd Duck]

Jar is set up with a handful of dirt, some green water from my little lily pond outside and some of Bad Dad’s water.  Let’s see what happens!  And, no, I'm not doing a journal on it by itself.  😆  It may get a paragraph when I get around to journaling the tank bank.  😂 

[Odd Duck]

On 8/2/2021 at 5:12 PM, GameCzar said:

Your solution is obvious, you simply have to re-name your tanks. 😉

I need more reacts!  😆 😂 🤣