EASY live food cultures

[Guppysnail]

My new (not yet revealed) fish require live foods to thrive. I STINK at “liquid” live food cultures.  Outside of BBS my liquid culture attempt have been EPIC failures..2 smashed vinegar eel cultures and stinky carpet, a daphnia culture gone rogue turning into a mosquito larvae culture (in the house 🤣) Hubby was very grumpy 😂 multiple rancid toxic waste biohazard gooey infusoria attempts. 🤢 

Hubby and I came to an agreement liquid cultures and potentially smelly cultures are banned along with anything that can grow up and bite him. Outside of that he is crazy patient with all my insect cultures for reptiles and amphibians. 
 

Kudos and total admiration to folks like @modified lung who can do all the tiny fascinating cultures. And the awesome Big Bad Blackworm Tower…I am NOT one of those. Of all worm and insect populations I’ve kept for fun or reptile/amphibian food for some unknown cosmic reason black worms totally squinch me out in person though fascinating on the net 🤷‍♀️ Still love @Atitagain Black worm setup also. 
 

Needless to say all my failures resulted in me being intimidated by live foods and not obtaining several fish I really want that require them.  Gup is all about adventure and not allowing things to intimidate her so I went on a quest to figure out some EASY live foods that anyone can easily sustain (that are not on hubby’s ban list)

So far my list includes these  some I already have been sustaining and some I’m obtaining as we speak and scuds I’m in the learning process before procuring. 

BBS (of course)

white worms (in transit from seller)

banana worms

grindal worms

microworms

seed shrimp, detritus worms, rhabdocoela and copepods (obtained from my tanks) in a culture for density and easy feeding to fish (technically a liquid culture so hidden on a windowsill in the fishroom will add an airstone if I get called out on it so it’s then a tank vs culture 🤣)

Scuds (still learning about them)

If Gup can do this, anyone can do this.  So please share your experience with these or any other EASY live foods, ask questions and learn along with me or just read the crazy old lady adventure for a good laugh 😂 

Here is a video of where I’m keeping a few cultures  I’ll make separate entries for each and how I did them and fun fish feeding videos as I get a chance  

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Jmhowe09]

Quote

2 smashed vinegar eel cultures and stinky carpet

I have found that vinegar eels are very easy to keep! Granted, I only have 5 tanks to feed. I keep them in a few glass beer bottles with polyfill in the neck to separate the vinegar, then add tap water to the top. This makes harvesting them super easy and I only have to top it off with tap water after harvesting. 

 

I found that I have a billion seed shrimp in my 2.5 gallon shrimp tank, and am considering trying to harvest/cultivate these. I did nothing to culture them, they just showed up in the tank. It may be worth a try? 

 

Sorry, I'm not much help, but best of luck to you! 

[Guppysnail]

On 8/23/2022 at 8:22 AM, Jmhowe09 said:

I have found that vinegar eels are very easy to keep! Granted, I only have 5 tanks to feed. I keep them in a few glass beer bottles with polyfill in the neck to separate the vinegar, then add tap water to the top. This makes harvesting them super easy and I only have to top it off with tap water after harvesting. 

 

I found that I have a billion seed shrimp in my 2.5 gallon shrimp tank, and am considering trying to harvest/cultivate these. I did nothing to culture them, they just showed up in the tank. It may be worth a try? 

 

Sorry, I'm not much help, but best of luck to you! 

I’m putting finishing touches on the seed shrimp today so I’ll post when I’m done. I had a THRIVING microfauna population in my shrimp/baby snail tanks. I QT’ed least killifish there now I have no microfauna.  Crazy hungry micro predators. From everything I’ve watched on YouTube they are no effort live food to keep and feed to fish. 

[Guppysnail]

@Jmhowe09 here it is. 
 

Seed shrimp/microfauna 

I watched several videos. I liked this one very simple to follow. I grabbed a handful of gravel out of one of my tanks and a tiny chunk of manzanita broken off from in a tank. I gravel vacuumed then stirred the bucket and used that water to collect whatever I could.  (I forgot to empty the bucket from the day before and seen tons of seed shrimp). Hubby’s used juiced bottled.  Some algae, guppy grass, duckweed and frogbit from a tank.  I added 2 cups fresh dechlorinated water. I need to drill another air hole in the lid my airline fits tight. I reconsidered and I am going to add an airstone to really get this going well. So coop nano pump to the rescue.  I added 3 gold bladder snails and a tiny bit of coop easy fry. Once it settles in and I see a decent population I’ll crumble some almond leaves in also. 

HAPPY ADVENTURES…LEARN SOMETHING NEW

[Odd Duck]

If you can grow microworms and banana worms, you can grow vinegar eels in a high density culture - less spillable and no glass involved.  They are grown exactly like microworms/banana worms except you use 1/2 apple cider vinegar and dechlor water as the liquid instead of straight dechlor water.  If the culture gets too dry, you top off with straight vinegar.  They will crawl up the sides just like microworms/banana worms.  The vinegar odor is very minimal - no more noticeable than the faint alcohol odor that develops in micro/banana worm cultures.

[Guppysnail]

On 8/23/2022 at 2:53 PM, Odd Duck said:

If you can grow microworms and banana worms, you can grow vinegar eels in a high density culture - less spillable and no glass involved.  They are grown exactly like microworms/banana worms except you use 1/2 apple cider vinegar and dechlor water as the liquid instead of straight dechlor water.  If the culture gets too dry, you top off with straight vinegar.  They will crawl up the sides just like microworms/banana worms.  The vinegar odor is very minimal - no more noticeable than the faint alcohol odor that develops in micro/banana worm cultures.

Oh my this is fantastic. I had no idea they could be done this way!  😊 Thank you so much!

[Scot]

On 8/23/2022 at 8:16 AM, Guppysnail said:

My new (not yet revealed) fish require live foods to thrive. I STINK at “liquid” live food cultures.  Outside of BBS my liquid culture attempt have been EPIC failures..2 smashed vinegar eel cultures and stinky carpet, a daphnia culture gone rogue turning into a mosquito larvae culture (in the house 🤣) Hubby was very grumpy 😂 multiple rancid toxic waste biohazard gooey infusoria attempts. 🤢 

Hubby and I came to an agreement liquid cultures and potentially smelly cultures are banned along with anything that can grow up and bite him. Outside of that he is crazy patient with all my insect cultures for reptiles and amphibians. 
 

Accidents do happen, and I don't mean to throw kerosene onto the fire, but...

if you check the daphnia cultures daily, you can just skim the mosquito larvae out of the buckets. If you do it every day, you don't even have to catch all of them every day. Fish love mosquito larvae.

My outdoor daphnia cultures grow mostquito larvae as well as water mites. Consider it bonus variety.

[Guppysnail]

On 8/23/2022 at 3:17 PM, Scot said:

if you check the daphnia cultures daily

Here is where I fail with most cultures. I’m absent minded and if I’m not actively feeding a week or two go by and I remember I have live cultures 🤣. 
My fish loved the mosquito larvae my hubby… not at all. 

[SimmonsSnailsNScales]

I have a 10 gallon aquarium with thousands of bladder snails in it that I have been farming to feed future puffers. I have hornwort and a sponge filter in there. Not only are the snails thriving but I have had a huge scud population increase. The scuds are populating so fast that they are beginning to eat the horn wort faster than it can grow even though I keep adding green beans to the tank. If you have hornwort that you trim out of another tank that you could keep adding to the scud tank this may be sustainable. I have not found a way to easily collect the scuds though....

[modified lung]

Here's a collection of my favorite live feeds I'm either currently growing or have grown in the past.

 

GREENWATER

First, I grow many of my live feeds on greenwater. Greenwater becomes the most nutritious when grown in a low P environment. I grow my greenwater with Vigoro Fruit, Nut, & Citrus fertilizer because of the low P content (NPK 10/4/7).

P is also the limiting nutrient for greenwater growth. When the cultures start to lighten up, I supplement with a little P fertilizer. Before feeding the greenwater to anything I usually make sure there isn't more than 1.0 ppm total ammonia left in the culture or dilute the feeding.

Growing greenwater is not as straight forward as you might think. Not all greenwater is the same or useful. For example, this is a a "non-branching filamentous microalgae":

Filter feeders, like Daphnia and Moina, can't eat this. If you've ever tried raising filter feeders with greenwater and it never seemed to clear out, it might be because they couldn't feed on the type that happened to grow for you. But if your live feed grazes instead of filters, then this kind of greenwater seems to be fine in my experience.

 

WATER FLEAS (General)

Here's my collection of water fleas (Moina, Simocephalus, Ceriodaphnia, Daphnia):

I mostly grow them in gallon jars indoors and 5 gallon buckets on the front porch. For the buckets I cut a hole in the lid with window screen glued over to keep mosquitos out.

Many water fleas do 80% of their feeding in the hours after sunrise and before sunset. Feeding right before these times improved my results by quite a lot. However, they also mostly stop feeding a few hours after dark which means over feeding becomes a bigger risk near the end of the day.

If you need a lot of water fleas, try filling some outdoor containers a foot deep with water and throw in a hand full of manure or composted leaf matter. Extremely dense cultures can be grown this way. If everything goes right, no addition feed needs to be added for months. In fact, using this method with Daphnia, with zero intervention they lasted from January to May until it got too hot (zone 9b climate). This year I'll try to extend the time with some shade cloth. Wish I thought of that sooner.

 

DAPHNIA

The heat killed all my Daphnia a few months ago (they don't reproduce much above 80°F) but they left me lots of eggs. The black specks at the water surface are the eggs. I finally got some to hatch this week. Turns out they need a cold period. Two weeks in the refrigerator did it. Check out the little hatcher swimming by:

I raise indoor cultures of Daphnia on greenwater. They don't like too much at once though. I keep dried spirulina powder around as backup but I like to avoid dried feeds that can foul the water. The manure or compost method works extremely well outdoors.

Easy to raise if using good greenwater but can be a bit finicky, especially during the summer. The most challenging part is balancing their feed. Too much and they crash, too little and they don't grow. They're also sensitive to change. When you bring home a starter culture, it's common for most of them to die off just from the difference in your base water. If a few survive and reproduce, the offspring are adapted to your water and things get easier.

 

CERIODAPHNIA 

Ceriodaphnia isn't a very conventional feed. They are in the same family as Daphnia but much smaller. Baby Ceriodaphnia are even smaller than baby brine shrimp. In fact, because of these guys, I don't hatch BBS at all anymore. Good riddens. 

A few can be put in a bottle of thick greenwater and a week or two later you'll have clear water and a ton of Ceriodaphnia. Once established, these guys can survive with very little food. But if you want them to reproduce, I often see a population boom after adding a little spirulina powder. The manure method also works. 

Ceriodaphnia aren't as sensitive as Daphnia. They can definitely handle hotter temperatures. The only crash I've had is after accidently adding way too much spirulina powder which settled and rotted.

Very easy to raise. I highly recommend. In the wild they can be found in the same environment as Daphnia. But their presence seems to depend on the absence of Daphnia which easily outcompetes them for food. When most of the food runs out or temperatures go much above 80°F, Daphnia populations tend to be replaced by Ceriodaphnia.

 

I'll do some more tomorrow...

 

 

Edited August 24, 2022 by modified lung
Added to Daphnia, added to Water Fleas

[Guppysnail]

@modified lung do your scuds eat fish eggs?  I had not thought of that until I read another thread about inverts eating eggs. 

[Atitagain]

I need to study and practice some of these cultures. When I had more time I planned on learning a few of them starting with blackworms, that culture is still thriving. I know my breeding plans will not succeed very easily without some of the different micro-foods. I’m so glad you started this thread, i will definitely be learning with you, the video you showed and other research I’ve done make most of them seem so easy. 

[Guppysnail]

On 8/24/2022 at 4:54 AM, Atitagain said:

I need to study and practice some of these cultures. When I had more time I planned on learning a few of them starting with blackworms, that culture is still thriving. I know my breeding plans will not succeed very easily without some of the different micro-foods. I’m so glad you started this thread, i will definitely be learning with you, the video you showed and other research I’ve done make most of them seem so easy. 

So far ridiculous easy set and forget. I’ll post the how to I used today. All require-either instant potato’s and water or coconut coir and cat/dog food. 

Microworms and banana worms I used Cory’s method of just instant mashed potatos and water. I did not use yeast. I cut a large hole and covered in ACO filter floss pulled apart to 2 sheets in the lid vs small holes  to keep out insects  

 

Edited August 24, 2022 by Guppysnail

[Guppysnail]

GRINDAL WORMS 

The grindal worms are the blue lids  

 

I used coconut coir.  These bricks make mountains of loose medium when opened and hydrated. 

I soak a piece of high end high protein dry cat food (I use science diet) to feed the worms. I’m hoping using the high quality I feed my cats will impart (gut load) the worms with better nutritional value. I’m thinking of trying some of the vitamin gut load I use for my beardie and frogs insect feeders. I’ll test it on one culture. I went with multiple cultures for each in case one crashed and so I could harvest on alternate days. 

Standard ziploc container with holes in the top. Or I cut a big hole and cover with ACO filter floss pulled open to 2 sheets. This is a pic of the lid for my microworms since my grindal worms came preset in nice little containers. I prefer floss over holes so no insects or fruit flies get in. 

Wet down the coconut fiber and squeeze a bit so it’s not drippy. Soak a piece of cat food in water until soft and place it in the center. I cut up a separate ziploc container so I had a piece of flat plastic to sit in the center over the cat food. 
 

Put it in a cabinet and your done. Just remember to feed and water them just like any pet. The worms coat the piece of plastic covering the food for a clean harvest  

Here is the tutorial video I learned from. 

 

Edited August 24, 2022 by Guppysnail

[modified lung]

On 8/24/2022 at 1:39 AM, Guppysnail said:

@modified lung do your scuds eat fish eggs?  I had not thought of that until I read another thread about inverts eating eggs. 

They don't seem to eat live eggs. I'm guessing they'll eat dead eggs but I've never actually seen that either. Scuds are always hiding from my CPDs in their egg catching container and it's still always filled with eggs.

They don't eat shrimp either like lots of people think. But they'll definitely outcompete shrimp.

[modified lung]

On 8/24/2022 at 5:12 AM, modified lung said:

They don't seem to eat live eggs. I'm guessing they'll eat dead eggs but I've never actually seen that either. Scuds are always hiding from my CPDs in their egg catching container and it's still always filled with eggs.

They don't eat shrimp either like lots of people think. But they'll definitely outcompete shrimp.

@Guppysnail I saw where this question came from now. I just wanted to add I regularly find up to 30 scuds of all ages in the egg catchers (which are just small deli containers) along with a bunch of nice looking eggs. I only collect the eggs every 2 or 3 days so I'm confident the scuds aren't eating them. The scuds are usually clinging to small pieces of plant matter in there.

Edited August 24, 2022 by modified lung

[modified lung]

MOINA 

I had doubts but these Moina eggs I bought on Amazon actually hatched:

I placed the eggs straight from the package into a jar of greenwater and ten days later I saw the first Moina hopping around. 

Moina are a lot less sensitive to food concentrations, temperature, and changing conditions than Daphnia. I also grow these on greenwater. However, they seem to do a lot better on Chlorella specifically.

They'll also grow to high density in very small containers much better than other water fleas. I have series of five old salsa jars that grow enough Moina to feed a few tanks everyday. I poor out half of the water from each through a net, feed out the collected Moina, and refill with greenwater. That's all.

Very easy. I definitely recommend Moina over Daphnia. The only difficulty is they can't very easily eat species of greenwater with too large of a cell which you'd need a microscope to see. Otherwise dry feed like spirulina powder and yeast work but using those requires more maintenance and effort. Nobody likes maintenance and effort.

 

SIMOCEPHALUS 

Another unconventional feed. Simocephalus are in the same family as Daphnia. They have a much smoother swimming action and like to cling to surfaces.

These graze more often than filter feed which means it doesn't matter what's in your greenwater (or powder feeds) or if it settles to the bottom. They can also feed on suspended bacteria as a major part of their diet. Adding a dab of molasses to some water will induce a bacteria bloom which makes easy food for them. Or just put a small amount of manure in a jar and they will eat both the manure and the bacteria that grows on it.

If you really want to go maintenance free, keep a small population in a window jar. No adding feed necessary. They'll even survive +100°F window jar water. 

In fact, Simocephalus are almost ...too easy. Once they find their way into a container, good luck getting rid of them. Clean, sanitize, fill that container with water, put it in the window, and suddenly it fills itself with Simocephalus again. To be honest, I have no idea where my first Simocephalus came from. They just appeared in a jar one day. Their eggs must be too small to see.

This can be great because even if I accidentally kill them all, I know they'll come back. But often times I've been trying to grow something else and then suddenly Simocephalus everywhere and nothing else. I've completely ran out of greenwater before because they got into my jars and ate it all which is why I now always keep spirulina powder around for backup. But if you have trouble keeping live feed alive, these are for you.

Grab some random mud or plant matter from a pond put them in a window jar full of water and I suspect you might find yourself with some of these. I think this is how I got my first Simocephalus because the other places they appeared for me early on were in buckets and barrels with wild collected pond muck, hornwort, and elodea.

 

That's it for water fleas. More tomorrow...

 

Edited August 24, 2022 by modified lung
Added to Simocephalus

[Guppysnail]

On 8/24/2022 at 6:10 PM, modified lung said:

Simocephalus

How would I get these specific things?  Are they sold on eBay/Amazon. In my older body going to the local river collecting is no longer an option. 

[Patrick_G]

On 8/23/2022 at 5:16 AM, Guppysnail said:

My new (not yet revealed) fish require live foods

🤔 

Licorice gourami? Badis? What could it be? 🙂

[modified lung]

On 8/24/2022 at 3:24 PM, Guppysnail said:

How would I get these specific things?  Are they sold on eBay/Amazon. In my older body going to the local river collecting is no longer an option. 

 

On 8/24/2022 at 3:24 PM, Guppysnail said:

How would I get these specific things?  Are they sold on eBay/Amazon. In my older body going to the local river collecting is no longer an option. 

Unfortunately the owners of the only business I know of that sold them retired last year. I'm always willing to send some out given adequate leeway for procrastination.

[Guppysnail]

On 8/24/2022 at 6:44 PM, Patrick_G said:

🤔

Licorice gourami? Badis? What could it be? 🙂

Scarlet badis. I just did the reveal in my journal. I’ve also wanted Ellasoma gilberti or okefenokee for a few years and 1soooo hard to find and 2 the live food thing kept me from hunting them down. So next goal. 😁

[TeeJay]

I have never tried doing live food cultures. What should I start with lol

[Guppysnail]

Live baby brine of course 😁 but actual cultures vs just hatching grindal worms are good for Pygmy and crazy easy. 

[TeeJay]

On 8/24/2022 at 9:15 PM, Guppysnail said:

Live baby brine of course 😁 but actual cultures vs just hatching grindal worms are good for Pygmy and crazy easy. 

Well I'm going to have to look those guys up.

[TeeJay]

On 8/24/2022 at 9:15 PM, Guppysnail said:

Live baby brine of course 😁 but actual cultures vs just hatching grindal worms are good for Pygmy and crazy easy. 

I like the vinegar eels too. Seems pretty easy. And they can just sit in a bottle on the shelves for months and just harvest as needed.