"Free" sources of live food?

[Schuyler]

I've heard of people collecting daphnia from ponds, leaving buckets out to collect mosquito larvae, and feeding fruit flies to their fish.

I'm a garden so I know with my luck, in about 3 months I'll have a strong supply of aphids. Has anyone tried feeding aphids? Assuming I don't spray my plants that seems like it could be safe

Has anyone tried anything else?

[Fish Folk]

I like feeding live outdoor foods to live outdoor fish in tubs, mini ponds, etc. But there are risks to your fishroom that are hard to recover from when too much outdoors / wild stuff takes over in your in-house tanks.

I recommended choosing live foods you can propagate _indoors_ without too much trouble. Daphnia are excellent. But you need to start a few cultures, and really figure out the best way to propagate them. I have tried… unsuccessfully… a few times. Now, many aquarists like keeping Daphnia outside, and feeding them through the season. Risks are there, but Daphnia seems less problematic than others.

I feed _some_ mosquito larvae to native fish species. But anything not hunted down and devoured becomes mosquitoes indoors 😬

Live blackworms are great if you can propagate them. But they can be more work than they’re worth.

White worms and Grindal worms are great. But there’s daily work involved. And it can be gross.

I’m meeting with a sage live foods guy next week. I’ll try to learn more, and share.

[anewbie]

On 3/10/2023 at 1:40 PM, Fish Folk said:

I like feeding live outdoor foods to live outdoor fish in tubs, mini ponds, etc. But there are risks to your fishroom that are hard to recover from when too much outdoors / wild stuff takes over in your in-house tanks.

I recommended choosing live foods you can propagate _indoors_ without too much trouble. Daphnia are excellent. But you need to start a few cultures, and really figure out the best way to propagate them. I have tried… unsuccessfully… a few times. Now, many aquarists like keeping Daphnia outside, and feeding them through the season. Risks are there, but Daphnia seems less problematic than others.

I feed _some_ mosquito larvae to native fish species. But anything not hunted down and devoured becomes mosquitoes indoors 😬

Live blackworms are great if you can propagate them. But they can be more work than they’re worth.

White worms and Grindal worms are great. But there’s daily work involved. And it can be gross.

I’m meeting with a sage live foods guy next week. I’ll try to learn more, and share.

Please post what you learn in a sep thread. I'd like to raise some not too hard food for frys and adults. I currently hatch bbs but that is a pia given the short life of nutrient. Vaguely i've heard vinegar eels are a good route but don't know factually if that is true. I've heard negative stuff on daphnia esp if they go too far...

[TOtrees]

It's all about cost vs benefit. 

Specifically, what's the benefit to you, and the fish you keep? If the benefit is high enough, then the time, resources and risks (all costs) of venturing beyond bbs and daphnia (the two easiest live foods, IMO) start to make sense. 

I have a small basement fish room with around 15-20 tanks. I make enough in private and lfs sales to mostly support my hobby, even including new fish purchases (some high price), buying new tanks on store credit when I need them, covering most of my fish food, etc. I currently do bbs every other day and have a main and a backup daphnia culture. I've tried microworms and grindal worms, but gave it up because the benefit wasn't worth the cost. For me. I collect in the spring from vernal ponds for fun (chaoborus, skeeters, fairy shrimp), but I don't bother trying to culture these, I just feed them to the tanks over a few days. 

You might look at vinegar worms (super simple), and also brine shrimp (ie growing the bbs out to larger size). The latter would need a salt water tank, but it doesn't have to be like marine type water quality or filtration. As always, I think there are coop vids in the way-back machine that show outdoor brine shrimp tubs. 

[Rube_Goldfish]

@Lowells Fish Lab makes vinegar eels and moina look pretty simple, though not wild caught, and the latter cultured outdoors

[Schuyler]

On 3/10/2023 at 4:25 PM, Rube_Goldfish said:

@Lowells Fish Lab makes vinegar eels and moina look pretty simple, though not wild caught, and the latter cultured outdoors

Yeah his big daphnia culture is intense.

From what I've seen in the few months I've kept them, vinegar eels are super easy. You can almost just set them up and then forget about them.

[gardenman]

Regarding aphids specifically, I've had them on lily pads in my pond before and dipped the pads underwater and my goldfish ate the aphids without any issues. It's the world's easiest aphid control.