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Growing your own live feed!

Reuben

Reuben

Member
Joined
17 Feb 2013
Messages
179
I keep seeing people mention various ways in which you can 'culture' various small bugs to feed fish.

What different types of things are there? Which are the most simple to do? Which are the best/most nutritious for fish?

Has this all be covered before (I did search but couldn't find much)? Is there a tutorial so I can have a go at this?

Thanks
 
Some live food to consider:

White worms
Microworms
Daphnia
Mosquito Larvae
Brine shrimps
banana worms

I'm sure there are more much I have missed. Regarding the question about nutrients its really to do with what you feed to the culture. For example, things like brine shrimp will lose its nutritious value as they get older so what people tend to do is feed their brine shrimps with other food stuff such as spirilina and fish food etc prior to feeding their fish.

People culture different live foods for different needs, things like microworms are great for feeding fry such as betta fish fry as they have small mouths from personal experience I find small tetras will also love 'em. For growing out fish I have seen people use whiteworms, Daphina and Mosquito larvae, usually the larger type of live food. So it best to fidn out what you wan't to achieve then find out what food suits your need the most, not just its simplicity in culturing.

Which are most simple food to culture? It depends but personally I find Microworms easy to culture, I've never tried but Mosquito larvae sounds as simple as putting water in a bucket with dead leaves outside. There are a lot of vids on youtube which provide great details on culturing your own live food for fish.

Outside of livefood I often see people make their own food for feeding fish, these may include the use of vegetables like spinach and meat like beef heart or white fish and prawns. The great thing about making your own food overall be it live or DIY is that you know what your feeding the fish and its possible nutrient content. DIY fish food allows you to feed fish and observe which types of food stuff mix they prefer to eat and eventually you can tailor the food to the fishes' needs and wants.

Michael.
 
Thanks for the info. I just have tetras. I was just wanting to give them something interesting to eat, and presume it is more 'natural' than dry flake. Where do people get the first few Daphinia, microworm ect, to get started from?
 
Reuben said:
Thanks for the info. I just have tetras. I was just wanting to give them something interesting to eat, and presume it is more 'natural' than dry flake. Where do people get the first few Daphinia, microworm ect, to get started from?
Click to expand...

LFS such as MA sell bags of live food you could use to get started. I have a neighbours rain water butt on the boundry of our property, STUFFED full of daphnia and mosquito larvae so quite often out there late at night having a swish around ;) She's a very au naturel (not the nude type thank god!!), never uses chemicals on her garden etc so it's safe as.

You have BP's don't you? They love a bit of daphnia.
 
Did some experimentation with my microworm cultures recently.

1. The brand of oats you use doesn't matter at all
2. Some recipes say sprinkle some dried yeast on top of the oatmeal. This does boost growth in the first 7-10 days but after that there's no difference anymore and cultures with yeast tend to go smelly a lot quicker.
 
For Micro Worms I also just use a slice of white bread, just wet it to make it damp and chuck it in the tub.
 
Hi all,
wijnands said:
This does boost growth in the first 7-10 days but after that there's no difference anymore and cultures with yeast tend to go smelly a lot quicker.
Click to expand...
You don't need to add any yeast to the Banana or micro-worm cultures, the yeast comes with the worms. The reason you get a boost in production is that the worms themselves actually eat the yeast, not the Oats. I now use whole oats for both Grindal and micro-worms, I grind the Oats up for the Grindals in a pestle and mortar. It is a lot cheaper buying "rolled oats" than the "instant oat cereal" that I used to use for the Grindal worms.

I now add a small amount of microworms (yeast really) to my Fruit-fly cultures as well, the advantage of this is that it stops them developing the "blue mould", and I now just use "weetabix" and banana as the media, and I don't need to sterilise the jars etc. It also gives you a spare "insurance" micro-worm culture.

cheers Darrel
 
If anyone is still looking i have Microworm, Banana work, Infusoria and daphnia cultures going.
I have these going all year round so if anyone ever needs any give me a shout :)
 
I've got microworms and white worms if anyone want some.Will post at your cost,just let me know.
 
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