# Live food alert



## BillD (Jun 5, 2006)

A heads up to anyone who keeps fish and has a pool that hasn't been opened yet. Or, perhaps you know someone with a pool. The winter cover should contain a wide variety of aquatic insect larvae such as mosquitos. I grow daphnia on mine, but for the first year since I put in the pool (1987), I have lots of mosquito larvae. Fed a bunch of predacious water beetle larvae to my severums. They are not something to put in with small fish as they are voracious an have disproportionately large mandibles.
Anyway, for anyone interested now is the time.


----------



## AquariAM (Jan 28, 2010)

Just rinse the crapp out of em. 
Nothing ever stays the saaame

pa-pa-paaathogensss


----------



## Ciddian (Mar 15, 2006)

I just opened mine... D: But I was so distracted with getting the darn cover off for my mom I totally forgot. The water underneath is still fresh thou. Maybe I will have a peek after a couple of days.


----------



## BillD (Jun 5, 2006)

AquariAM said:


> Just rinse the crapp out of em.
> Nothing ever stays the saaame
> 
> pa-pa-paaathogensss


What pathogens are you talking about? I don't rinse mine. They get delivered via hose to my basement into a net and then directly into the tank. Until the cover is off, my fish will have live food in front of them 24/7. This has worked pretty well, every spring since 1995 when I first started my daphnia culture.

Don't know how this got into the equipment section.


----------



## carmenh (Dec 20, 2009)

I usually dump a good portion of the pool cover crud into buckets and harvest larva that looks like bloodworms for weeks but this year we had nothing!

Carmen


----------



## BillD (Jun 5, 2006)

I haven't seen that many bloodworms yet either this year. I think it is early for them, but most people are opening their pools earlier because of the warm weather we've had.


----------



## carmenh (Dec 20, 2009)

I don't know about that, we usually open early, close late  I think it's cuz our liner was really ratty and leaking, so instead on concentrated green water and leaves, it was more diluted...with pool water...still dealing with that!


----------



## Cory (May 2, 2008)

It's still a bit early in the season and weather has been up and down. I've opened ponds early this year too and some which are usually rife with critters at the outset were pretty devoid of small life when I looked. There are probably some conditions, not yet met, which cause most of the little guys to start breeding.


----------



## BillD (Jun 5, 2006)

Probably right Cory. I saw the first batch of swarming midges/gnats last week. My dahnia were slow this year too, even though the ice was melted 3 weeks earlier than usual. I have lots now, but they haven't dropped any cysts yet. lots of juveniles.


----------



## ameekplec. (May 1, 2008)

My folk's pool is devoid of life now too - I think it's just too early in the season. Typically we've opened our pool on the May 24 weekend, and there's tons of stuff going on in there. Last weekend, there wasn't much at all yet.


----------



## carmenh (Dec 20, 2009)

LOL, I have to laugh about this thread. My hubby and friends teased me mercilessly about being the only person on the planet that would spend time picking larvae off a pool cover for the fish  

Carmen


----------



## BillD (Jun 5, 2006)

I don't actually pick the larvae off (usually). I deliver it via siphon to a garbage can in the basement placed next to the floor drain. It is quicker to siphon the cover off to the floor drain than try to drain to the street, because of the grater drop.


----------



## Philip.Chan.92 (Apr 25, 2010)

I pump my water out through a pump and hose, I can see the worms in my pool but it's too hard to filter out only worms, alot of leaves and random gunk will get filtered in as well. I prefer sticking with my recently acquired white worms. Thanks crxmaniac!


----------



## BillD (Jun 5, 2006)

I have white worms as well, but insect larvae are a better all round food. The growth rate on daphnia and larvae is phenomenal, with fish doubling their size in 2 to 3 weeks. Works very well for cleaning out the digestive tract as well.


----------



## Darkside (Sep 14, 2009)

BillD said:


> I have white worms as well, but insect larvae are a better all round food. The growth rate on daphnia and larvae is phenomenal, with fish doubling their size in 2 to 3 weeks. Works very well for cleaning out the digestive tract as well.


I agree, if you can take advantage of this opportunity don't pass it up!


----------



## BillD (Jun 5, 2006)

With the cost of transportation, travelling any distance to catch some live food seldom makes sense. If you can get it in your neighborhood, with very little effort why not go for it? As a bonus, you will be reducing the number of mosquitoes for your neighbors.
While live food may not be essential, it does allow many of the fish we keep to act in a natural fashion. It is one of the reasons that hatcheries in the far east can raise huge numbers of fish quickly and economically.
In waters that have no fish population, the likelihood of there being parasites is somewhere between slim and none.


----------



## ameekplec. (May 1, 2008)

If I do use live foods, I still like to use a dose of prazi some time later, just to make sure nothing is lurking in the system. Fish aren't the only way parasites can travel between pools.


----------

