# Live foods question



## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

Do many people use live foods that they grow themselves such as different worms and stuff?

If any of you do, do you find it much work to maintain them?

Also what live foods do you grow?

I will be needing some live foods like microworms for fry and recently I heard that a lfg has black worms available and am considering buying some and growing them for treats and preparing fish for breeding.

I am hoping it will be fairly low work, space and cost.


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## BillD (Jun 5, 2006)

Micro worms are easy to keep, re-culturing about once a month. White worms are perhaps even easier, since a culture will last for years with just feeding and watering. I also culture daphnia on my winter pool cover. There are all sorts of aquatic insect larvae such as blood worms and assorted gnat larvae also on the cover. If you have bigger fish, redworms are easily cultured in a bin, fed vegetable scraps. All of these are low cost and minimum work once you have obtained the culture.


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## macKRAZY (Feb 15, 2012)

wish i can help with the baby worms... but i dont see how much work it would be...

i culture red worms in a cracked tank i have. Not much work at all... maybe when i have to replace the dirt in a couple months? but its just dirt!

remember, its a hobby so it shouldnt feel like work!


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## Jackson (Jan 30, 2009)

I have daphnia thanks to Igor who's a great guy and gives a starter amount away for free.
I also use baby snails.
My personal favorite to use are dero worms aka microfex worms. 
Very easy to raise you just need to give it time to have them reproduce but when they start going they produce a lot. 
I'm also co-culturing them with the daphnia. The dapnia population is 5x larger then the one without the worms it's said that the daphnia feed off the waste the worms produce or something along those lines. 
The two above are really easy to maintain and feed. I change the water once a month.

I did raise black worms for a few years. Way too much work with a small yield. It's easier buying them.


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

I've cultured microworms, banana worms, non flying fruit flies and single cell algae.. aka, greenwater... No great problems with any of them, really. Just need a bit of space for the containers, not to hot, not too cold.

The one thing I find with worms is that the containers can get a bit smelly. Mainly they smell sour, like sourdough starter for bread, which is not that bad. But if they go off they can really reek. Microworms don't mind light, banana worms like it fairly dark, but you don't have to keep them in total blackout.. a shelf out of the direct light will do.

I've tried daphnia, but lost them both times. A plant with pesticide on it did in the last lot I got. The first lot I got, I just did not know you were supposed to dissolve the yeast in water first. The water fouled and did them in. Live and learn.. maybe it will be 3rd time lucky with them.

None of the worms I've done are very difficult, but there are some issues you can run into. Heat turned out to be a big problem, winter & summer, in this particular apartment. If too hot it can kill off worm cultures. Best to maintain at least two of any given culture, in case one crashes, you have one to go on with. Fish and shrimp like worms.. and the micro and banana worms live for a day or two, and wiggle, so they attract fish and shrimp. Banana worms are half the size of microworms and thus good for fry, except for very very tiny ones. 

Fruit flies need to be monitored, because it seemed to me that they eat the food their culture comes with quite fast. Be sure to save enough to start the next generations, if you feed them all, you'll have to buy more. They also don't seem to do well with too much heat.

You need to be ready to make more food for the new flies as they hatch from the pupae, or move them into a new culture container with fresh food ready in it. And while they don't fly, they can crawl fast and can ride floating plants and crawl out of a tank, and then they're all over the place. 

You need to ensure flying fruit flies can't get into their container, or the new flies will all be flyers. My surface feeding fishes, especially the danios, absolutely go crazy over flies. They almost fly out of the tank, they hit them so hard. Fly larvae go over big with my kuhli loaches, and if the other fish can fit the larvae into its mouth, they will happily munch them. 

Greenwater I make from a disk I buy from Reef Crew. Nannochloropsus, or Japanese Chlorella, grows in either fresh or salt water. It is a bit expensive to start up, but you can keep it going almost forever if you take a bit of care. I get their special fertilizer, as I think it works better, but some use other types of ferts for their cultures.

Don't let it go too long without reculturing it though or it may crash. Sometimes a crashed bottle will revive, if you leave it with lights on and air stone running, and give it another dose of fertilizer. It's useful for feeding daphnia and almost any filter feeder, such as fan shrimp, which is what I use it for mostly.

One thing I learned is to make the air holes in the lids of the worm containers very, very small. If they are too big, all kinds of critters can get in and spoil it.. fruit flies among them. I found that using the very tip of a pin.. a safety pin or dressmaker's pin, to make the air holes, works really well and keeps out just about anything that might get in. Just make quite a few holes, as they are tiny. Don't poke holes with a nail or drill them, they'll be so big everything will get in there with the worms.

Feed worms baker's yeast every couple of days. Sprinkle it over their medium lightly. You can also feed them powdered spirulina and some other things, but I just use yeast. Don't feed them all the time, as they are fatty and rich. Great for fry, which need fat, but for most adult fish, they are not good as a daily diet, better as a treat once or twice a week. Good conditioning food if you want to breed fish.


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## kuzzyca (Apr 12, 2011)

For air holes in the worm container I cut a 1 inch hole and cut apart a dry tea bag and tape apiece of the bag over the hole nothing gets in or out.


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

great idea for a filter


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## SmokeSR (Jan 28, 2009)

I use snails, crayfish and plants as live food. I assume you're asking about smaller foods, but if you want more info on my setup, just ask. My tank was going well until my crayfish population started eating all the snails and plants. I've now setup 2 small tanks for snails and plants so the population does not die.


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

Looking for options for treats for various tanks, food to prepare fish for breeding and foods for different size fry. I assume others will like the info to.


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

Fwiw, almost every article I have ever read concerning breeding fish recommends using live foods to bring them into breeding condition, with frozen foods as a secondary source if live is not possible.

It depends on the size and preferences of the fish in question which actual live foods might be best. For most small tropicals, like my Danios and many of the Tetras, for just two examples, would enjoy live fruit flies, microworms, blood worms, daphnia or BBS [ baby brine shrimp], larvae of flies, like fruit flies, and there are other worm types available.

There are also white worms, grindal worms, walter worms, red wigglers.. which are very large compared to most of these others, and there are also vinegar eels, another very small worm type. These are all possibilities to culture for live food. You can also raise BBS, but frozen is probably easier, and they are becoming rather expensive.

And if you succeed in breeding and get live fry, you'll need food for them too, which will also be size dependent. BBS are great for many fry, but if they are very tiny, even BBS may be too large for the first few days to a week. Best to research exactly what size fry your fish will have and what foods may be recommended for them.


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## Ryan.Wilton (Dec 12, 2012)

Haven't done this yet, but I plan to sooner rather than later. I would love to culture some night crawlers for some of my larger fish, my turtles too. Red worms would be fun as well, maybe I'll try both of these when the weather gets a little warmer.

I've thought about daphina, and vinegar eels, but I haven't had the time or patience to even try yet lol. Beyond which I've been clearing out some stuff from my house that I don't need so ya.

Anyways good luck, I like the ideas presented on here. Very useful to gather ideas for my future ^^


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