Suggestions for easy to maintain live food culture

[Jeff1192]

I'm looking for something that is easy to maintain as a live food culture. I've never tried live food with my fish. However, I now have gudgeons who refuse pretty much all flake and pellet foods. I've been feeding them frozen bloodworms, brine shrimp and tubifex worms. They eat all these very well. I'm not a big fan of the tubifex worms though as I find them quite messy (seem to cloud the water a bit). So I'd like to try some live foods with them but I don't want something that is going to be overly time consuming to keep up. I'd love to hear your suggestions.

Thanks,

Jeff

[zapisto]

for your gudgeons i would recommend :

- Californian Black Worm (easy to keep , hard to culture )
- Gammarus (easy to keep)
- aquatic worm (easy to maintain and culture, i am developing it now)

[beowulf]

I agree with Zap on this one.  My favorite by far is the black worms but I know someone who set up a 10 gallon with a bubbler to try and culture them and while it worked it is a slow process.

[succinctfish]

The black worms are great to have around, just keep them in the fridge and change the water daily.  They will last a long time, especially for the gudgeons, but all your fish will go crazy for them.  Peacock gudgeons, as I'm sure you've discovered, have big mouths for such a little fish, and will have no problem eating the black worms.  Good for you to look for live food for them, as they really thrive with it in their diet.

You might want to consider white worms as well.  Those can be more easily cultured.

[Vizerdrix]

I used to have several white worm cultures, and they were sooooo easy to raise, I had to keep giving some away!

[apuppet]

white worms is what i have as live food. very easy to take care of. 1 slice of bread, perhaps once every 3 weeks.  my white worm sits in a big tupperware, gotten from abuck-or-two. filled with potting soil.    i'd pretty much leave a slice of bread, and forget it.   they breed on their own, and when i want to feed my fishes, i take the soil with the worm and put them into an intern cup.  the intern cup has holes at the bottom, while the outer cup has water at the bottom.

i hang the two stacked cups under the canopy of bright lights. when timed correctly. i just harvest the worms from the bottom cup.  worms hate light, therefore the drop to the lower cup with water.  a quick rinse , and clean whiteworms for feeding. no hassle, no fuse. so easy.  oh. the fishes goes crazy.  as soon as the worms hit the water, the fishes see's nothing else but the worms.  Yes, there may be a dense javamoss in the way. but i've seens them blasted a hole thru the moss, just to be the qucikest to the otherside of it, for the worms.  kinda funny,

-a

[Laura]

I keep microworms and find that even quite large fish like them.  They're dead easy and only need maintenance once every 2-3 weeks.
I have a white worm culture too, but I'm not doing something right as my populations never get very high.

[Vizerdrix]

I have a white worm culture too, but I'm not doing something right as my populations never get very high.

That's cuz the fishies eat them too quickly!

Seriously though, I fed mine a mixture of oatmeal and beer (left to go flat).  They absolutely thrived on it!  I would just use a pointy stick (bamboo skewer) and drag it through the soil, and would come up with hundreds!

[kennyman]

I see you have guppies in there. That will supplement the Gudgeon's feeding 

Good luck with the gudgeons. I think they are cool 

[Jeff1192]

Yeah I really like the gudgeons. The guppies had a bunch of fry a couple of weeks ago and only about 7 or 8 are still in the tank. At the time the gudgeons were pretty new and weren't coming out as much. Now that it's been a few more weeks they're out all the time. So I'm sure they'll get their fair share in 28 days when I have more guppy fry!    That's one great thing about guppies in a community tank...you get a pretty steady supply of live food!

Jeff

[Jeff1192]

Ok so I'm thinking that I'll start with a microworm culture. I just want to make sure that you guys don't think that they're too small for what I have in my tank (I have never seen them). Where is the best place to get a starter culture? I know that there were some at the last meeting in the auction. Are they normally at the auction?

Thanks,

Jeff

[babblefish1960]

They aren't normally at the auctions, only sometimes, your best bet would be to make arrangements with someone who would be willing to make up a batch for you.

[dan2x38]

To feed the micro worms someone said flat beer & oatmeal... could you also use some of the left overs from DIY CO2 generator? with the oatmeal....