Live Foods

[Bob1]

What live foods are good for apistos? Where can they be bought?

 

[Bilbo]

Almost all live food is good.

I have recently been using fruitfly larvae (maggots). The Wingless type are best but if you want free food just mash a banana in porrage add a little yeast on top into a jam jar and leave in a sunny spot for 2 days. remove the adult flies and put a ventalated lid on the jar, a few days after that the maggots start to crawl up the sides and.... free food.

Quick tip. Use vinagar instead of water to mix the porrage. It stop it going mouldy.

Whiteworms are also good in moderation and can often be found in compost heaps. Daphnia can be found in farmers troughs. Alot of stuff is out there free if you know where to look

 

[Gillie]

Most pet stores should have at least brineshrimp and/or blackworms, if not you can order them from several different online sources. Like bilbo suggests culturing your own food is better. For example in the spring I set up a set up one of those blue molded wading pools and wait for the larva to show up and I am supplied with a variety of live food for about 7 months. The rest of the year I hatch baby brineshrimp and culture black and whiteworms.

 

[dw1305]

grindal worms

Hi all,
In the summer I collect mosquito larvae (Black, White and Red) and Daphnia as well. I get all of these out of buckets and water butts in the garden, some of the buckets I add grass clippings to, some I leave as mainly rainwater. I culture fruit-fly (Drosophila) maggots (I must admit they really culture themselves in a big pot full of fruit skins on the compost heap, as in the saying "Time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like Banana")

In the winter I still get Glassworms, Cyclops and swimming Mayfly nymphs (Batis or Cleon) out of my pond (i don't keep fish in it), but I mainly feed Grindal worms (as well as more pellets). I also keep a microworm culture for fry (I don't routinely use BBS, although I do keep some cysts handy).

I prefer Grindals to White worms as they are easier to keep in a centrally heated house and even bigger fry can manage them. They also tend to disperse fairly evenly through the tank.

cheers Darrel

 

[georgedv]

I saw an ad for a new publication about live food...I think its from TFH publication. Has anyone seen it....is it worth buying?

g

 

[apistobob]

I'll bet the book you are talking about is the one by Mike Hellweg that was recently published. I don't have the book yet but intend to get it the next time I order from a book dealer. The American Cichlid Association http://www.cichlid.org has been running some excerpts in the Buntbarsche Bulletin and they contain great practical information. Here is a link to the book http://www.amazon.com/dp/0793806550/?tag=clffd-20

I think I am getting lazy as I don't seek out as many live foods as I used to. I raise the common ones but hatch brine shrimp daily as my primary food.

Bob

 

[ButtNekkid]

Hi,

How long does microworms survive in a tank?
Do they bury themselves in the substrate?

 

[TWA]

Almost all live food is good.

I have recently been using fruitfly larvae (maggots). The Wingless type are best but if you want free food just mash a banana in porrage add a little yeast on top into a jam jar and leave in a sunny spot for 2 days. remove the adult flies and put a ventalated lid on the jar, a few days after that the maggots start to crawl up the sides and.... free food.

Quick tip. Use vinagar instead of water to mix the porrage. It stop it going mouldy.

Whiteworms are also good in moderation and can often be found in compost heaps. Daphnia can be found in farmers troughs. Alot of stuff is out there free if you know where to look

May seem like a dumb question, but is there an easy way to get the larvae off the sides? I haven't had fruit flies for several years, but I assumed they were "stuck" to the walls.

 

[boofeng]

Hi,

How long does microworms survive in a tank?
Do they bury themselves in the substrate?

Some people on the net say they don't die after many days in a jar - but mine often die in half a day when I harvest but forget to feed. Probably too many microworms in a tiny jar. A lot of microworms fall onto my substrate, but I've never had a problem with that - not sure whether they actually do bury themselves.

May seem like a dumb question, but is there an easy way to get the larvae off the sides? I haven't had fruit flies for several years, but I assumed they were "stuck" to the walls.

I think what's stuck to the walls are the pupa cocoons? If it's maggots which crawl, they should come off easily if you use an old toothbrush or paintbrush, at least mine do. Even young pupae (whitish instead of brown) come off the walls easily, and are eaten by the fish.