Feeding my new critters

[summerboy1958]

My trio of black chin arrived Tuesday, beating the big storms out of the mid-west. They settled in nicely and Thursday they started sucking up BBS. They hang out together in one corner of the aquarium, so I guess the females ae too young to hate each other.

I found out pretty quickly that trying to feed BBS in the wee hours of the morning before work just won't work. I've got dogs and cats to feed and still try to get out the door. And I hate getting up early. So I figured that I would try frozen food, since the apistos are pecking at the substrate looking for chow.

my LFS has a bunch of different frozen foods to choose from: cyclops, mysis shrimp, daphnia, krill, bloodworms, bbs, abs, rotofers and many more.

Here is a list of foods that i came up with after going through this forum and others (I don't even know what some of these are):
black worms
grindal worms
daphnia
walterworms
bloodworms
hukari bloodworms
mysis shrimp
micro worms
cyclop-eeze??
ZM100??
de caps??
glassworms
beefheart
frozen shrimp, chopped up

Is there anything that I should NOT feed frozen?

 

[Mike Wise]

Live blackworms and beefheart are two item I wouldn't use.

 

[sasikan]

i feed a beefheart mix once in a wile what dont you like about this Mike ?

 

[Mike Wise]

It contains mammalian fat. This fat has a high melting point temperature (over 80°F/27°C). If the fish's body temperature (same as the tank's) is not high enough, then it can not be easily passed through the digestive tract. It can cause intestinal blockage, bacterial build-up, and death. Beafheart worked on Discus because breeder kept the temperature of their tanks high. Now, most Discus breeders tend to avoid it.

 

[mcintosh]

Stick to bloodworms, mosquito larvae, glassworms, daphnia, mysis, brine shrimp, cyclopeeze (just like baby brine), grindal and white worms.
Walter worms, decaps (decapsutlated brine shrimp), and microworms are for fry.
Black worms are just way too unsafe for most people. They come from sewage plants and harbor leeches, bacteria, and possibly parasites of all types.

 

[blueblue]

why don't you use can food if convenience is concerned? "Tetra bits" works...
I always avoid using all kinds of worms partially for hygiene issue and partially because of the
reasons that Mike mentioned above.

 

[JCoxRocks]

My cac's are crazy about frozen bloodworms and brine shrimp. I usuall alternate between the two and sometimes use Ken's Colormax flake to change it up.

J

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

I always avoid using all kinds of worms partially for hygiene issue and partially because of the
reasons that Mike mentioned above.

I think a lot of it depends upon the provenance for true aquatic worms like Black-worms (Lumbriculus) and Tubifex (Tubifex tubifex). If you can collect your own, from a reasonably clean source, they are excellent food. The same applies to the Chironomid "blood-worms" and all types of mosquito larvae, if you collect your own, from known sources, they are excellent live food.

I would also highly recommend culturing your own terrestrial worms (Annelids) such as Red Worms (Lumbricus rubellus) and Grindal Worms (Enchytraeus buchholtzi), this costs pennies and they are valuable food items.

Personally I also culture Daphnia and Vestigial-winged Fruit Flies, although that is more work for less reward, and Micro-worms (Panagrellus redivivus) as a food item for fry and small fish (Corydoras pygmaeus and Threadfin Rainbows love them), these are even less work than Grindal or Red worms.

Live food culture details are here: <http://www.killi.co.uk/feeding.php>

cheers Darrel