NANFA-- growing my own live food

geoff (gkimber2_at_alltel.net)
Sat, 15 Feb 2003 23:32:50 -0500

Well, after the discussion a while back about what to feed baby darters, I
have been working on my own live foods. My fish are kept in the garage,
which gets pretty cold at night, so I built a little incubator out of
plywood for the live foods I'm trying to grow. I have a little 2.5 gallon
tank with some ramshorn snails, a heater, and a light and some of the
greenest water I have ever seen.

I keep the lights on 24 hours a day because they help keep the water warm.
The temp is running about 75 degrees. I was rather surprised at how fast
the water turned green. For about 2 weeks, the water was pretty clear. I
was about to ask someone for a starter culture when the water got cloudy. I
was then going to throw it out and start over as I thought the water was
just being fouled. A couple of days later, the water was slightly green,
and now its *very*green.

I have a question, though - I bought my son some triops eggs for christmas.
They were a bust in that only 1 triops and 1 fairy shrimp hatched and
rapidly died. Rather disappointing as I have kept triops before. its not
hard.

I hadn't gotten around to throwing everything away when I noticed a swarm of
little critters in the water. They look like just hatched brine shrimp, so
I had at first thought they were just hatched fairy shrimp. When they never
grew, I realized that they are not. They are bigger than most cyclops I
have seen before. My rapidly aging eyes combined with my lack of
microscope make it difficult for me to get a close up view. Could they be
daphnia? If so, what do I need to do to get them to multiply? I have been
feeding some of the aforementioned green water. Is this a good idea? Any
other thoughts? I hope to use them (whatever they are) to feed any baby
fish I am fortunate enough to raise this spring.

This is cool.

Geoff kimber
lexington,ky

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