Culturing Live Food
*Not human food
For fish and fish fry
Why?!?!
Intend to start breeding fish
.... and love to experiment
Indian Dwarf Puffer - Carinotetraodon travancoricus
Needed to both condition fish for spawning as well as feeding fish fry
Aquatic Cultures
Few micrometers (microns)
Few centimeters
- Greenwater (single-cell algae) ~1- 15 um
- Infusoria
- Rotifers
- Vinegar eels
- Moina / daphnia
- Ostracods / seed shrimp
- Pond snails / bladder snails
- Blackworms (up to about 5cm)
Size
Terrestrial cultures
- Banana worms (~1mm)
- Walter worms (~1.5mm)
- Microworms (~2mm)
- Grindal worms (~1cm)
- White worms (~2-3 cm)
- Springtails and white mites (more of an infestation vs culture)
Terrestrial Culture area setup
Banana/Walter/Microworms live in oatmeal medium and are fed with regular bakers yeast
Grindal and white worms live in soil or coconut coir mix, fed either moist oatmeal flakes, nutritional yeast and/or cat food
Terrestrial Culture area setup
Aquatic culture area setup
Vinegar eels
- Live in apple cider vinegar with a single apple slice
- This 1 qt jar contains several thousand
- Self-sustaining for about a year (or so I've read)
Aquatic culture area setup
meant to be semi-stable "Mother cultures", 12hr/day lighting
Moina
Greenwater / ostracods / copepods
Ostracods / bladder snails
Infusoria
Jars in the back
Aquatic culture area setup
Moina / blackworm / pond snail production co-cultures, 16/hr day lighting
Aquatic culture area setup
Moina / pond snail production co-culture, 24hr lighting
Floating plants for harvesting as culture foods (16hr/day lighting)
Some more pics/vids
Live fish food culturing
By Joe Meilinger
