Fish Food (Live & Commercial)

Hi guys,

I was asked by a friend to post the fish food and the routine I have when feeding my fish. It may not be well taken or perhaps others are doing the same. Its working for me so far. Well, before I begin, let me provide a bit of background of what I have.

These are the list of fauna that I have...
1) Harlequin Rasbora
2) Celestial Pearl Danio
3) Rummy Nose
4) Yamato Shrimps
5) Malayan Shrimps
6) Siamese Algae Eater (SAE)
7) Otocinclus (Oto)
8) Corydoras Sterbai
9) Corydoras Panda
10) Albino Red Guppies
11) Albino Red Metal Lace Guppies
12) Guppy Frys
13) Betta

Live Food
The following are live food that I am using or have used in the past.
1) Microworms (Own Culture)
2) Vinegar Eels (Own Culture)
3) Tubifex (Purchase from LFS) Wash & Wash & Wash before Feeding!!
4) Brine Shrimps - Adult (Purchase from LFS)
5) Baby Brine Shrimps (Self Hatch)

Microworms 

Vinegar Eels 

Credit to boyneburn (Rainbowfish.info)

Tubifex

Adult Brine Shrimps

(Credit to liveaquaria.com)

Baby Brine Shrimps (BBS)

Baby Brine Shrimps (BBS)

Bought from David 

Do contact me should you wish to purchase them.

I will patch you through to David, no additional cost;

I'm just promoting his product. SGD$15/100grams.

Baby Brine Shrimps (BBS)

Bought from LFS

 Commercial Food

1) Ocean Free Super Colour (Flakes)
2) Ocean Free Super Miniature (Micro Granules)
3) Sera Micron (Powder)
4) Sera Vipagran Baby
5) Tetra Guppy
6) Ocean Nutrition Atison's Betta Pro

Ocean Free Super Colour (Flakes)

Ocean Free Super Miniature (Micro Granules)

Sera Micron (Powder)

Sera Vipagran Baby

Guppy Tetra 

Ocean Nutrition Atison's Betta Pro

Routine Feeding
We all know how attached we can be to our fishes. Everytime, we see them, they seem to move when we do and we start feeding them. This is wrong. A friend I know feed his fish once a week. It may seems horrible but n a way its better this way. Though I don't agree with feeding fish once a week especially if its a bare tank, feeding them less has its advantages.

When you overfeed, it will lead to two things, it will pollute your water when the food are uneaten and might result in diseases if not taken care of and two overfeeding fish might lead to swimbladder problems. Never overfeed.

Bettas
I feed two of my gorgeous Bettas ONCE a day. Small quantity of Ocean Nutrition Atison's Betta Pro. I don't count the pellets I give them but I'm estimating about 10. This is their staple food. I do make a point to feed them tubifex once a week.

Bettas seems to have individual characteristic. No two bettas are the same. When I first got them, one of the bettas refuse to eat the food I gave. I stopped feeding him for two days. The day I feed him again, he was moving left and right in front of the tank. When I fed, he ate them all! Thanks to Uncle Ron for this tip.

Guppies (All Strains)
Again, like the bettas, I give them small quantities only. For their staple diet, I feed Tetra Guppy. This was a trial and error actually. I tried a couple of brands before and this brand was the one I find to be best food to feed mine. They love it!

I feed my guppies ONCE a day. Every two days, I do feed them BBS as well. They love these the most. I try to rotate between the BBS and the Tetra Guppy when I can.

Guppy Frys
As a small time breeder, I do have frys. I have tried Vinegar Eels and Microworms to feed them. They love them. But the problem I have with Microworms is that it stinks. I eat bread and I think of Microworms. My last culture crashed last week and my girlfriend was happy as the small cupboard where I store them no longer stink. Microworms are ideal for frys but they tend to drop to the bottom unlike Vinegar Eels.

Vinegar Eels are damn small. Culturing them is easy as well. But I am lazy. I use Apple Vinegar from Heinz and lazy to go to the groceries to get them. I do have two cultures going right now. Just added another slice of apple for them.

So that left me with this routine.

In the morning, I feed my frys Sera Micron. These are absolutely fabulous commercial food! It's green and in powder form. Easy for frys to consume. And the best thing is you can see the frys belly filled with them! Sera Micron is fed to frys that are just born. Within two months, I stopped feeding frys Micron and switch to Sera Vipagran. They love them as well! Frys at the bottom will all swim near to surface to feast.

In the evening, I harvest the BBS. I feed the BBS to my frys and the adults guppies as well. They absolutely love them.

The different here is I feed frys twice a day. Again in small quantity. Frys should be fed more often than the adults but again lessen the quantity.

The Rest of My Fauna
For the rest of my fauna, I feed them Ocean Free Super Colour (Flakes), Ocean Free Super Miniature (Micro Granules) or BBS. When I do visit any LFS, I try to get Brine Shrimps (Adult) or Tubifex to feed them.

Again, I feed them ONCE a day. Staple food is Ocean Free Super Colour (Flakes). I've stopped using the
Ocean Free Super Miniature (Micro Granules).

So there you go. Feed only once. Small quantity or rather just enough. Overfeeding is not a good idea. So keep it simple. Refrain from feeding everytime you see them. Its tempting but don't.

So I hope, this will somehow help or compare notes with other hobbyist on what they feed their faunas. I have friends who feed vegetables as well. Whatever works for you. I've been trying different food myself and  finally come to a point where I use only certain brand.

Good luck!

Artemia Nauplii (Baby Brine Shrimps)

Disclaimer: Setting this is pretty easy but the eggs is another. Blogger finds it best to purchase from fellow hobbyist as this would gurantee a higher hatch rate than what the market can offer.. Nonetheless, blogger did had some luck with brine shrimp eggs from lfs. Do note that this is the blogger's method of hatching his brine shrimp eggs and may or may not be similiar to what's been recommended online.

I was introduce to brine shrimps a long time ago. To my knowledge Sea Monkeys are brine shrimps but of different species. Whether Sea Monkeys are engineered or not remains debatable. Hatching these are not hard at all but to raise them to adulthood is hard. Even good ol' Uncle Ron don't see the point of raising and breeding them. "Just get from auntie." (Who this auntie he is referring to? I'm not sure which lfs auntie he has his fixation on but he meant lfs where these adult brine shrimps are sold)

Firstly, let's talk about the items you will need.

1. 2 1.5litre Bottle
2. Airline Tubing
3. Sea Salt
4. Tea Filter Bag

Take one of the bottle (A) and cut off two third of it. Gauge yourself. This will be use as the base to hold the other bottle.

Cut the other bottle (B) one fifth off.

Take the bottle cap (A) and drill a hole. The hole made must be smaller than the airline tube. (Slightly)

Insert the tube into the cap.

Cut a hole in the "holder bottle" (A) so the airline tubing can pass through.

Make sure your air source is above the waterline. Otherwise, good luck with mopping the floor.

Here I have 800ml of water. I use roughly 1-1.5 tablespoon of sea salt. Turn on the pump to let it mix. And then I add a small tea spoon of the brine shrimp eggs.

Harvest

After 24hours, switched off the air pump. Give it 15 minutes to settle. The egg shell will float while the BBS will swim at the bottom.

Purchase a tea filter or stockings. Remove the airline tube from the pump. Drain the water out. That brown thing you see is the BBS.

Drain the water but not every drop. Otherwise you will be siphoning the egg shells as well. Stop when you're close. Take the filter cloth and dump into a small bowl of tank water. Let the BBS settle a bit and use a syringe to suck them up.

Feed accordingly. Note that it is ideal to feed your fishes 6 hours after the egg hatches.

And there you go. The water can be reuse again a few times.

100 grams of Brine Shrimp Eggs

I gotten this from a friend, David. 100 grams for SGD$15. Do contact me if you're interested in them. I'll patch you through to him. Very high hatching rate 98% if not more.

40 grams of Brine Shrimp Eggs

Got this from an LFS for $12.00 Hatch rate of about 98% Do the math and find out which one you think is more worth it or rather value for money.

Well, have fun!! Guppies, frys and  fish like Harlequin, SAE and Rummy Nose loves them. Your fish will love you more after feeding them this.

<<Insert Video - Pending>>

Culturing Microworm (Panagrellus Redivivus)

Introduction

Having started on a new project, breeding Albino Full Red Guppy, I researched online to find other forms of food that I can feed the frys that I will have in future. I know I could just feed them commercial food like flakes and pound them to powder to feed. And there's always the boiled egg yolk. I wanted something live. Something small that can feed a frys mouth. That was when I stumble upon microworms. Scientifically known as Panagrellus Redivivus.

Thanks to Stan aka Wongce (Aquatic Quotient) who alerted me to a fellow member who was selling the microworms.

I sent a message to HappyGuppies via Whatapps and was glad that he had some to sell off to me. It was $5 for a package. He sold two tubs of the culture and some other stuffs like oatmeals. I was caught off guard as it seems a lot. I only expected to get the two tubs only.

It's difficult to see these worms but if you look closely, they shimmer as they are constanly moving. They are really tiny!

Anyway, having learn a few things from HappyGuppies own way of culturing and checking online for guidance, I did my own using the culture sold to me by HappyGuppies. So here is my version.

Mazlan's First Culture

It's not difficult at all and it ain't rocket science either. Let's start with what we need.

1) Container with Cover

Get a small container such as the one shown in the picture. Don't get a container that is shallow. The worms will be climbing the sides of the container and that's where you will harvest them.

2) Oatmeal

Now, reading online, some "microworm rancher" cook their oatmeals. This is not necessary at all. I'm not certain of the purpose. Just use any ordinary oatmeal.

By the way, there are other 'ranchers' that uses baby cereal. You can use that as well. But pour more water as those baby food will absorb a lot of water.

3) Water

Just enough to make a paste.

4) Yeast

Optional. It is not necessary at all. You may if you want. Just a tiny pinch will do.

How?

1) Take the cover and using whatever sharp object you have, make tiny holes on the container cover. The worms do need oxygen. Do not leave it open or else it gets contaminated. Meaning, you might get maggots in your culture as well. Another method is to make a big hole and use a netting to cover. Aluminium foil as a cover works fine too.

2) Pour your oatmeal in and add water. How much oatmeal? Up to you.If you check the pictures, mine is about 1/5th of the container in height. Stir and make a paste.

3) Scoop the top portion of an existing culture. Don't dig in with the spoon. Just the top layer. That's where the worms are. Put the culture on top of your oatmeal paste. There's no need to stir it.

4) Optional: add a small pinch of yeast.

5) Place your cover and wait.

When to Harvest?

The worms will start to climb the side of your container. That's when you harvest. Using a toothpick or cotton swap, take a little bit from the side.

Two methods that you can do is to put into a small container of water. Use a pippette and feed the frys. Or the norm, just dip the toothpick or cotton swap into the tank with frys.

Facts

Temperature: 80 degrees Farenheit. Err...my room temperature is 86 degrees Farenheit. It's not "die-die" must be 80 Farenheit which is about 26 Degrees Celcius. So this portion doesn't matter much to me. I'm not living in Antartica or Sahara Desert.

Medium: The medium use often is oatmeal. Then baby cereal and the most uncommon one is bread.

Sub-Culturing: It is best to have a new culture started in 2-3 weeks time from the last. Just add the old culture to the new medium. The worms takes care of the rest.

Lifespan: Interestingly enough, this worm live 20-25 days. After 3rd day of their life they reproduce and bearing about 40 worms a day!

Do note, if the top portion of your culture starts to become watery and brown, start a new culture. If you are using yeast which is really not necessary, make sure the "air holes" you made are plenty as the carbon dioxide produce will kill them instead.

Well, that' about it. Not difficult isn't it. Oh one thing I like to say is, regardless new or a culture that is crashing, man it stinks! Yeasty smell; sour kind smell. Crap, I don't even know how to explain that "exotic" smell.

Anyway, have fun!

PS: If you are looking to purchase a culture, please go to Aquatic Quotient and look for HappyGuppies. Nice chap.