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Re: Live Foods Digest V1 #9



Subject: insect larvae
>>
>>     In some of my outdoor daphnia rearing containers I have found some 
>>     interesting insect larvae. Some are easily identifiable as mosquito 
>>     larvae and others look like chironomid (sp?) (blood worm) larva. I 
>>     noticed another type which I hope someone can identify. It is about 
>>     the size of a mosquito larva, very black, more round shaped than a 
>>     mosquito larva.My killies seemed to enjoy eating it as they do other 
>>     insect larvae. Any ideas?
>>     
>>     Steve P in Vancouver BC
>>
	I wonder if this is the Black worm that was the subject of many posts just
before the old live food list went down. I do get a certain percentage of
Tubifix worms in my daphina cultures and as several varieties of aquatic
bristle worms exist they could be one of these. The other culprit could be
a small variety of leech that sometimes come in with wild caught live food
whilst not popular with all species some do eat them.

>
>Date: Tue, 19 Aug 1997 12:29:59 -0400 (EDT)
>From: MMacG1167 at aol_com
>Subject: Brine shrimp
>
>I recently tried hatching some brine shrimp eggs. Everything worked fine, I
>guess, but the newly hatched shrimp were so small that when I tried feeding
> them to my fish (tetra types - neon, red eye, blue emperor, blood fin) they
>were largely ignored. Are hatched brine shrimp really only of use for feeding
>baby fish or fry? Is there any practical way of getting the shrimp to grow to
>a size similar to that of the brine shrimp you buy live or frozen at the pet
>store?
>
To grow to adult the shrimp need food. Commercial food is available but you
can use yeast or Gram flour. They also need room and I have achieved the
best results by cultivating outdoors during our British summer in a large
water tub and feeding with Gram flour. Once seeded with baby brine shrimp
the colony seems to be self perpetuating. It also seems self limiting and
regular harvesting produces the best results.



>Actually, less noxious media will attract various species of fly.  This
>summer I found some large maggots in an excessively wet white worm culture.
>It didn't smell too objectionable, and the kribensis loved the maggots.
>I let a few pupate, and they produced some dark colored flies about half
>the size of a house fly.

The maggots produced by fruit flies are eargerly taken by most fish. As for
medium for attracting flies rotting fruit will attract most species. Ther
are several simple ways to collect the maggots without hassle and I will
cover these on the Viviparous food of the month page in September. Do
remember the maggots sold by fishing tackle shops are useless as apart from
possibly having chemicials added (flouresent maggots ect) they have had
their skins toughtend to help them stay on the hook.

>
>Date: Tue, 19 Aug 1997 13:46:15 -0600
>From: gawdess <gawdess at earthlink_net>
>Subject: Keeping Daphnia?
>
>I have finally found sources for Daphnia cultures, but I am having
>trouble sorting through all the conflicting culturing information.  Some
>say add bubbles, some say don't, some say add egg yolk, others say yams,
>brewer's yeast... and I can't find any info on the best way to harvest
>and clone the cultures.  How many Daphnia can be harvested at once, and
>how often?  How many Daphnia should be moved to the fresh culture?  I
>have a culture with brewer's yeast, some algae scrapings, and no
>aeration (sp?), and I don't think any of the critters are dead, but they
>don't seem to be multiplying either.  My fish are crazy for these guys,
>and I would really like to be able to supply them in large amounts.  I
>would appreciate hearing from anyone who has successful Daphnia cultures
>how they do it.  I can culture inside or out, but I only have room for
>one 10g culture tank, or a few smaller ones.  Thanks, all!
>
>Raven

Check out Viviparous page as Daphina is covered in one of the food of the
month pages also check out the one on moina.

Subject: Re:  Wingless Fruit Flies

> Date: Mon, 18 Aug 1997 20:39:00 -0500
> From: Augustine Rodriguez <rodrigaj at uwec_edu>
> 

What are you using for medium?  I've been making my own, and have problems
with mold contamination that gets into the bottles when I add the flies.
I haven't been able to find any of the food preservatives recommended and
have been experimenting with lemon juice.  Does anyone have a good recipe
for medium, or suggestions on mold inhibitors?

Beverly Erlebacher
Toronto, Ontario Canada

Since switching to the instant mash potato medium. Original recipe is on
Dalcomp site I have had less trouble with mould (I use no preservative) A
full article on fruit flies with the medium receipe is on one of the back
bages on the Viviparous site. Another cause of mould is not sufficent flies
used to start a new culture as they must eat all the surface medium until
the maggots start to churn up the medium.


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