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Gut loading, bloodworms, Live Foods Encyclopedia
>Should be possible to enrich smaller organisms (artemia, moina, etc)
>with formulas like ALGAMAC 2000, etc. Might be possible to gutload >the
goldfish.
That is always a good idea! Short term gut loading with algae (referred
to as an indirect enrichment because the predators will receive the
enrichment through consuming the carrier which "carries" the substances
in the gut) will in most cases enhance the nutritional value of the prey
species. You will have to spend some time/work to make it happen and
spend some money on buying dried algae paste at the health store. Or,
try culturing algae yourself. Interesting, but very labour intensive.
But hey! It's a hobby, right?!
>They eat finely ground fish food. I fed mine ground Tetramin Staple.
In nature bloodworms feed on bacteria, micro- and macro-algae, detritus,
... I guess you can feed them whatever you want as long as it is fine
enough. The worms do not seem to care.
>After emergence one can offer the midges some dissolved honey (about >a
10% solution).
As far as my knowledge reaches, most non-biting adult midges (e.g.
Chironomus .....) do not eat anymore, only the larvae consume food. This
does not apply to the biting species, but if you consider culturing ...
culture the non-biting species for obvious reasons.
>To mate, the midges need air space. For Chironomus riparius one >needs
about two cubic feet of space. I used a 10-gallon tank covered >with
mosquito netting. I just placed my culture container in the >tank and
provided another container (with rotting leaves) for >oviposition. If
you have several male/female pairs, they will do the >rest without any
help, depositing a gelatinous egg mass.
This is supposed to be the biggest obstacle in rearing bloodworms, i.e.
the darn adults just don't procreate. They need enough space to swarm
and they just don't do that in captivity.
>If anybody has successfully cultured Chironomus riparius or another
>"bloodworm" over several generations, please let me know, because I
>would like to try my hand at it again.
A good place for more information is the National University of
Singapore; check out following page:
www.science.nus.sg/~webdbs/research/fish/livefood/bloodwm.html.
>Recently, reference was made to the Live Food Encyclopedia. Is there
>such a publication? Trevor crystals at terra_net.au
Trevor, the book you are referring to is called Live Foods Encyclopedia,
written by Charles Masters. It is an old book but still contains
valuable information for novices as well as more experienced people.
Check Amazon, Barnes & Nobles or the local bookstore. More than likely
the book will have to be ordered.
Steve Geerts
San Francisco Bay Brand
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