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Culture Live Fishfoods for Your Pet Fish

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Culture Your Own Live Fishfoods!

Pet fish need to eat a widely varied diet in order to stay healthy. This includes the everyday flakefoods that fish eat. Not to mention the algae wafers, shrimp pellets and other staple foods that we feed to our fish.Then there are those aquarists who go the extra mile to make homemade fishfood, buy treats and snacks for their fish and/or people who feed their fish fresh, blanched vegetables two or more times a week.

Is there anything else that you can be feeding to your fish to make up a more natural, complete diet? Yes, there is! You should supplement your pet fishes diet with livefood! Live fishfood is as close to a natural diet as most fish will ever get.

What is Live Fishfood?

Live fishfood (also known as Livefood) can be any Living Organisms (such as daphnia, crickets, algae, plants, plankton, fish, worms, etc.) or any live animal (mice, rats, feeders, etc.) bred, cultured, propagated, or otherwise encouraged to breed and then used by a person (aquarists, fishkeeper, aquarium owner, reptile owner, amphibian owner, insect owner, pet store owner or employee, animal breeder, etc.) for the purpose of feeding their pets and animals (such as tropical fish, snakes, frogs, etc.)

Live Fishfood is Also Known As : Livefood, Live Fish Food, Live Feeder Foods, Live Feeders, Feeders, etc.

Feed your pet fish different types of Live Fishfood at least 2 to 3 times a week.

Table of Contents

  1. What is Live Fishfood?
  4. Why Should You Culture Your Own Live Fishfoods?
  5. LIve Fishfood Information
  6. Aquatic Live FishFoods
  7. Semi-Aquatic Live Fishfoods
  8. Regular or Dry Live Fishfoods
  9. Small Live Fishfoods
  10. Large Live Fishfood
  12. Live Fishfoods for Baby Fish Fry
  13. Links With More Live Fishfood Information
  14. Live Fishfood Related Articles on eHow by SunnyStars
  17. Comments

Culturing Your Own Live Fishfoods
Saves You Money!

Why Should You Culture Your Own Live Fishfoods?

Healthier Fish For Less Money!

If you culture your own livefoods, you will save money by buying less commercially produced, prepackaged fishfoods.

Culturing Live Fishfood for your fish is a great way to supplement your pet fishes diets.

In the wild your fish would be getting a more diverse diet on a daily basis. In an aquarium type setting, your fish will have to eat whatever you feed to them.

So, Why not spoil your fish and give them a little bit of everything?

LIve Fishfood Information

There are 2 Main Types of Live FishFood

The two types of live fishfood are :

1 - Aquatic Live Fishfoods

and

2 - Regular AKA Dry Live Fishfoods.

Aquatic Live FishFoods

Aquatic live fishfood consists of critters that are fully aquatic and critters that are semi aquatic.

Fully aquatic creatures spend their entire lives underwater. They may take on several forms throughout their life cycle but each of these forms (eggs, larvae, adult, etc.) all takes place under water.

These fully aquatic live fishfoods include (but are not limited to) the following animals :
  • Amphipods (Saltwater Aquatic Live Fishfood)
  • Blackworms
  • Copepods
  • Daphnia Magna
  • Daphnia Pulex
  • Feeder Fish
  • Gammarus (Scuds)
  • Microfex Worms
  • Moina
  • Tubifex Worms

Semi-Aquatic Live Fishfoods

These are animals that spend part of their lives underwater and part of their lives out of water.

A bloodworm is an interesting semi-aquatic "aquatic critter". Bloodworms are considered an aquatic live fishfood. This is because, when they are fed to fish as live fishfood, they are in their larval state which takes place underwater.

Bloodworms, Mosquito larvae, Damselfly larvae and Dragon fly larvae all have similar life-cycles because the adult (flying) bugs lay their eggs underwater. Where the egg will eventually hatch into a larva. At this point the larvae are living as a fully aquatic creature. Eventually these bloodworms, dragonfly nymphs, mosquito larvae, etc. will molt into (turn-into) their final form (which is an adult dragon fly, mosquito, midge fly, etc.) Then the flying bug will fly away to mate and lay eggs in the water, starting the life-cycle over again.

Here are some semi-aquatic live fishfood species :
  • Bloodworms (Bloodworms are Midge Fly Larvae. Midge flies are a Harmless, Non Biting Flying Bug Which Look Almost Exactly Like Mosquitoes. While bloodworm larvae and mosquito larvae look very different, they are still both semi-aquatic live fishfoods.)
  • Dragon Fly Larvae Only feed these critters to big, hungry fish such as Oscar Cichlids because these bugs can bite hard and they eat small fish!
  • Mosquito Larvae

Regular or Dry Live Fishfoods

Regular Live Fishfood also known as Dry Live Fishfoods are critters that don't live underwater.

Regular live fishfood such as earthworms and crickets are usually cultured in a plastic storage bucket with a tightly fitting lid. (The lid will keep pests out of the "livefood culture" while keeping the livefood inside of the container.) Make sure that any lid has air holes cut into it, to allow the livefood culture to breath. Cover the air holes with screen, mesh or netting to keep the pests out.

Regular or Dry Live Fishfood is usually just referred to as "Livefood" or "Live Fishfood".

Small Live Fishfoods

Smaller livefoods can easily be fed to small fish fry and baby fish of all sizes.

There are plenty of live fishood species available to the average fish keeper. These can be found for sale on the internet through auction sites, websites, forums, fish clubs, science supply companies, etc.

Some of the most common and smallest dry/regular live fishfoods include :
  • Banana Worms
  • Grindal Worms
  • Microworms/Micro Worms
  • Vinegar Eels (Unlike many other livefoods, vinegar eels live in a strong apple cider vinegar/water mixture.)
  • Walter Worms
  • White Worms

Large Live Fishfood

Large Live fishfood or live food can be fed to larger fish such as Oscar Cichlids.

When you bring home new fish remember that : At first, some fish such as needle nosed gar will only accept live foods such as crickets and live feeder fish (minnows, etc.) You can eventually train these types of fish to accept other types of food such as frozen silversides and freeze dried krill. You can usually train moray eels and other predatory fish to eat non-livefoods even if the fish is strictly a "carnivorous" predator.

Large live fishfoods include the following species :
  • Crickets (Pinhead Crickets, Small, Medium and Large live feeder crickets.)
  • Earthworms/Earth Worms (Earthworms includes Red Worms, Canadian Nightcrawlers, European Night Crawlers, etc.)
  • Mealworms/Meal Worms
  • Superworms/Super Worms

This Lens
(Culture Live Fishfoods
for Your Pet Fish)
was born on
Friday, September 04, 2009.

I will be adding more content to this lens throughout the month of September.

As this Lens grows older, I will continue to update it regularly.

Grindal Worms

These grindal worms are eating a piece of dry kitten food.

Live Fishfoods for Baby Fish Fry

Some animals (mainly baby fish fry) are so small when they are born that they require even smaller live fishfoods.

Baby fish such as guppy fry can eat smaller livefoods whole. Walter worms are an excellent live fishfood species to feed to your guppy fry.

Daphnia Species (livefood) need to eat greenwater (livefood/algae) every day. Greenwater is easy to culture. Ghost shrimp larvae also require twice-daily feeding of greenwater until they have completed their larval stage.

Baby Brine Shrimp are one of the most popular "small" live fishfoods.

Here are some species of live fishfood that are suitable for smaller fish fry :
  • Copepods
  • Daphnia Magna, Daphnia Pulex, and Moina. (Baby Daphnia, Moina, etc.)
  • Greenwater
  • Grindal Worms
  • Microworms
  • Scuds (Baby Scuds)
  • Walter Worms

Links With More Live Fishfood Information

by SunnyStars

Live Fishfood Related Articles by SunnyStars
Articles about aquatic live fishfood and dry live fishfood. Learn how to culture, breed and care for everything from live feeder crickets to earthworms! Information about many live fishfood species.
The Complete List of Live Fishfoods
Brought to you by SunnyStars. The complete list of live fishfood will help you to decide which types of livefood are best for you and your pet fish.

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Live Fishfood Related Articles on eHow by SunnyStars

How to Harvest Aquatic Microfex Worms
Microfex worms are one of the best livefoods that you can culture for your fish. Harvesting microfex worms is simple. This how to article will teach you how it's done.
How to Make Greenwater Cubes for Fry Fishfood
Learn how to make your own frozen greenwater cubes to feed to your daphnia, fish fry and ghost shrimp larvae.

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by

Sunny_Stars

I'm SunnyStars, an artist, a writer and an aquarium biologist.

I run my own website, which is :

sunny-stars.com

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