Keywords: pond
Micro Worms I recieved a starter culture of micro worms yesterday. Today I set it up. Micro worms are similar to the walter worms and banana worms but are larger. They are easy to see; the walter worms and banana worms you can't really see, you can only see a shimmering on the surface of the culture media. Micro worms are a good first food for bigger fry, or as a second food for smaller fy.
Setting Them Up
First, add about a 1/2 inch or so of dry instant baby cereal. I use
gerber mixed grain baby cereal. Then add water, tap water is fine, I ran it through a brita filter first, and mix it all together so it is pasty, but not watery. I found a fork the easiest to use.
Next, add a pinch or so of dry active yeast to the top of the cereal. The micro worms feed off of the yeast. Lastly, spread your micro worm starter over the top of the culture medium. If it is dry, add a touch of water to make it easier to spread. Be careful to not make it watery though.
Feeding Them to Your Fish
Soon you should see the worms climbing up the sides of the container. To feed them to you fry, simply wipe them off and swish them into the tank. They will live for about 6 hours, so do not over feed or they may die and dirty the water. These can usually be kept going for a month, maybe 2 by adding a small pinch of yeast to the culture once a week or so. If the culture gets watery, add some more baby cereal or oatmeal (whatever you are using). When the culture starts to smell bad its time to start a new one. Simply follow the steps above again and add a spoonful of your old culture to the new one. Micro worms can be used as a substitute or an addition to baby brine shrimp. If you only have a small amount of fry and don't want to go through the hassle of hatching baby brine shrimp every day, these can be a great alternative.
Keywords: baby fish food, fish food, food, live fish food, live food culture, live foods, microworms
Keywords: crypt, crypt melt, cryptocoryne
Keywords: discus
A new study shows that mosquitoe fish (similar to guppies) can count up to four. I wonder how high cichlids can count then?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/02/26/eafish126.xml
Keywords: fish counting
On several of my aquatic plants the older, outer leaves are dying off and if I look in the center, new leaves are growing in:) I think I will go through and just cut off a bunch of the older leaves before they have a chance to die and rot in my tank. It may make my tank look a little bit more bare than usual, but I think it will be healthier for the plants and the tank for me to do so. It might even encourage faster growth:)
On another note, I am hoping that with spring approaching my characodon lateralis "los berros" will spawn. I have had the heater turned down to 70*F most of the winter, as I was advised to cool them down a bit for winter to encourage spring and summer spawning. In a month or two I will knock it up to 74*f or so. I am sadly only left 3 juviniles, who now appear to be old enough to possibly start spawning. The males are starting to get a red hue to them (adult males are red, juvies are a grey color) and the lone female is actually a bit bigger than the males are. I have seen both of the males making attemps at courting the female, and their is usually at least one male near her at all times. I think I am going to remove my harlequin rasboras, as they would try to prey on the fry for sure. I think my botias will be safe with the fry, they have fairly small mouths and goodeid fry are usually quite large.
Keywords: characodon lateralis, goodeids, pruning, spawning
Keywords: learning, training
Keywords: aquatic plants
Keywords: aquascaping, aquatic plants
Keywords: swordtails