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Culturing live foods for killifish
Live Food Culture

artemia

Brine shrimp

Artemia salina are perhaps the most universal food for fishes. The aquarium hobby uses lass than one perfect of world production with the rest being used by commercial fisheries growing fish, shrimp and other marine and freshwater aquacultures animals.

Possibly the easiest marine invertebrate to breed in an aquarium they're used when freshly hatched by any fish large enough to eat them as a first food because few if any other thigns provide the nutrition these do (if fed in the first few hours after hatching) while the adults are fed to larger fish and while not terribly packed with macronutrients the roughage and micronutrients are still invaluable.


cyclops

A=and related species

Cyclops are a tiny freshwater copepod that often accompany Daphnia in ponds and can be cultured the same way.


daphnia

A long time favorite

There are a half dozen species of daphnia that are cultured. Some people find they very easy to culture while they give others fits.


euglena

Plantlike protist

Euglena sp. Not the same as "water with a lot of algae in it". Virtually all aquarium "grey water" or "cloudy water" when you look at it is just lots and lots of green filaments of algae is not generally the "bacteria" we think it is; you don't need a microscope to look at this, a hand lens will make this very plain. Euglena is a microorganism that has characteristics of both plants and animals. Like swimming algae with a mouth that eats smaller bugs as well as photosynthesises. You usually have to buy these as a pure culture, it's not easy to isolate them from pond water or a fish tank even if they are actually present. Any decent biological or scientific supply house will sell them.


flies

Wingless fruit flies

It can possibly be argued that worms and flies constitute a near perfect diet for most killifish and neither are hard to raise.

Note also that the wingless strain is pretty easy to contain and there are any number of interesting wild flies that can also be cultured and married persons should note if both are interested in fish as a hobby it can be a wonderful experience shared, if not it's the fast track to divorce, a property they share with ants (Kiselev 2003, pers comms).


gammerus

"Scuds"

Pretty easy to culture, but large and touch. Good for the largest fish.


infusoria

The best food for fry

Most, nearly all, killies can take freshly hatched brine shrimp after hatching, but a few require infusioria, which, fortunalty, is very easy to culture.


moina

Similar to daphnia

Culture of Moina is the same as Daphnia, but there are a few advantages to Moina.


rotifers

Instead of BBS

Rotifers are bigger than Paramecium but are cultured the same way and are a wondefull substitute for the ever costier staple baby brine shrimp.


worms

Many different kinds

Worms are are unparalleled in conditioning fish for breeding. There are many types that can be cultured, from ones small enough to feed fry to ones far too large for all but full grown monster killies.









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Richard J. Sexton