Live food for adult apistos

[MartialTheory]

Hi I was wondering about feeding apistos, specifically apistogramma cacatuoides. I normally feed it a bunch of things including a lot of live foods. Daphnia, white worms, grindal worms and tubifex. But my daphnia culture isn't producing enough to feed it all the time. Neither is my grindal or white worm. So I was planning on using other things like fruit flies or scuds. But first, has anyone had success feeding their apistos scuds or fruit flies? My apisto is picky as hell and took forever for him to accept prepared foods.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
They will eat Gammarus (Scuds?), but they are difficult to keep alive in Apistogramma aquariums (they like cool alkaline water with lots of oxygen). I've got Asellus (like a Scud, but flat bottom to top, rather than side to side) in all the tanks, they do quite well so I'm not sure the fish like them. I haven't kept Hyalella azteca, but I think they are much easier to culture and palatable.

They will eat Fruit-fly maggots with some enthusiasm, but cleaning them up is a horrible job. Mine didn't go for the flies, but I never tried sinking them.

Have a look at these links for culturing Grindal Worms and Daphnia, they help keep your cultures in good condition. <http://www.caudata.org/forum/f1173-...ation-daphnia-cultures-alternate-feeding.html> & <http://www.caudata.org/forum/f1173-...llets-etc/f16-white-grindal-worms-enchytraea/>

There are also Red Worms (Lumbricus rubellus) <http://www.apistogramma.com/forum/index.php?threads/blackworm-apistogramma.10448/#post-56427>

I keep red worm (Lumbricus terrestris) cultures, I've found that they do best in a relatively wet medium. I have a "worm bucket", which is a lidded bucket with a large flower pot inside. The flower pot is slightly too large to fit in the bottom of the bucket, so there is an air gap of about 6cm to the base of the bucket.

I filled the pot 1/2 full of commercial peat based compost, and put in a good handful of egg shells and some fairly coarse semi-composted twigs from the compost heap, I topped this all of with a handful of worms and some potato peelings.

To harvest the worms I take the lid of the bucket and usually there are some on the lid, I then give the bucket a good shake, and lift the pot out. In the bottom of the bucket there should be plenty of worms and a small amount of compost. I take the worms I want and then tip the compost and worms back on top of the bucket and top the bucket up with grass clippings, fruit peel, vegetable peelings etc.

The bucket was never very productive until I started keeping the compost a lot wetter than you imagine it should be.

cheers Darrel

 

[slimbolen99]

Mosquito larvae are another option which I find readily available if you set a couple of 5 gallon buckets full of water outside. They're also FREE! I harvest from one bucket one day, and the other bucket the next, alternating back and forth. Well, honestly, I use 40 gallon barrels, but the same principle applies.

Use a fine mesh net to capture the larvae which swim in the upper third of the bucket; put them in a jar of tank water, and then dump them in.

 

[Mike Wise]

The number of worms you used seems to be a rather fatty diet, to me. Great for conditioning, but not a steady diet. I agree, mosquito larvae are great food if your willing to have some mature occasionally. What's wrong with BBS? Every apisto from 4"/10cm on down love them.

 

[MartialTheory]

I'm not use to this format, how do I quote?

Darrel,

Thank you for the links. I have been having some issues lately because of the temperature for white worms and pest for grindal worms. Daphnia because I have been experimenting on the feed. So I started to culture a strain of free cell algae for the daphnia and I fixed the worm cultures. There will be a delay before they get to proper shape. I had some very small cultures and I have since expanded them in the hope that they will be more than enough to feed all my apistos.

I never thought of maggots but I can only imagine how hard it is to fish them out and clean then. I mention fruit flies because I have a ton of them. They are so easy to culture and I never run out. I use to have them when I had vampire crabs and I thought I would have another go if I could convince my apistos to eat them. So much easier to culture fruit flies than white worms.

I have thought about using red wigglers, eisenia fetida, a compost worm and I believe its smaller than the Lumbricus terrestris. Scuds seem simple and I can start it in an extra 5 gal bucket.

Slimbolen,

I agree, mosquito larvae is great. But no thanks. I have sacraficed too much blood this summer. Next year I am going to spray for mosquitos. I literally never when a day this summer without getting 5 mosquito bites.

Mike,

I am trying to get them to breed. Normally I use hakari bio gold pellets. BBS is great, but I save all of it for my fry and my dario darios. I am trying to get them to breed as well.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
Sorry don't know how L. terrestris got in the link, should have been"Lumbricus rubellus". Eisenia foetida aren't suitable as they contain a yellow liquid and are un-palatable to fish. Red worms are much more muscular and active, not stripy red and yelklow but a deep red, with a purple sheen, they also occur in really wet organic matter, and are really easy to keep <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumbricus_rubellus>.

cheers Darrel

 

[MartialTheory]

Hi all,
Sorry don't know how L. terrestris got in the link, should have been"Lumbricus rubellus". Eisenia foetida aren't suitable as they contain a yellow liquid and are un-palatable to fish. Red worms are much more muscular and active, not stripy red and yelklow but a deep red, with a purple sheen, they also occur in really wet organic matter, and are really easy to keep <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumbricus_rubellus>.

cheers Darrel

Thanks for the info. I was planning on composting for my garden so it seems to be a viable option. I assume you have to cut them up before you feed them? I only chose red wigglers because of its small size. I just hate cutting up worms and prefer just tossing them in. It never crossed my mind that the yellow substance would be a deterrent to fish. So thanks for the heads up. I am looking to get a scud culture in the mean time. I think it would be a nice option for the apistos and I could co culture it with my daphnia.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

It never crossed my mind that the yellow substance would be a deterrent to fish

There are some references from commercial aquaculture <http://www.recycledorganics.com/publications/reports/vermlitreview/vermilitreview1.pdf>

Eisenia fetida, the most common composting worm used in worm farming, is unsatisfactory
for use as live bait because, when threatened, it will exude a fetid, unpleasant-smelling yellow coelomic liquid (Murphy, 1993; Edwards and Bohlen, 1996). Also, several trials using E. fetida as a vermimeal feedstock for rainbow trout and eels found this species to be unpalatable and will not support fish growth (Stafford and Tacon, 1988).

Before I found these references personal experience had shown that Red worms are much, much more palatable to fish than E. fetida <http://goliadfarms.com/pages/products/foods/livefood/l_rubell.htm>:

I only chose red wigglers because of its small size. I just hate cutting up worms and prefer just tossing them in.

You should get a real range of sizes, little ones you can feed whole or otherwise I just hold the worm firmly in between thumb and fore-finger, and use the other hands thumb and fore finger nails to pinch off segment of the size you want.

The only problem I've found feeding small live Red worms is because they are exceptionally lively and really somersault about in the water. I had one male Apistogramma who initially fled and then looked at them for at least a week, before eventually mustering the courage to grab one.

cheers Darrel

 

[JasonC]

So there has been several mentions of cleaning fruit fly maggots.. are we talking about simply having to rinse them off, or is there a purge that should be done? My soilless culture of grindal worms has been infested by fruit flys and I have been grabbing all the maggots I could find and feeding them straight. hope I havent been making a mistake!

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

So there has been several mentions of cleaning fruit fly maggots.. are we talking about simply having to rinse them off

Yes, just a wash. Mine are always surrounded by a scum of semi-liquid Banana which makes them very much a live food of last resort, but the fish really like them.

My soilless culture of grindal worms has been infested by fruit flys

That is the trouble with having lots of different cultures, I've now got mites and Sciarid Flies in my Grindal Worms, and wild type Fruit flies have got in the micro-worms, and then subsequently into vestigial winged fruit fly cultures, where the micro-worms have now done much too well, to the detriment of the Fruit Flies.

cheers Darrel

 

[Joe]

I've used California Blackworms (Lumbriculus variegatus) as the staple diet for all of my fish for over a year with great success. IME they are the easiest worm to culture and really bring out the colours in the fish

 

[dw1305]

Hi Joe,

I've used California Blackworms (Lumbriculus variegatus) as the staple diet for all of my fish for over a year with great success. IME they are the easiest worm to culture

That is interesting, how do you culture them? I've been given some (many thanks to "frothelmet" from UKAPS), and they are at present in a bucket of rain-water with some dead leaves in it outside, water is trickling into the bucket from the water-butt so it has some flow through, but I need to move them inside to a tank fairly soon.

cheers Darrel

 

[MartialTheory]

Hi Joe,

That is interesting, how do you culture them? I've been given some (many thanks to "frothelmet" from UKAPS), and they are at present in a bucket of rain-water with some dead leaves in it outside, water is trickling into the bucket from the water-butt so it has some flow through, but I need to move them inside to a tank fairly soon.

cheers Darrel

Thanks Darrel for all your information. I have been looking for red worms but its an invasive species here in America so I have been having a hard time tracking it down. In the mean time I tried feeding moina and grindal worms but they seem to be to small for my largest apistos. They have little interest in them. Just the fry loves them.

Sorry for the late response but I have been busy with work.

In terms of how to culture blackworms, I find them easy. Here is my experiences and journey on culturing them through trial and error. http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/...rates/47366-culturing-blackworms-tubifex.html

In short, I have changed it to culturing them in a 10 gallon tank with about 1/2 of gravel. It doesn't seem to matter what type but I suspect they do better in smaller gravel. No filter as they tend to like to live in sponge filters and it becomes a pain to harvest them. The HOB and canister filters tend to suck them up and also hard to harvest from a filter. I use a airstone and it provides enough oxygen for the bacteria to grow. Also I throw in a bunch of floating plants or najas to keep down the nitrates.

Forget about what I said about depth, they seem to do fine in a 10 gal as long as there is an airstone. The water parameters don't seem to matter as long as its not in the extremes. Currently I run it in a 6.5 ph and 0kH 0gH hardness. I feed it anything that sinks and is organic. Fish pellets do fine and I even used carrot peels. To harvest, use a gravel vac and remove what you need. The temperature doesn't seem to matter as long as its also not in the extremes. I get a die off when approaching 90 degrees F. Give it some time to establish before harvesting. I recommend a month or so.

Good luck!

 

[Joe]

To culture mine I use a 50x25x25cm tank with a couple of centimeters of dark pea gravel on on half of the tank. I have the temperature around 18-23 degrees celcius, and I have an airpump on the tank to circulate and aerate the water. The pH of the water is around 8 or so I think.
To feed the worms I turn off the airpump and put about a couple of tablespoons of Omega One flake (I use a 50/50 mix of their Veggie flakes and Freshwater flakes) and put it in a cup with some water to soak for a bit. Then I gently squirt the flake onto the substrate, and when it has settled I turn the airpump back on. It usually takes about a day or so for the worms to eat all of the flake.
When I harvest them I just suck them up with a turkey baster and put them into a cup and feed my fish until they are no longer hungry and then I put the rest of the worms back into the tank.
Once a week I clean the tank out, which involves preforming a 50% waterchange using a gravel vaccume. A lot of worms get sucked up, but I just decant off the dirty water and put the worms back into the tank. Then I fill the tank back up with fresh tapwater.
The culture is incredibly prolific and I have more than enough to feed my fish every day. They are the easiest type of live food to culture in my experience

 

[MartialTheory]

opps i mean 1/2"