How to make your own live food for aquarium fish

If in your family, among friends or acquaintances there are older generation aquarists - those who kept fish back in Soviet times, the era of shortages - then you should have heard from them more than once how much easier life is for modern aquarium lovers.

Indeed, stores now offer a huge amount of equipment and medicines. The approach to maintaining aquariums has also changed: for example, there is no need to completely change the water in the aquarium every week. A huge assortment of aquarium fish, plants, and invertebrates allows you to create an ideal balance in your home pond.

But the most important thing is that there is a huge selection of ready-made fish food. Aquarists of the older generation had to spend a lot of time preparing food for their pets, getting bloodworms and daphnia, and getting scarce ready-made food.

However, their experience can also be useful for modern aquarium lovers, because food prepared with your own hands means confidence in the quality and naturalness of the ingredients, and, therefore, in its benefits for the fish.

How to make live food with your own hands

Those aquarists who are the happy owners of a spacious apartment, an empty attic, a garage or free space in the basement can start breeding live food that fish will readily eat.

The smallest organisms floating in water are called plankton. Plankton includes tiny insect larvae, small crustaceans, algae, which are readily eaten by a variety of fish, and ciliates, an excellent food source for young fish. If the owner of the aquarium is keen on independently obtaining fish food, then the net for catching it should be made of a very dense mesh (with a mesh size of up to 1 mm and no more), and after bringing home the catch should be washed in several clean waters. You can also buy live plankton in special stores - such food is sold in plastic bags filled with water.

Did you know? The Russian orbital station Salyut-5 flew into orbit of our planet and back, carrying a guppy astronaut fish on board. Together with the rest of the team, the inhabitant of the aquatic environment felt great during the flight, and then landed on Earth alive and healthy.

Self-breeding ciliates-slippers

The slipper ciliate (Paramecium caudatum) is often the very first food for baby fish. As the fry grow older, they begin to need other food. Breeding protozoa yourself is not at all difficult; it is an effective and safe (without the risk of spreading infections) way of obtaining food.

In order for reproduction to be successful, you need to make a nutrient medium in the incubation container. To do this, you can add the following products to the water:

• cream or milk;
• dried banana or pumpkin peels;
• a bunch of dried grass;
• juicy carrots cut into circles;
• granulated combined food for carp fish.

The readiness of the nutrient liquid can be determined by the appearance of the smell of fermentation.
There are several different methods for breeding slippers.

On a banana peel

Banana peels make an excellent nutritional liquid.

If you want your fish to be healthy, active and beautiful, feed them with rotifers, slipper ciliates, cyclops, daphnia and gammarus.
Method No. 1
Banana peels are collected in advance, dried and stored in a hermetically sealed jar. When the time comes to start breeding the slipper, the aquarist takes out a dry banana peel, rinses it thoroughly in clean water and places it at the bottom of a three-liter jar in which he will incubate the protozoa. For a container of this volume you need to take approximately 1/6 of the peel of one banana. Water taken from the bottom of the existing aquarium is poured into it in an amount of 100 ml.

Soak banana peels in water

This water usually contains many ciliates, and this number of maternal individuals will be enough for their further reproduction. After this, the container is filled with settled water up to the neck. The incubator jar is placed on a windowsill or other place where it is light and the air temperature is above 20°C.

In a warm “nutritious soup” the number of shoes increases exponentially. The warmer the air in the room, the faster the process.

The largest number of protozoa is recorded approximately between the 14th and 21st days after setting up the incubator. This high level of live dust in the water will last for about 20 days, after which the number will gradually decline.

Video: breeding ciliates on a banana Method No. 2

If the aquarium is expected to replenish soon and future fry need live food, you can get ciliates faster. Place dried banana peels in a saucepan and add boiling water. When preparing, the proportions specified in method No. 1 are observed. The mixture of liquid and crusts is left in a closed pan to infuse and cool. The cooled steamed crusts (along with the liquid in which they were boiled) are poured into the incubator, a little aquarium bottom water (with ciliates) is added there and topped up with water.

The most popular aquarium fish are: cichlids, clownfish (macracantha), diamondback piranha, plecostomus catfish, Maori wrasse, pipefish, labidochromis yellow, angelfish, red badis (Dario dario), arapaima, surgeonfish, arowana, discus and mollies .

As in the first case, a warm and well-lit window sill is chosen as the location for the incubator. In this case, the peak of slipper reproduction should be expected on the sixth or seventh day. There will be a lot of them, but protozoa incubated in this way do not live very long. Aquarists take this into account and place several of these fast-growing incubator jars at certain time intervals. This technique helps to obtain a large amount of live dust by the scheduled date.

Breeding slipper ciliates on banana peels

Did you know? UK resident D. Hiscott is the owner of the largest home aquarium for freshwater fish on Earth. The house for the fish turned out to be in the form of a cube 4 m long and 2 m 10 cm high. About 20 tons of water are placed in the aquarium, and many breeds of fish and other river inhabitants (pike, catfish, river stingrays, turtles, and so on) live there at the same time. The cost of a transparent house for freshwater fish is 5,000 British pounds.

In a dairy environment

This method is also simple - the simplest microorganisms multiply well in a fermented milk environment. To do this, add two drops of whole milk or cream (not sweet) for each liter of aqueous solution to the incubator container every 7 days.

Milk or cream must be added to the aquatic environment only in the specified proportions; when the water is oversaturated with milk, rapid proliferation of bacteria begins and, accordingly, their absorption of oxygen necessary for the existence of shoes. When protozoa are grown on bacteria, they need good lighting.

Ciliates-slippers

In the hay

Several bunches of fresh and green grass are taken, dried in the shade until they turn into hay, and then finely chopped with a knife. Add 2.5 tbsp. spoons (10 g) of chopped hay into a small saucepan and pour 1 liter of water, then bring to a boil and cook for 20 minutes over low heat. Boiling kills harmful microorganisms on the grass, but bacterial spores remain alive after heat treatment. At the end of cooking, the broth, covered with a lid, is left to infuse. After a few hours, add 1 liter of settled water.

Place the container in a warm and bright place until bacterial spores develop. On the fourth day, bacterial spores will turn into hay sticks, on which protozoa will multiply. When the hay infusion is ready, it is removed to a cool place inaccessible to daylight.

The shelf life of this infusion is up to 30 days. As necessary, the stored infusion is added to the container with incubation of the shoes; the protozoa happily eat hay sticks.

Breeding slipper ciliates in hay

Did you know? The huge marine aquarium is located in America (Georgia) and was built thanks to the charity of millionaire B. Marcus. The area of ​​this (always open to the public) structure is 200 thousand square meters. m, the cost of its construction amounted to 290 million US dollars. The huge aquarium building is home to 120,000 thousand marine inhabitants.

On the algae

Chlorella and scenedesmus algae are also good for this purpose. To obtain a nutrient medium, for each liter of these algae add 1 granule of a special combined food for fish from the carp family. A few ciliates are added to a container with this solution along with water from the aquarium and placed in a warm but dark place. It must be taken into account that protozoa grown in this way live in a semi-dark environment and do not like daylight, as they have negative phototaxis - they move away from the light source.

Aquarists use algae food when raising capricious, shade-loving aquarium inhabitants or their fry. The lifespan of protozoa obtained from algae is approximately 20 days. If desired, this period can be extended - to do this, place the jar with the culture in a colder place (refrigerator, basement). At temperatures above 10°C, protozoa on algae quickly die; the most suitable temperature for them is 3-10°C.

Plants such as coryfolia, Pogostemon Helfera, Pogostemon erectus, Lomariopsis, Hemianthus Cuba, Echinodorus, Pogostemon octopus, Sagittaria, Marsilia, Java moss, Aquascape, Cryptocoryne and Hornwort in the aquarium play an important role in the life of its inhabitants.

On the bottom water

Here is another effective, but not very well known method of breeding shoes.

Every week, the aquarist cleans the aquarium, while he collects bottom water along with fish waste. This water is very good for producing ciliates. Dirty aquarium liquid is poured into light plastic bottles and left in the sun. After some time, the liquid inside the bottles turns green (blooms), and a little later a green sediment falls to the bottom of the containers. At this time, the liquid is simply teeming with ciliates; if desired, they can be seen through a magnifying glass.

After the green sediment has fallen out for seven days, the ciliates are not additionally fed; they feed on the decomposing green mass.

Important! Self-collection of live dust in ponds and lakes is an interesting activity, but we must not forget that parasitic flukes (Dactylogirus and Gyrodactilus) can live in large natural bodies of water. They are not dangerous for tropical aquarium fish, but it is better not to pollute aquarium water and not to fish in untested water bodies.

Home breeding of other live foods

In addition to ciliates, you can also breed other live food for fish at home: daphnia, artemia, rotifers, tubifex and others.

Breeding Artemia at home

Artemia (Artemia salina) are microscopic crustaceans that live in salt lakes. Before placing them in the aquarium, you should pour them onto a sieve and rinse thoroughly to remove salt under running water. Artemia is suitable for most fish species as food and is the safest live food, as are the larvae of this crustacean, commonly called nauplii. They are considered one of the best and purest fish foods. They are free of parasites and bacteria and have a very high protein content. Including nauplii in fish food promotes fish health and growth.

The only obstacle is that the nauplii need to be bred independently at home. However, canned brine shrimp eggs are now sold, which can be stored for a very long time in a dry environment, as well as a professional larval hatching kit. These kits can be purchased at most professional pet stores, brick-and-mortar and online.

The operating instructions for the kit are very simple (see manufacturers instructions for details). For breeding you need:

• glass vessel with a capacity of up to two liters,
• water, sea salt,
• thermostat,
• effective aeration system,
• light bulb or other light source,
• mesh filter.

Artemia eggs are placed in well-aerated salt water at a temperature of 26-28°C, from which nauplii emerge after about a day. They always head towards the light source (light bulb), so they are easy to find and catch with a net. After a cleansing rinse in warm water, they can be given as food to even very demanding fish.

Breeding Artemia at home

Breeding microscopic nematodes

Panagrellus, Turbatrix (Anguillula) and Rhabditis are microscopic nematodes. This is a nutritious food for juvenile fry that can be grown at home. For dilution, you need a glass jar or plastic container in which oatmeal or wheat bread soaked in milk or yogurt is placed. Also, some nematodes need to be placed on the products for reproduction. The temperature in the room where micronematodes are bred must be kept at least 20°C.

Adult nematodes collect on the sides of the container, from where the aquarist can collect them using a knife blade. A container for breeding microscopic nematodes does not smell very good, but if the jar is tightly closed with a lid, the smell does not penetrate into the room. Micronematodes for reproduction are taken from familiar aquarists or purchased at pet stores.

Did you know? To purchase the most expensive fish, known as the dragonfish or arowana, for your aquarium, you need to pay approximately $80,000. Moreover, unusual coloring of the fins, tail or scales can increase this cost. Among this expensive breed of fish, there is a variety, the platinum arowana, whose price is $400,000.

Reproduction of fruit flies

The fruit fly, Latin name Drosophila, is an insect with a body length of only 3-4 mm, breeds on rotting fruit debris. In late summer and autumn, fruit flies can be found on overripe plums and apples.

It is most convenient to grow them in a bottle or tall jar, at the bottom of which are placed chopped fruits, grated carrots, boiled dried fruits, or a mixture of corn flour, baker's yeast and mashed potatoes.

A bottle with bait is placed in a place where there is a mass outbreak of Drosophila flies, and after a few days the neck of the bottle (with the caught insects) is tightly tied with a bandage or gauze. Flies living in a bottle lay eggs, from which larvae hatch and eventually turn into pupae, and a little later into adult insects. The entire development cycle of Drosophila can be observed using a magnifying glass; it lasts (depending on the species) from two to four weeks. The temperature for breeding fruit flies should be between 20-24°C.

Subsequently, the insect food is made liquid and poured through gauze attached to the neck. From one such breeding jar you can get from 200 to 300 insects per week. After 2 months, the jar is completely freed from insects, washed well and a fresh stock is made for breeding fruit flies.

Feeding features of guppies in the aquarium

There are many varieties of guppies. But they don’t have any specific food preferences. To compose the diet, the same components and feed are selected.

The only exception is guppies, which have predominantly red flowers. Their food necessarily contains foods and additives high in carotene.

Approximately the same principle is used to feed other breeds of fish with bright pigmentation. The basis of nutrition is food enriched with vitamins E and D. This approach to feeding will help maintain the brightness of the guppy’s color.

How to breed commercial food

There are many other types of food for aquarium fish. They can be purchased in specialized stores and stored at home for some time, gradually feeding them to pets.

Tubifex worms (family Tubifex) are thin, reddish worms that grow up to 6 cm in length and are commonly found in polluted rivers, ponds, sewers and sewers, where they live on the dirty bottom of decaying organic matter. They are stored in jars with lids, and as food they enter the aquarium in the form of a lump of worms. Tubifex has long been one of the most popular types of food for aquarium fish, and it is still available in the assortment of most pet stores. Despite its calorie content, tubifex is dangerous because it can contain large amounts of toxic substances.

Tubifex is a common cause of diseases in aquarium fish, as it is a potential carrier of spores of fungal diseases, tapeworms and pathogenic bacteria. It is not surprising that an increasing number of aquarists (and not just professional breeders) are no longer willing to consider the tubifex as food for aquarium inhabitants.

The freshwater rotifer (family Rotatoria) is an excellent food for the fry of almost all types of aquarium fish. You can separate them from the water by straining through a very fine sieve. You can make such a strainer yourself from a nylon stocking and wire, or use those that were purchased at a pet store as part of professional kits for breeding larvae.

Green Euglena (species Euglena viridis) - usually found in spring in lakes and ponds. It is an excellent source of food for newly hatched herbivorous fish fry. It is also good as a valuable addition to the diet of fry of omnivorous fish species. You can cultivate this green algae culture in the form of water blooms by placing a jar with stagnant water and a small amount of algae from the bottom of the aquarium in a sunny place. The algae is so small that even the tiniest fry can easily swallow it.

Copepods, colloquially cyclops ( family Cyclopidae) - their maximum size is no more than 3 mm. Cyclops swim in zigzags, diagonal or horizontal jumps. They are a well-balanced, low-calorie, mineral-rich food and (due to their small size) a safe food for all smallmouth fish. The Cyclops has only one, but significant drawback: its larvae are so predatory and voracious that they can easily attack the fry.

Daphnia ( species Daphnia magna) are small crustaceans that move in a characteristic manner: jumping up, then free falling. Female daphnia can be up to 5 mm in diameter, but smaller specimens are commonly found. The color of daphnia ranges from translucent to red. They readily feed on microscopic algae. Not all fish species love them equally - for example, cichlids are not very interested in daphnia.

To clean the aquarium, they also use filters, Sidex anti-algae agent, Malachite Green conditioner, Methylene Blue antiseptic and natural zeolite stone.

These crustaceans are excellent food for fish and do not contribute to overfeeding. The chitinous shells of daphnia are ballast substances that facilitate the digestion of proteins, carbohydrates and fats. Chitin has a positive effect on the gastrointestinal tract of fish, especially carnivorous species. In turn, carotenoids present in the body of daphnia increase the brightness of the color of scales and fins. Live daphnia and cyclops can be stored in the refrigerator for several days. However, in order to keep them fresh and suitable for consumption by fish, it is necessary to regularly replace the water in the container with plankton and remove dead specimens that accumulate at the bottom of the container.

Bloodworms (species Chironomus plumosus) are mosquito larvae that are readily eaten by most aquarium fish. Bloodworm is very high in calories, so overeating it by fish can cause obesity of internal organs or intestinal upset. You should not feed your fish bloodworms too often, optimally once a week. At the same time, some species of fish (cichlids) can consume bloodworms much more often. Bloodworm larvae have a cherry-red body, the color of which is due to excess hemoglobin.

They live in dirty ponds where they feed on organic debris. Bloodworms caught in natural waters are a potential carrier of toxins and internal parasites, and can pose a serious threat to aquarium fish. Bloodworms supplied to pet stores come from commercial breeding farms and are theoretically safe for consumption by fish.

mosquitoes (Anopheles maculipennis) are especially recommended for feeding small species of fish and juvenile fry of the most carnivorous fish. They are massively present in any reservoirs (artificial containers) where fish are not found. These larvae have high nutritional value. Females of many fish species that feed heavily and frequently on black mosquito larvae become more fertile. However, you should avoid introducing too many live larvae into the aquarium, as they may soon turn into mosquitoes.

Important! The mosquito larva is a predator and in large numbers can pose a threat to aquarium fish fry!

What do fish eat in natural conditions?

Proper nutrition significantly affects the health of aquatic pets, therefore, with regular errors in nutrition, the fish can get sick and die. To reduce the likelihood of fish diseases due to improper diet, you will need to find out what aquatic inhabitants living in natural conditions eat.

Most river and lake inhabitants are omnivores, so they consume:

• decaying vegetation or fish;
• seaweed;
• insects and worms;
• arthropods;
• protozoa;
• other fish;
• chopped fruits and vegetables.

Among such an abundance of nutritious foods, it is not difficult to choose a diet for fish, but each individual has its own priority foods. Some pets prefer mostly plant food, while others prefer live food, so when choosing a diet for waterfowl, you need to start from this.

Many aquascapers argue regarding the question of whether it is better to underfeed or overfeed. And, despite the fact that overeating pets die from regular overfeeding, malnutrition is not considered beneficial; this greatly affects the juveniles and fry.

Food preparation

When feeding live food to aquarium fish, there is always a risk of infection. To avoid this, you need to follow a number of rules.

How to ensure feed safety:

1. Fish food purchased from reliable suppliers does not require additional cleaning. If an aquarist independently catches live food in natural or artificial reservoirs, special care must be taken. Along with food, pathogenic microbes, fungal spores, parasites and diseases can enter the aquarium. Therefore, prey delivered to the house should be thoroughly washed several times with clean water before feeding the fish. Otherwise, the fish delicacy may cause the death of the inhabitants of the aquarium.
2. It is best to freeze suspicious live food for several days; during such freezing, many ectoparasites die.
3. Some live foods purchased from pet stores also require additional rinsing with clean water. In particular, this applies to brine shrimp (Artemia salina) and its nauplii, which live in extremely saline environments. If you don't wash them, the water in the aquarium will become salty.
4. Also, when feeding worms or mosquito larvae, you need to make sure that such food does not remain uneaten at the bottom of the aquarium. Once in the aquatic environment, they can successfully hide at the bottom and reproduce.
5. Dry food is dangerous for newly hatched fry of many fish species. A film of dry food can cover the surface of the aquarium, and the fry are too weak to penetrate through it and may lack oxygen. Therefore, dry, dusty food should not disperse on the water surface, but sink to the bottom in the form of a paste. To do this, you need to mix a little dry food with water, draw the resulting semi-liquid paste into a syringe without a needle and squeeze it with the syringe plunger into the place where the fish accumulate.
6. Many manuals for aquarists contain warnings against feeding fish with tubifex. This is largely true, since the tubifex is a carrier of all kinds of parasites and infections. However, all these dangers lurk in its gastrointestinal tract, and the tubifex can be cleansed of them. Some craftsmen soak the tubifex in milk and feed it to the fish only when it changes color (from blood red to pale pink); the milk is changed daily. The tubifex can also be washed in clean water (3-4 times a day), this procedure is carried out for 4-5 days. After this, the tubifex's gastrointestinal tract will be cleansed.

Rinse the food with clean water

Packed rations

Experts allocate a small portion to dry food. However, not every store-bought miracle powder is safe for pets. It is better to prepare dry food for guppy with your own hands. There are a lot of recipes that resemble the process of preparing animal feed. However, the final product in this case has a powdery consistency, which distinguishes it from conventional combined feed.

Here is one of the popular recipes, which has proven its worth over the course of several decades. Prepared live bloodworms, daphnia, as well as fish roe, beef liver, dried seaweed, lettuce in equal proportions must be finely chopped, mixed and dried in the sun or in a stove oven. The resulting mixture is ground into powder and used as an additive to the menu.

How to properly feed fish with live food

Seven basic principles of feeding:

1. Do not give a lot of food - it is better to feed more often, but in smaller portions.
2. Eat a varied diet.
3. At least once a week, provide live food or frozen food - then your charges will be bright and active.
4. Once a week, have a fasting day - this will improve the overall well-being and vitality of your fish (this rule does not apply to fry).
5. Calibrate the food - the diameter of the fish's mouth is decisive here.
6. Make sure all fish have access to food and are getting enough to eat.
7. Do not serve food before you are about to turn off the lights in the room.

Video: feeding aquarium fish with frozen bloodworms

Important! Don't overfeed! In their natural environment, fish often have difficulty obtaining food and must actively seek it out and compete for the best habitats. However, in an artificial reservoir, in a small space and with minimal energy loss, the fish will become fat, lazy and clumsy. Overfeeding also leads to various diseases, primarily obesity.

Feeding the fry

In the first week, the fry's food should be plentiful, served 5 times daily. To do this, you should prepare nematode microworms on oatmeal from carrot juice, ciliates, and other living microorganisms.

From the 2nd week, meals become 4 times a day, you can already expand the list of products. It is useful to hard-boil an egg, take it from there and mash the yolk, which will become a treat for the young. It is also recommended to prepare milk powder, which is formed by evaporating milk in a water bath, or gradually add foam from boiled milk. The list of acceptable products includes yogurt. It is poured with boiling water so that the milk protein takes on a jelly-like form. 2-week-old fry are also given some crushed algae for variety.

Upon reaching 1 month, the food of young individuals includes crushed cyclops, daphnia, and bloodworms, and from 3-5 months, guppies switch to the adult feeding regime.

When installing an aquarium with fish at home, you should remember that pets do not eat the entire store range actively and with pleasure. Self-prepared delicacies, if the technology and storage conditions are followed correctly, will bring them much more benefit.

Storage rules

The debate among aquarists between proponents of live and frozen products has been going on for many years, and there is no sign that it will end anytime soon. It cannot be denied that all live nutritious foods can also be frozen. Most live crustaceans, larvae and worms used to feed aquarium fish are sold frozen. You can bring them home and immediately place them in the freezer of your home refrigerator, and then remove food from there as needed.

Proponents of frozen foods argue that the risk of disease and infection of fish in this case is much reduced. Their opponents respond to this by saying that currently mosquito and midge larvae come for sale mainly from commercial farms, free from industrial and bacterial pollution, and supporters of live food breed them themselves at home. After trying different types of food, you can decide for yourself what is best for you personally.

Freezing live food

How to store and use feed:

1. Storing frozen foods is very convenient: they take up less space than live food, are always edible, and are always at hand.
2. Live dust feeding is done by collecting water containing the protozoa using a pipette and placing it in the aquarium. Ciliates are an excellent food for the fry of many types of fish.
3. Never place frozen food cubes directly into the aquarium. Such food must first be thawed, rinsed under running water and brought to a temperature close to room temperature - only then can it be fed to the fish.
4. Live daphnia and cyclops can be stored in the refrigerator for several days. To keep them fresh and suitable for fish consumption, it is necessary to regularly replace the water in the container with plankton, and also remove dead specimens from the bottom of the container.
5. For aquarists who incubate live food, this is the easiest way, their fish food is always at hand and is stored perfectly (alive and fresh).

Live food contains many ingredients necessary for the normal life of aquarium fish and the development of their immune system. This cannot be achieved by using only artificial and dry food. And, as we have seen, growing food yourself is not that difficult. We wish cheerfulness, beauty and health to the inhabitants of your aquarium!

Healthy feed

No matter how valuable the individual components of the guppy menu may be, you cannot do without a combination food. Nutrient mixtures are not only a storehouse of microelements, but are also inexpensive, quick to prepare, which even novice aquarists can handle, and have a long shelf life. Among them, two large groups of variants can be distinguished - exclusively of animal origin and consisting of ingredients of different origins. Compound feeds perfectly complement daily food throughout the year, especially their presence in winter, when the range of food is narrowed.

A popular animal mixture includes ingredients such as bloodworms, daphnia and beef liver. They must be cleaned, washed and finely ground in a meat grinder until smooth. The resulting mixture is stored in sealed glass jars in the cold. A similar food with the addition of crushed dried gammarus, bread crumbs and other ingredients is also known as a variety.