Cheap Fish Food?

[Tank Commander]

Has anyone ever tried using uncoloured maggots from an angling shop to feed their fish with? You can buy a pint of the wriggling little beasties for about £1.50 in the UK and they look mighty tasty.

 

[Tank Commander]

It could be a cheap way of treating/feeding large collections of tropical fish... I know the Golden Orf and Koi Carp in our garden pond love them. And of course, Course Fishermen use them all the time. You can put them in a tub in the fridge (with air holes in) and they can stay in their maggot form for up to 2 weeks - so you have plenty of time to use them up. (Just remember to be careful where you open the lid on the tub after a couple of weeks.) - Plus the maggots would sink to the bottom of the tank and be excellent bottom feeder food - some maggots could quickly bury themselves in the gravel/sand and prove endless fun for Cory Catfish and the like.

 

[Tank Commander]

Also, did you know you can buy live blood worm and Jokers (Small red maggots) from angling shops for about £2 per pint - which is much, much, much cheaper than blood worm sells for in frozen packs at the LFS.

Some of my other ideas include:

The freezing of the live bloodworm from the angling shop to enable smaller amounts to be fed over time, or the breeding of ones own blood worm...

How about suspending a plastic margerine tub - with a hole pierced in it - over your aquarium and fill it with maggots (which would crawl out at intervals) so that you have an effective feeding method for when you go away for the weekend...

We haven't even discussed the possibilities of digging up your own earth worms to use as fish fodder - or growing your own maggots!!! )

And what about tadpoles and frogspawn - all natural food for fish eh? .....

(I haven't tried anything yet, thought I would check it out with you guys first)

 

[LobsterOfJustice]

Everything sounds fine except the tadpoles.

 

[modernhamlet]

Doesn't get much easier than microworms... microworms, oatmeal, yeast, water.

Only small fish and fry really eat them though... too small. My rasboras love them.

http/www.thetropicaltank.co.uk/microworms.htm

However, nothing is cheaper than buying a big container of fish flakes. $5 for a big container that lasts 6 months and requires no maintenance is hard to beat.

 

[julia]

have tried maggots as foodstuff for my oscars they thought I was having a laugh!!
They seemed quite amused watching me fish them all back out though. Dont forget if collecting live food from ponds the experts say to avoid ponds /streams ect that contain fish as you run the risk of introducing disease.
A QUESTION. would bloodworm ect from an angling shop be ok? I would be concerned that they may be contaminated with chemicals or other non fish friendly additives?

 

[kevin007]

tank commander, why did u talk to urself at the send and first post?

 

[crimsontsavo]

I think TC was just remebering more of what he wanted to say and posted in three seperate posts.

Maggots are great food and easy to raise. Just make sure you clean them out well- (all live food really).
Put them in suitable CLEAN food for a few days before feeding to your fish.

Be CAREFUL with wildstock foods- (gathered from ponds/streams-etc.)
Clean them out as you would any other live food. I got my Tubifex worms from a ditch last year- cleaned them out and they are still making clean,healthy babies for my fish to eat.