Feeding Fish - Homemade Etc...

[Jimmy Twotimes]

Guys

Keeping tropical fish is a hobby right? Well, I love my fish but im pretty bored with feeding them stuff i can buy over the counter. So, i wanna try and make it more fun by creating my own food.

Looked on the web for home made tropical fish recipes and its all a bit hit and miss so just wondered if anyone on here had any community tank fish recipes that can be frozen into cubes and fed to my fish?

But, i'm also looking to feed earth worms. But just need a little advice.

I have a compost heap and last weekend i started to take some of the rotted compost out to put in plants. As i scooped up the contents there are literally millions of earth worms!

Now these would be lovely to feed my little fish but I just need to know if i can just wash them up and feed them? Or, as they have been brought up on rotting plants/grass cuttings etc, will they lack nutrients? And also, do they need to be cleaned internally before i feed them? What i mean by this is do they need to be fed on something else to clean there system out before i feed them to fish?

Guys any help much appreciated...

 

[Colin_T]

most people who feed earthworms simply rinse them under the tap (put them in a sieve) and then feed away. If the worms are too big for the fish they chop them up with a sharp knife. Don't let your other half see this happen because you will be living on your own afterwards.
Don't worry about cleaning them out internally. Earthworms are pretty clean to start with and if the environment wasn't healthy they wouldn't be there.

Marine mix can be made up from prawn, fish & squid. Mince these items up together and then put into icecube trays or plastic bags and freeze. For vegetarian fishes defrost and then crush up some frozen veges and feed that.

You can try growing daphnia, gammaris, and various other live foods. Daphnia is easy. Have a container of water and add some lawn fertiliser. Leave it until the water goes green, then add some live daphnia. In a couple fo weeks you will be feeding daphnia to everything you have.
Gammaris feed on rotting plant matter.
Mozzie larvae will breed in containers of water left outside under a tree.
Micro worms can be cutlured in icecream buckets that have a small amount of porridge in them.
Maggots can be collected from rotting meat and left in bran for a few days to clean up.
Wingless fruitflies can be kept in bottles on a shelf and fed pieces of fruit.

 

[Jimmy Twotimes]

Cheers Colin

Just flicked thru one of my aquarium books and it has said that i should not feed earthworms directly as they have sand (no idea where this comes from) in their intestinal tract and they should be left in a box for this to pass thru them.

But it doesnt say whether they need to be in earth in a box, or with any kind of food to purge the body of this sand.

Any ideas?

Good call about the chopping of worms in front of missus! Might need a space in the garage for this kind of "food preparation"!

 

[Colin_T]

In the wild fish eat worms with sand in. But if you want to clean them out internally, put them in a box with some damp bran or cereal, (cornflakes or wheatbix) and leave them overnight.
Chances are the worms in your compost heap won't have much if any sand in them. They are more interested in chomping up the rotting leaves. When there is no more food left they will go back into the soil and start looking for food in there.

 

[Eclecticoldsod]

Don't use worms from the compost heap. They are called brandling worms (red and white stripes) and most creatures find them very distasteful. Turn over any big rocks in your garden, and you should find nice pink earthworms underneath. Use the smallest of them, as big earthworms have tough skins which are hard to digest.
If you want a regular supply, choose a shady spot of bare earth, put down a bit of old carpet or cardboard (about 2 foot square), water it well, keep it damp, and you should find worms under it every day...