CaptainBarnicles
Moderate Pleco Tolerator
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Ewwwww
I've been using dry kitten food for my grindals. It's easy to measure out (just count the pieces). And easy to remove any leftovers.Got my starter cultures of both grindal & white worms today... circling the edge of that live foods whirlpool... I'll be using natural yogurt, on wheat bread, with nutritional yeast, like the video I watched... my plastic shoe boxes & everything I needed arrived today as well
Pour them into your cube tray then use your turkey baster to suck out the water through a fine mesh net or muslin cloth...top them up and repeat until you have a good concentration in each cube.The mosquito larvae are turning out to be a little more work than I expected. When I net them out of the bucket. there's always chunks of algae and other detritus that have to spend some time separating the larvae. But it's worth it.
I'm freezing some for winter. I want to freeze them in densely packed cubes. Almost like the frozen food cubes you get at the fish store. I tried yesterday. I poured the water with the larvae into a coffee filter and then tried to spoon them into a silicone ice cube tray. Made a mess of it. I'm sure it will still be edible for the fish when I thaw them out in a few months. I just have to refine my method here. And maybe lower my expectations that I'm not going to be able to make frozen cubes like the store bought ones at home.
I'm getting a lot more use out of my brine shrimp net than I ever thought. I first got it to net corys. Now I use it to scoop larvae out of the bucket. And now this. Thanks!Pour them into your cube tray then use your turkey baster to suck out the water through a fine mesh net or muslin cloth...top them up and repeat until you have a good concentration in each cube.
I agree it's a lot of work, I've moved my container so that it gets half shade and half sun so it's not so bad with algae. I just get a few bits of the decaying organics which I pippette our before feeding... just takes forever!
Regarding hatching bbs, since I need small amounts only most of the time, I just hatch them in a small food container, thanks to these temps we are having on top of the tank instead of inside the tank as I used to, in 24 hours I have lower yield, sure, but no work, no airstone, no artificial 24 hour light. I just start the culture in the morning and collect the next morning. I filter them through the smallest sieve to tap water and even as is, they last most of the day till afternoon outside in the container alive, since I feed during the day and not all at once. I use barely half a liter of water and half a teaspoon of normal salt and half a teaspoon of epsom salt, given my water is usually soft.
I've bought the same one and it's excellent, no air pumps needed. I put it on top of the aquarium and direct a desk lamp over the opening. It heat from above and below and the cysts hatch super quickThat's the ingenious thing about the hatchery I got. It separates them from the cysts by funneling them towards light.
I get those too. I figure if it's small enough to go in a fish's mouth, then it's food.From my harvest this morning...
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Along with the mozzie larvae it appears I also now have bloodworms and another worm which I don't know the name of..
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Bloodworm and...
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Something else?