Xref: utzoo rec.pets:2223 alt.aquaria:233
Path: utzoo!hoptoad!amdcad!pyramid!lll-winken!gryphon!richard
From: richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton)
Newsgroups: rec.pets,alt.aquaria
Subject: Re: Re: Fish parasites?
Message-ID: <2629@gryphon.CTS.COM>
Date: 18 Feb 88 22:16:33 GMT
References: <253@occrsh.ATT.COM> <4865@ihlpg.ATT.COM>
Reply-To: richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton)
Organization: Trailing Edge Technology, Redondo Beach, CA
Lines: 60

In article <4865@ihlpg.ATT.COM> dalka@ihlpg.ATT.COM (Ken Dalka) writes:
>
>This is an interesting point that it might be good to hear peoples
>opinions about. I used to use live food and had an outbreak of some
>type of bacterial disease.

Worms, I'll bet.

>Since that time, I've refused to use any
>live food in my tanks. I use quite a bit of frozen food, especially
>for the salt water fish and have never had a problem with disease
>since. The types I use are brine shimp, glassworms, bloodworms (these
>smell really bad so I don't use them anymore to save my nose), 

Too bad. They have the highest nutritional content.

>prime
>reef, formula I and II, krill and some special invertebrate mixture.
>I don't use them all at the same time, and I don't even keep them all
>at the same time, I vary what I buy from time to time. Anybody, want
>to tout the pros of live food?
>

Well, you're missing the obvious: cultured live food.

White worms, vineger eels, fruit flies, microworms (for fry), daphnia
and if you're really a masochist, brine shrimp.

The pros of live food ?  Fish are mush more willing to accept live food
than any other.  Because of that, there is rarely any left sitting
on the bottom to rot. Fish seem to grow better ans spawn more
readily on a live food diet.

Another often overlooked food is earthworms.  The large ones you get
from bait stores (african nightcrawlers) are fine for BIG fish, while
smalled ones can be found in your backyard by diging up a few shovels
of dirt.  Then can be chopped into 2-5 mm segments for smaller fish
and it's pretty amazing how much fish like them.

The problems with live food are 1) bacteria/fungal 2) parasites
3) big things

You can avoid 1) by never feeding tubifex. I've had nothing bad 
bad news with those things, although some people report success.

2) Not much you can do about that.

3) These are things like dragonfly larvae and the like, just scoop them
out.

Live foods I've collected and had no problems with: fairy shrimp, daphnia,
glassworms, although the season is pretty short, they do freeze well.

Ones that I've cultured: white worms, microworms, daphnia and some
limited success with brine shrimp.


-- 
    "Each morning when I wake up to rise, I'm living in a dreamland" 
                          richard@gryphon.CTS.COM 
   {ihnp4!scgvaxd!cadovax, rutgers!marque, codas!ddsw1} gryphon!richard