Bro, I hope this does not sound weird, but it is like you were reading my mind lol. For the last 48 hours I have been deciding to do Blackworms and I am going to buy a bag of bugs from Phillips Fish works for my fish. I have been pricing cheap 10-gallon tanks and everything to start cultures in lol. It is like you knew and you have validated my choice for me lol. 🤣🤣🤣
I love that video Alex. You have such an amazing variety of fish. Those wild bettas are amazing. I you and Father Fish have really inspired me these last couple of months. I started culturing daphnia, grindle worms, black worms, scuds and brine shrimp. It’s brought so much joy and new found love to the hobby for me. There nothing like watching your fish eat live foods. Thanks again for sharing
I just found a trough of mosquito larvae even in this cold and aren't my fish all having the best time! If you don't feed your fish live food at least sometimes, you're missing 80 percent of the joy of watching their natural behavior - they got a top off with cold tannic leaf rainwater, too, and my corydoras are acting very spicy
I taught my Odessa barbs to use the roots of frogbit and duckweed to pull them underwater and then eat the aphids. It's very cool to watch. The other fish will join in on the feast.
Another great video Alex. It was my first time starting and feeding live culture this year. I have to say my fish were the best colour they had ever been. I had only previously fed bbs, frozen, pellets and occasional flakes up to that point, but definitely noticed a difference in their colour once I added in them into their outdoor summer tub full of live culture. I can’t wait to get them back outdoors again once the weather warms up.
Very cool, thanks for sharing! Finally getting some cool cultures in my shrimp only tank, seems to be hundreds and hundreds of seed shrimp. Very exciting to see!
Oooo nice! Those are the best for fry ...plus they'll hide and reproduce fast enough to actually stay in the habitat despite being hunted down...where as daphnia can get cleared out pretty darn quickly
Recently bought a daphnia magna culture off someone and put them in a small still water aquarium and when I setup my IBC container for my turtles I took a small amount of daphnia and now have a indoor pond full of them! I need to get myself some containers and make some cultures to sell. Didn't buy them to sell but since I've got so much I might as well go all Mr.Crabs. 🤑
Third video today. I also have a 2.6 gallon Betta tank which I'm considering setting up for scuds. Either that or a ten gallon, I have two available. 0:02
Even i have 1 2y old angel who doesn't have any blue colour on her body but when shift her on terrace pond half of her body shows blue colouration because of the many kind of larve. I was amazed to see that fish changes colours then after watching this video of your got to k knlw that i need more terrace pond for them to culture new aquatic friends that they will ke to eat from their bottom of heart ❤😂
Mine all ate from my scud tank outback, and mosquito larvae from water I sat outside until….. A dragonfly larvae infestation. I didn’t notice until my scuds and shrimp colonies where near decimated & one ripped my Dumbo Betta’s fin off. Just finally recouping all my tanks. And started my new scud colony tank inside. Booooo. Will always cover my outdoor “porch ponds” now :( Tampa, FL
Yeah down in FL yall have some gnarly insects! Its why i dont recomend the recent trend of straight dumping a jar of pond water in your tank...but rather covering it and QT without fish or parasite hosts, to observe it a few weeks, minimum.
This is so informative!!! Fantastic reporting!🌻🌼🐝 my skin crawls watching those clips. After watching your and father fish’s videos I’ve started and had success culturing brine shrimp outdoors. It’s covered to reduce the number of other larva- I’m curious about starting a scud’s culture but I missed out. Will try when they are back in stock from aquaticarts. Thanks for the great info!
Awesome video. I ordered the bag of bugs over the weekend and I was apprehensive about getting scuds as I didn't want to be overrun with them, but they should be nutritious for betta and tetras. Thanks for the ease of mind.
Great video. Ive accidentally also got a sustainable culture of live food growing in my tank. My filter arrangement has gunk on the outside where the water cascades into the tank that appears to be a mixture of algae and maybe protein waste? It looks kind of gross if viewed from the wrong angle. There are white critters swarming all over it that I assume are spring tails? I thought about cleaning this off but my fish are healthy and I guess this food source is beneficial for them.
So cool and fascinating love it but i don't know enough so i wonder if there is small bugs that can hurt my fish. Thats what scares me from trying to raise bugs outside. Thanks for sharing.🙏✌️👍💯💗🔥
There are leeches that can be problematic, but the biggest threat is dragon fly larva. I'm sure there are a couple more but, you can just use a Mason Jar to start a bug culture and then be selective on breeding colony
My yellow neo tank is full of little swimming critters like seed shrimp I’m assuming and small worms. Not planaria I don’t think the shrimp are flourishing. If I rotated a couple green moscow guppies every now and then that would work for eating them up and be good for the fish two Think my otocinclus would eat them also?
Yeah that would help...i think micro rasbora species like chillis or exclaimation points would all work great and eat less baby shrimp...if you care about breeding more shrimp. Cheers
Mine will eat it, as it falls when i do that sometimes...but most i have to gravel vac up.... what type of bug bites works for you? Id be stoked if theyd eat that lol..thank
I sort of already have one like this...but it really depends on your goals and preferences. But i could make an example for say...nano fish? Good idea. Thank you
would you maybe consider doing a video on various aquarium-safe soap products? i am overly cautious when it comes to washing myself before doing anything aquarium related activities
So good question. However i don't know of any soap id recommend... my go tos are vinegar, hydrogen peroxide and sometimes in worst case... bleech if you can let it evaporate after the application of it
@@Fishtory thats good advice, i was always curious as to if applying peroxide to my hands was too much or not enough but that information is certainly appreciated
@@Fishtory Also I'd use Seachem Prime or some other dechlorinating agent to remove the traces, if I used bleach (for example Purigen regenerates in bleach solution).
@@glassboxesI don't know if this is useful or not, but I just discovered you can put a sprayer top on a hydrogen peroxide bottle and IT FITS- now I can spray an algae covered rock (outside the aquarium) or spritz my hands very effectively, no more dunk
I placed a pond on my terrace garden so insects are attracted to plants they find this pond that i created , so i get variety of larve My serpae tetra are crazy red and black skirt tetra is crazy black too.
Alex, can l crop the ending of the livestream with you and joey (King of diy to use for a video l am constructing?) I only need the last 10 mins of it?
Sure do whatever you want my friend. .. just link to the full thing in the description so people can get context if they want it. Also dont let him copyright strike you... its MY VIDEO COMTENT lol.... so dispute it, if he tries anything. Cheers.
Can I culture enough in a ten gallon aquarium to be able to introduce a sufficient population into my main tanks to allow them to permanently populate them? 14:31
Yes, it may take a little time, but that's what I do. I started with a 5g and kept it rich with green water, then would scoop out 50% or so, and put that in one or two tanks.... then 4 or 5 days later I'd do the same thing again
I've joined your channel about the time you were in utube jail lol😂. I believe there's a way to grow your own cultures inside the container in the house? I'm interested in cultures for angelfish and their fry. Any tips or videos you currently made that I can make inside the house only. I really want to be sure that they are free of pests? I've seen some videos saying you can use your sponge dirt while doing a water change and feed it yeast. Any knowledge if good for angelfish? Thanks for your videos!! I love to learn from you !! You are certainly a blessing !
Scuds, daphnia and cyclopse are amazing for growing angel fish. And i have a video on scuds if you look up @fishtory scuds, i think youll find it. But all my scuds are indoor raised
Hi Alex! What kind of shelves do you use to put your fish tanks on? I am looking to maximize my vertical space with a tank racking system but I want to make sure I’m getting a good shelf that will hold the weight.
Husky from home depot, but i tossed the particle board shelves and cut 1/3 inch boat laminate sealed wood to the shelve size.... 6 years, so far so good
@@Fishtory oh good. I want to make sure they have enough variety. They get extreme flakes too now and then, and they pick at the super greens repashy I put in for my Synodontis.
I do in lots of tanks,.but most my plant focused tanks have just aquasoil... check out my video " what is the best substrate" and " to cap or not to cap" if you want more details and or science
Hey Alexander, I’ve got a question for you: Do you still see the same benefits when feeding frozen food? Or does the freezing process kind of knock a bit of the benefit of live foods out of the critter carcasses? Follow up: how did you get mosquito larvae that never developed?! It seems like if I have a bucket of water outside for 5 minutes, my backyard is swarmed with the bastards. Thanks!
So i live in seattle ... its a lot cooler and skeeters take a week to 3 or even 4 to hatch. And you can definitely get the nutrition frozen or live. Live happens to cause the hunting reflex also, and spawning behaviors in many cases
I keep meaning to go get some jars of pond water to restart cultures from, any advice on identifying what exactly you end up looking at? I was thinking of getting one of those USB microscopes or something.
@@4loveoffish Step 1 is not to add anything directly to your tank. Take Planaria, a common parasite in the hobby and in our waterways, it's sort of like a tiny leech. Planaria eat a different thing than Daphnia, and by denying them a food source, and maintaining the Daphnia food source, you can kill off planaria within a culture over a few weeks/months. If you added a jar of Pond scum blindly to your tank, the planaria wouldn't have starved off yet. You can also try to dilute and reduce your cultures, or only to take samples from certain parts of the waterway. I know when people do invert surveys for a waterway, there are a bunch of different ways to collect and different places show different kinds of critter. Also, they frequently use cheap white Ice Cube Trays as a way to separate out a sample into a bunch of smaller easy to see samples, which would be easy with a pipette or turkey baster. Then you can make sure you aren't grabbing any parasites that are easily identifiable to the naked eye. You can also just buy specific cultures and things, but they wont have the diversity and adaptations to your local climate, and sometimes those have parasites too. As far as parasites within scuds for example, you can again, starve/wait them out because of the way their life cycle works. Parasites use scuds as a carrier, taking them to their eventual host species, usually birds, sometimes traveling through fish in the process. They make the scud act enticing, get eaten by a fish, make the fish swim on top of the water, then the fish gets eaten by the bird, which carries the parasite to new waterways while it completes it's life cycle within the bird. Without the fish and bird, the parasite dies out. This means the scuds can breed and reproduce for a few generations and the parasites will not. Other kinds of parasites, like the larval stages of freshwater clams and mussels, can generally be avoided by time of year I would assume? But it's hard to say what you need to avoid in your waterways. Maybe try and find local invert studies on a waterway?
how do you avoid bringing dragonfly nymphs into your tank ? I thought I was being super careful, using a turkey baster then putting water in a big pickle jar and watching it for a few hours... but in the past 45 days I've caught and removed 4 dragonfly nymphs from a single 20 gallon. ! maybe I brought in eggs ? I don't know
Well i luck out in Seattle so far north. We only get large dragon flies in may to Aug. But i generally only feed as much as the fish eat within 30 seconds with mosquitos and such. Also i have open tubs outside, then tanks inside that i pour jars of water into and let sit a week or more, and just pull from those live culture tanks that have a mesh top
I want to have live cultures, but i live in Norway and most of the critters and microfauna needs that cold period, so no good in a aquarium. Im not even sure if anyone else has done it here, since i cannot find any information about it. Got any tips on where to forage for microfauna and other creatures that are suitable for a aquarium? Would be cool if anyone could figure out how to make starter kits for microfauna of different sizes. I have tried ecospheres and their derivatives, but not had much luck yet. Plan on making some more attempts this coming summer. If i do end up becoming successful i plan on trying to get out to other people, hopefully it will take off enough in time that people and their fish can enjoy it without having to go through my struggle :)
So here in the usa you can buy baby scuds and seed shrimp...cyclopse and daphnia. Also there are cold and tropical species of each...i also have icewater species i raise outside in winter, and while they die over 22 to 25C or so, they survive outside half the year then go dormant and in late spring, a larger species hatches. ... but sadly i dont know what is available in European stores in that regard. Ask mark from marks shrimps, perhaps? He lives in Norway as well i believe?
@@Fishtory Thanks for the tips. Did not know there were Norwegian youtubers doing aquarium stuff. Maybe i might be able to find something equivalent to what is available in the USA. It is reassuring to know it is available elsewhere though!
Dude, I haven't even started to watch your video, and I will not dispute the value of live foods. However your thumbnail implies I can feed live food and transform a red phantom tetra into a black phantom tetra.
It's literally the same group of fish. If it were a red phantom, it would have a round or tear drop black eye spot, and probably be red... like my red phantom tetras are. They also have white on their dorsal and anal fins and 18 or 19 anal fin rays vs thr Black's 21 to 23
And it makes flamingos pink 🦩🦩🦩 (I know there's more to it than that. But interesting how all animals including us humans need to eat certain chemicals originally produced by plants to have any pigment or color)
Getting ready to start a pea puffer tank. They are known for often refusing any kind of dead food. I'm planning on doing up a set-up to grow snails.
Right on! Frozen blood worms are good if you dont have live food
Bro, I hope this does not sound weird, but it is like you were reading my mind lol. For the last 48 hours I have been deciding to do Blackworms and I am going to buy a bag of bugs from Phillips Fish works for my fish. I have been pricing cheap 10-gallon tanks and everything to start cultures in lol. It is like you knew and you have validated my choice for me lol. 🤣🤣🤣
I just bought some black worms from my local shop and started two cultures.
Bag of Bugs is amazing. Love Phillips Fish Works
I just love the Pencilfish chillin lookin for snacks at the surface of the water! I think those Headstanders are so cool...I might need some!
You soooo need some headstanders lol
11:40lets get together to make this thing ( pause ) ahhh family
got me dying 😭 🤣🤣
Lol self censorship?
Another stellar video! What a treat. No one is producing content at this level. Love you, man. This is why you are my #1 teacher
That means the world to me to read. Thank you so very kindly
I love that video Alex. You have such an amazing variety of fish. Those wild bettas are amazing. I you and Father Fish have really inspired me these last couple of months. I started culturing daphnia, grindle worms, black worms, scuds and brine shrimp. It’s brought so much joy and new found love to the hobby for me. There nothing like watching your fish eat live foods. Thanks again for sharing
Oh that is wonderful! Im sure over time you notice more and more unique behaviors, as the food web develops and ages!
I just found a trough of mosquito larvae even in this cold and aren't my fish all having the best time! If you don't feed your fish live food at least sometimes, you're missing 80 percent of the joy of watching their natural behavior - they got a top off with cold tannic leaf rainwater, too, and my corydoras are acting very spicy
Oh i agree 100%!
I really enjoyed this video!!!! Makes me want to start a tank just for live food! I love watching my fish eat live food! So fun!
It really adds some interactive enjoyment to the hobby
Your wife is going to be pissed when she finds out what you're doing with the turkey baster LOL
Honestly it'd probably be the other way around lol. Using an aquarium enthusiast's "aquarium only" tools for anything else is the biggest no-no.
🤏
I taught my Odessa barbs to use the roots of frogbit and duckweed to pull them underwater and then eat the aphids. It's very cool to watch. The other fish will join in on the feast.
Haha awesome!
Another great video Alex. It was my first time starting and feeding live culture this year. I have to say my fish were the best colour they had ever been. I had only previously fed bbs, frozen, pellets and occasional flakes up to that point, but definitely noticed a difference in their colour once I added in them into their outdoor summer tub full of live culture. I can’t wait to get them back outdoors again once the weather warms up.
Very cool, thanks for sharing! Finally getting some cool cultures in my shrimp only tank, seems to be hundreds and hundreds of seed shrimp. Very exciting to see!
Oooo nice! Those are the best for fry ...plus they'll hide and reproduce fast enough to actually stay in the habitat despite being hunted down...where as daphnia can get cleared out pretty darn quickly
So many live critters to culture. Hunting live food makes for healthy, happy lil fishes.👍❤️👍
Recently bought a daphnia magna culture off someone and put them in a small still water aquarium and when I setup my IBC container for my turtles I took a small amount of daphnia and now have a indoor pond full of them!
I need to get myself some containers and make some cultures to sell.
Didn't buy them to sell but since I've got so much I might as well go all Mr.Crabs. 🤑
Third video today. I also have a 2.6 gallon Betta tank which I'm considering setting up for scuds. Either that or a ten gallon, I have two available. 0:02
That'll be plenty If you're just hoping to supplement the food in say 7 or 8 other tanks.
Even i have 1 2y old angel who doesn't have any blue colour on her body but when shift her on terrace pond half of her body shows blue colouration because of the many kind of larve.
I was amazed to see that fish changes colours then after watching this video of your got to k knlw that i need more terrace pond for them to culture new aquatic friends that they will ke to eat from their bottom of heart ❤😂
Awesome information as always.
Glad you think so!
Mine all ate from my scud tank outback, and mosquito larvae from water I sat outside until….. A dragonfly larvae infestation. I didn’t notice until my scuds and shrimp colonies where near decimated & one ripped my Dumbo Betta’s fin off. Just finally recouping all my tanks. And started my new scud colony tank inside. Booooo. Will always cover my outdoor “porch ponds” now :( Tampa, FL
Yeah down in FL yall have some gnarly insects! Its why i dont recomend the recent trend of straight dumping a jar of pond water in your tank...but rather covering it and QT without fish or parasite hosts, to observe it a few weeks, minimum.
Fantastic video ❤
Thanks
Excellent upload, Alexander. Brilliant and very useful information, brother 👍
Thank y0u!
This is so informative!!! Fantastic reporting!🌻🌼🐝 my skin crawls watching those clips. After watching your and father fish’s videos I’ve started and had success culturing brine shrimp outdoors. It’s covered to reduce the number of other larva- I’m curious about starting a scud’s culture but I missed out. Will try when they are back in stock from aquaticarts. Thanks for the great info!
Right on! Best of luck my friend
I remember getting mosquito larvae in a guppy tank... In the end I had a bunch of mosquitos in my room (the guppies were just about an inch). 😬
Ah yes! Only feed what they eat immediately lol
Awesome video. I ordered the bag of bugs over the weekend and I was apprehensive about getting scuds as I didn't want to be overrun with them, but they should be nutritious for betta and tetras. Thanks for the ease of mind.
My Altolamprologos calvus loves the Gammarus (Hyallea azteca)😊
Oh i bet!
brilliant pal .
Thanks
Great video. Ive accidentally also got a sustainable culture of live food growing in my tank. My filter arrangement has gunk on the outside where the water cascades into the tank that appears to be a mixture of algae and maybe protein waste? It looks kind of gross if viewed from the wrong angle. There are white critters swarming all over it that I assume are spring tails? I thought about cleaning this off but my fish are healthy and I guess this food source is beneficial for them.
Oh interesting. Probably seed shrimp and awfuchs
@@Fishtory thanks - I'll look that up they're tiny and there's thousands of them.
Please remember to hit the LIKE BUTTON on this video and share this video to ALL your Facebook fish groups like I did. 🐡
Thank you so much
So cool and fascinating love it but i don't know enough so i wonder if there is small bugs that can hurt my fish. Thats what scares me from trying to raise bugs outside. Thanks for sharing.🙏✌️👍💯💗🔥
There are leeches that can be problematic, but the biggest threat is dragon fly larva. I'm sure there are a couple more but, you can just use a Mason Jar to start a bug culture and then be selective on breeding colony
Thanks I need to look in to that. 👍
Thanks I need to look into that. 👍
My yellow neo tank is full of little swimming critters like seed shrimp I’m assuming and small worms.
Not planaria I don’t think the shrimp are flourishing. If I rotated a couple green moscow guppies every now and then that would work for eating them up and be good for the fish two
Think my otocinclus would eat them also?
I had an explosion of copepods in my shrimp tank. This weekend I started putting my baby guppies in there to grow out, hoping they eat the copepods
Yeah that would help...i think micro rasbora species like chillis or exclaimation points would all work great and eat less baby shrimp...if you care about breeding more shrimp. Cheers
Try Fluval Bug Bites for your pygmy sunfish. Mine love it. I grind it in a pepper grinder. Even my small banded pygmy sunfish love it.
Mine will eat it, as it falls when i do that sometimes...but most i have to gravel vac up.... what type of bug bites works for you? Id be stoked if theyd eat that lol..thank
@@Fishtory I use the tropical formula granules. I do grind it into smaller pieces with a pepper grinder. They will eat it off the bottom.
Make a tutorial about making an ecosystem aquarium, and tell us what fishes, animals and other things to add in one long video
I sort of already have one like this...but it really depends on your goals and preferences. But i could make an example for say...nano fish? Good idea. Thank you
Lets do more content with live food and what old indian leaves looks like under a microscope
would you maybe consider doing a video on various aquarium-safe soap products? i am overly cautious when it comes to washing myself before doing anything aquarium related activities
So good question. However i don't know of any soap id recommend... my go tos are vinegar, hydrogen peroxide and sometimes in worst case... bleech if you can let it evaporate after the application of it
@@Fishtory thats good advice, i was always curious as to if applying peroxide to my hands was too much or not enough but that information is certainly appreciated
@@Fishtory Also I'd use Seachem Prime or some other dechlorinating agent to remove the traces, if I used bleach (for example Purigen regenerates in bleach solution).
@@glassboxesI don't know if this is useful or not, but I just discovered you can put a sprayer top on a hydrogen peroxide bottle and IT FITS- now I can spray an algae covered rock (outside the aquarium) or spritz my hands very effectively, no more dunk
I placed a pond on my terrace garden so insects are attracted to plants they find this pond that i created , so i get variety of larve My serpae tetra are crazy red and black skirt tetra is crazy black too.
Wonderful! Where in the world do you live?
@@Fishtory india 🇮🇳
Alex, can l crop the ending of the livestream with you and joey (King of diy to use for a video l am constructing?) I only need the last 10 mins of it?
Sure do whatever you want my friend. .. just link to the full thing in the description so people can get context if they want it. Also dont let him copyright strike you... its MY VIDEO COMTENT lol.... so dispute it, if he tries anything. Cheers.
@Fishtory Thank you, Alex, and that is really good advice with regard to the copyright brother 👍
Can I culture enough in a ten gallon aquarium to be able to introduce a sufficient population into my main tanks to allow them to permanently populate them? 14:31
Yes, it may take a little time, but that's what I do. I started with a 5g and kept it rich with green water, then would scoop out 50% or so, and put that in one or two tanks.... then 4 or 5 days later I'd do the same thing again
I’d like to know how to cultivate Daphnia or something else. I’m already doing live baby brine.
Daphnia is much more easier to culture and keep consistent then keep on buying BBS/artemia eggs.
I have videos on the subject if you look up live feeding and or daphnia & @fishtory
I've joined your channel about the time you were in utube jail lol😂. I believe there's a way to grow your own cultures inside the container in the house? I'm interested in cultures for angelfish and their fry. Any tips or videos you currently made that I can make inside the house only. I really want to be sure that they are free of pests? I've seen some videos saying you can use your sponge dirt while doing a water change and feed it yeast. Any knowledge if good for angelfish? Thanks for your videos!! I love to learn from you !! You are certainly a blessing !
Scuds, daphnia and cyclopse are amazing for growing angel fish. And i have a video on scuds if you look up @fishtory scuds, i think youll find it. But all my scuds are indoor raised
So does daphnia and other small creature can i gave to my big goldfish?
Yes. Scuds, daphnia and brine shrimp are the largest/ besf for goldfish
Hi Alex! What kind of shelves do you use to put your fish tanks on? I am looking to maximize my vertical space with a tank racking system but I want to make sure I’m getting a good shelf that will hold the weight.
Husky from home depot, but i tossed the particle board shelves and cut 1/3 inch boat laminate sealed wood to the shelve size.... 6 years, so far so good
@@Fishtory Awesome! Thank you :)
Ive got rainbows, Praecox and Celebes. Should I do black worms too? They already get baby brine and bug bites.
You could. But it sounds like they'll be happy with the current food options as is also
@@Fishtory oh good. I want to make sure they have enough variety. They get extreme flakes too now and then, and they pick at the super greens repashy I put in for my Synodontis.
Will you be live tomorrow night?
Should be at 430
Why don’t you use sand to cap the soil?
I do in lots of tanks,.but most my plant focused tanks have just aquasoil... check out my video " what is the best substrate" and " to cap or not to cap" if you want more details and or science
They don't like it when we clean the glass. I didn't know that the microfauna suddenly decreased
Yeah the awfuchs layer and biofilm that live on the glass get disturbed...buuuut, theyre my fish and i wanna see em! Lol
Hey Alexander, I’ve got a question for you: Do you still see the same benefits when feeding frozen food? Or does the freezing process kind of knock a bit of the benefit of live foods out of the critter carcasses?
Follow up: how did you get mosquito larvae that never developed?! It seems like if I have a bucket of water outside for 5 minutes, my backyard is swarmed with the bastards.
Thanks!
So i live in seattle ... its a lot cooler and skeeters take a week to 3 or even 4 to hatch. And you can definitely get the nutrition frozen or live. Live happens to cause the hunting reflex also, and spawning behaviors in many cases
I keep meaning to go get some jars of pond water to restart cultures from, any advice on identifying what exactly you end up looking at? I was thinking of getting one of those USB microscopes or something.
The smart phone surprisingly lol 10x zoom
How do we know if we get water from a river or pond we aren’t collecting anything parasitic? That’s a big concern for me.
@@4loveoffish Step 1 is not to add anything directly to your tank.
Take Planaria, a common parasite in the hobby and in our waterways, it's sort of like a tiny leech. Planaria eat a different thing than Daphnia, and by denying them a food source, and maintaining the Daphnia food source, you can kill off planaria within a culture over a few weeks/months. If you added a jar of Pond scum blindly to your tank, the planaria wouldn't have starved off yet.
You can also try to dilute and reduce your cultures, or only to take samples from certain parts of the waterway.
I know when people do invert surveys for a waterway, there are a bunch of different ways to collect and different places show different kinds of critter. Also, they frequently use cheap white Ice Cube Trays as a way to separate out a sample into a bunch of smaller easy to see samples, which would be easy with a pipette or turkey baster. Then you can make sure you aren't grabbing any parasites that are easily identifiable to the naked eye.
You can also just buy specific cultures and things, but they wont have the diversity and adaptations to your local climate, and sometimes those have parasites too.
As far as parasites within scuds for example, you can again, starve/wait them out because of the way their life cycle works. Parasites use scuds as a carrier, taking them to their eventual host species, usually birds, sometimes traveling through fish in the process. They make the scud act enticing, get eaten by a fish, make the fish swim on top of the water, then the fish gets eaten by the bird, which carries the parasite to new waterways while it completes it's life cycle within the bird. Without the fish and bird, the parasite dies out.
This means the scuds can breed and reproduce for a few generations and the parasites will not.
Other kinds of parasites, like the larval stages of freshwater clams and mussels, can generally be avoided by time of year I would assume? But it's hard to say what you need to avoid in your waterways. Maybe try and find local invert studies on a waterway?
Tank size?
The first tank shown was 16.5g then a 50g, then a 20 long, then a couple 10 gallons and one 2.5 the betta are in
how do you avoid bringing dragonfly nymphs into your tank ?
I thought I was being super careful, using a turkey baster then putting water in a big pickle jar and watching it for a few hours...
but in the past 45 days I've caught and removed 4 dragonfly nymphs from a single 20 gallon. !
maybe I brought in eggs ? I don't know
Well i luck out in Seattle so far north. We only get large dragon flies in may to Aug. But i generally only feed as much as the fish eat within 30 seconds with mosquitos and such. Also i have open tubs outside, then tanks inside that i pour jars of water into and let sit a week or more, and just pull from those live culture tanks that have a mesh top
I want to have live cultures, but i live in Norway and most of the critters and microfauna needs that cold period, so no good in a aquarium. Im not even sure if anyone else has done it here, since i cannot find any information about it.
Got any tips on where to forage for microfauna and other creatures that are suitable for a aquarium?
Would be cool if anyone could figure out how to make starter kits for microfauna of different sizes.
I have tried ecospheres and their derivatives, but not had much luck yet. Plan on making some more attempts this coming summer.
If i do end up becoming successful i plan on trying to get out to other people, hopefully it will take off enough in time that people and their fish can enjoy it without having to go through my struggle :)
So here in the usa you can buy baby scuds and seed shrimp...cyclopse and daphnia. Also there are cold and tropical species of each...i also have icewater species i raise outside in winter, and while they die over 22 to 25C or so, they survive outside half the year then go dormant and in late spring, a larger species hatches. ... but sadly i dont know what is available in European stores in that regard. Ask mark from marks shrimps, perhaps? He lives in Norway as well i believe?
@@Fishtory Thanks for the tips. Did not know there were Norwegian youtubers doing aquarium stuff.
Maybe i might be able to find something equivalent to what is available in the USA. It is reassuring to know it is available elsewhere though!
I have an absolute infestation of water aphids in my 5.5 gallon and my fish don't eat them fast enough when I knock them off the plants 😭
Pseudomogils or pencil fish do the best job in my experience
@@Fishtory would those stay small enough for my 5 gallon?
@@ForProfit-x100 sure
Make a video about your disagreements with FatherFish
We are going to do a live stream today about that and question and answers... stay tuned. We are sorting if itll be on his channel or mine
Before live after foods
Graphic layout design
Dude, I haven't even started to watch your video, and I will not dispute the value of live foods. However your thumbnail implies I can feed live food and transform a red phantom tetra into a black phantom tetra.
It's literally the same group of fish. If it were a red phantom, it would have a round or tear drop black eye spot, and probably be red... like my red phantom tetras are. They also have white on their dorsal and anal fins and 18 or 19 anal fin rays vs thr Black's 21 to 23
my fish are super healthy on their diet of baby shrimp 🙄
Haha i bet
wow dude yt has shadowbanned your channel
Yes. I dunno why either...its been this way a long time
Stupid micro climates. My cultures are frozen right now in Auburn lol
Mine have been too in the morning. But if i crack the ice layer in the morning as sun hit the tubs..they all come up for air...and i snag em!
@@Fishtory I'm letting them be for now to recover. A lot of big ones in them. But I have a couple indoor cultures going.
And it makes flamingos pink 🦩🦩🦩 (I know there's more to it than that. But interesting how all animals including us humans need to eat certain chemicals originally produced by plants to have any pigment or color)
100% man.