LIVE FOODS
FOR
TROPICAL FISH!

by Mike LoBello

This column is to be dedicated to the best food you can feed tropical fish. Live food! The prepared foods you feed your tropical fish have been a boon to the hobby and makes it easy for the hobbyist to feed his fish when in a hurry, but when you really want your fish to shine and you want full color out of your fish for a show or to bring the fish into breeding condition there is really only one way to go. LIVE FOODS!

Over the next issues of Modern Tropical Fish Bytes we are going to wander through the various live foods that are available to the hobby and how to keep them alive as a culture. Many of the live foods have several ways to culture the foods to a harvest and we will make every attempt to cover all of the methods of all of the live foods you may run across. Be patient and we will find a way for you to feed live foods to your fish.

One of the easiest of the live foods to keep and culture is the Vinegar Eel. There is not a new way of keeping the culture, however I'm going to give that receipt to you as well, but there is a really great new way of collecting the minute Vinegar Eel.

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First of all let's get a culture up and running. Take either a 1 gallon pickle jar or a 2 liter Coke plastic container. Anything of that sort should do just fine but you need more than a quart or it's not even worth the time as a main culture. Ok, easy from here: 1/2 water (tap water is fine) and 1/2 Apple Cider Vinegar. However big your container is then make the fluid 50/50 water and vinegar. Leave some 'air space' at the top . . . this is needed (1-2" . . . make room for the apple slices and the starter culture). Take an apple, I've never tried a green apple but I suspect it would work as well, and cut the apple such that you have 3-4-5 slices of apple about the size of your 'pointer' finger. Push those apple slices into the mix of water/vinegar. For several days the slices will float but very soon they will sink to the bottom. Throw in the starter culture and you are 'good-to-go'. The top of the container needs to NOT BE CAPPED . . . there needs to be an air exchange. If you use a 2 liter Soda bottle you can use some "filter fluff" or a bit of cotton to allow the air exchange. If you use a pickle jar you may want to use some Saran Wrap and punch some holes in it . . . you just want to stop the water evaporation. Put the culture on a shelf somewhere and in about 2-3 weeks come back and take a look at what you have created. It's that easy!

Harvesting the Vinegar Eels: I really have to laugh at all of the antics that aquarists, including me, have gone through to get these little critters to the baby fry. Over the years I have just about heard, and tried, it all from coffee filters to kitchen 'scrubbies'. None really worked to my satisfaction but I always kept the vinegar eel culture around for emergencies if the micro worm culture went bad and the fry were too young for newly hatched brine shrimp. That's why we are here today! You are not going to believe this one. I don't know who thought of this trick but this one is just GREAT!

Out of your big culture, siphon from the best part of your vinegar eel culture enough vinegar/water/eels into a beer bottle (12 oz) . . . one of the long neck types! Preferably get a clear glass beer bottle and make things easy on yourself.

1) Fill the beer bottle up until the vinegar/water/eels are JUST a 'schooch'...if you don't know what a 'schooch' is I can't help you . . . ;-) . . . above the place where the beer bottle becomes the skinny, long neck.

2) Now, find some 'filter fluff' or some loose cotton and stuff a wad of this down the neck of the beer bottle until it meets the top of the vinegar/water/eels. Don't make it packed too much but don't make it too loose either . . . yea . . . it's one of those!

3) Very gently . . . very gently, pour some fresh water from one of your tanks into the neck of the beer bottle and for the most part fill it up to within 1/2" of the top.

4) Let the whole thing sit for an hour or so and `voila . . . this is what you will have!

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Trust me folks the vinegar/water/eels solution will stay separated from the tank water for quite some time. Of course the obvious can now take place. You can get those Vinegar Eels out of there in any fashion. I have about 4-5" of airline tubing stuck onto a syringe and it takes about a milli-second to get all of the Vinegar Eels I need. No vinegar water into the fry tank and is this slick or what?