Live tropical fish food can be found at most pet shops, from daphnia and Brine Shrimp to wingless fruit flies and Moina (water fleas). Some retailers also sell feeder goldfish; however, these often carry dangerous diseases that pose health risks to your aquatic friends.
Some fish breeders create cultures of fresh water plankton (infusoria) to feed their fry, an economical and simple approach compared to live food options.
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Daphnia
Daphnia are one of the most widely used live foods for tropical and marine fish keeping, offering protein and fatty acid rich foods that fish find highly appealing. Daphnia are used as an easy transition food from pellets or frozen foods and may help sick or newly imported specimens resume eating again more readily. Furthermore, Daphnia may be gut-loaded with Tetraselmis green alga or Spirulina algae for extra nutritional benefit.
Daphnia feed on an assortment of algae and bacteria found in pond environments, in addition to planktonic creatures smaller than themselves. To initiate Daphnia culture in your 10-gallon tank, fill two widemouthed jars with water from that tank and leave for 10 minutes with moderate light intensity in order to equalize in temperature with the aquarium before adding active dry yeast such as that used in baking bread – once these adjustments have taken place.
Brine Shrimp
Brine shrimp (Artemia salina) are popularly used as live food sources in aquaculture environments. Egg cysts can be cultured in salt water solutions before hatching out to tiny orange vibrating nauplii that can then be fed directly to fish, crustaceans and other freshwater organisms as live food.
Brine Shrimp are adept at adapting to various saline environments, from saltwater with several times higher salinity than ocean waters to waters having only one-tenth the concentration of marine seawater. Their adaptability is enabled by their gills which enable them to adapt more readily.
As with other live foods, brine shrimp must be properly rinsed prior to feeding it to your fishes – they can be removed from their housing and placed into aquarium water for several seconds to rinse them properly. Live foods also help stimulate natural feeding behaviors which are hard to match with dry or frozen foods.
Bloodworm
Red bloodworm (Glycera dibranchiata) is an increasingly popular live tropical fish food item for numerous species. Packed with protein that supports cell repair, growth and reproduction in aquatic environments, bloodworms are harvested from wild mud flats before being sold off as bait to aquarists in the aquarium trade.
Fresh gel bloodworms are available for purchase that do not require thawing or culture. Their nutritional content remains intact while often having added minerals. Fresh gel bloodworms offer an easy alternative to live or frozen bloodworms as they’re easier to handle, have longer shelf lives, and may attract fish more readily due to their unique texture compared to regular bloodworms.
Frozen bloodworms can be easily thawed out in aquarium water, though the process is messy and takes some time. Frozen bloodworms come in cubes which make it easy to add them directly to a tank, but don’t last as long compared with freshbloodworms, and should be consumed within hours after being thawed out.
Microworms
Nematode worms with high protein contents make excellent live food for fish, being enthusiastically accepted by smaller species and being easy to cultivate.
Cultivating microworms is easy: all it takes is some oatmeal or baby cereal in a container with some yeast added, placed in a cool environment and waiting. Soon after being placed there, worms will start crawling up the sides and be ready for harvest.
Once collected, worms may be fed to fish based on weight or volume. They can also be mixed into small amounts of water and counted volumetrically using a pipette; then counted under microscope. This technique provides more accurate feeding rates as well as measuring nutritional values of specific cultures.
