Interested in anecdotes from those that've raised killies from egg to spawning adults, without ever feeding newly hatched artemia. How successful were you, and what differences vs. no artemia at all? There're various products out there that purport to work well for raising fry, one's called "Golden Pearls," have you used it and how well does it work?

TY

Let me clarify one thing: no artemia AT all. No feeding decapsulated, nothing like that. Fish should've been raised and never saw a bbs.

Ive had issues with my BBS for the frys first 3 weeks (other than day one and 2. They are still doing great. I was feeding "Fry Crack" from A-bid. Which they seem to love, but does foul the water pretty bad.

I use microworms exclusively. However, the worms need to grow up in a nutrionally complete medium to also be nutrionally complete for the fish fry. Just bread or oatmeal/potatoes won't do it in my experience. And once the fry grow a little and I want to supercharge their growth I throw grindal worms in their containers. Much easier than hatching BBS. 

Mustafa,

What do you feed your micro-worms, & grindals worms.  I've been doing the grindals on poly but I am seeking a good food for the worms...

Jim Langan

Hi Jim!

I feed both species high quality dog food. The grindals get the kibbles and the the microworms are raised in a medium that consists of 100% kibbles ground up in a coffee grinder with water added.

It looks like I may have pioneered the microworm on dog food method as there is absolutely no information on the internet indicating that anyone has done this. :)   

Bread and other cereal type foods are nutritionally very poor, especially when it comes to lipid content. Same applies to potatoes. And lipids are extremely important for larval development. With high quality dog food I can feed microworms and grindal worms exclusively with fantastic results. No problems whatsoever. Good dog food is nutritionally very complete, and very high in lipids..including Omega 3 fatty acids.

I also raise white worms and they get the same kibbles.

By the way, I don't use Poly...I use coir...works fantastically with pretty much no maintenance for months. Just add kibble, harvest worms.

What do you call high quality dog food for microworms?  And no yeast?
Werner Kraft

Hi Werner,
I guess I should have been more specific. I happen to be using a very high quality (for my dog) dog food with what appear to be good ingredients (See below for ingredients and analysis). It has an unusually high protein content for dog food. What's important is also the fat content and what kind of fat is included. There should be either fish oil, flaxseed oil or canola oil so that important Omega 3 fatty acids are either directly in the food or can be be produced by the worms (from canola, flaxseed which have precursors). Bread and potatoes alone don't provide those nutrients. And as you can see dog food in general also has all kinds of vitamins and minerals added.

Having said that, I'm pretty sure even "cheap" dog food would work just fine as long as it has a high "good fat" (see above) content. I don't think for the worms the high protein is very essential.

Buffalo, Lamb Meal, Chicken Meal, Sweet Potatoes, Peas, Potatoes, Canola Oil, Egg Product, Bison, Roasted Venison, Beef, Natural Flavor, Tomato Pomace, Potato Protein, Pea Protein, Ocean Fish Meal, Salt, Choline Chloride, Dried Chicory Root, Tomatoes, Blueberries, Raspberries, Yucca Schidigera Extract, Lactobacillus Acidophilus, Bifidobacterium Lactis, Lactobacillus Reuteri, Vitamin E Supplement, Iron Proteinate, Zinc Proteinate, Copper Proteinate, Ferrous Sulfate, Zinc Sulfate, Copper Sulfate, Potassium Iodide, Thiamine Mononitrate (Vitamin B1), Manganese Proteinate, Manganous Oxide, Ascorbic Acid, Vitamin A Supplement, Biotin, Niacin, Calcium Pantothenate, Manganese Sulfate, Sodium Selenite, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride (Vitamin B6), Vitamin B12 Supplement, Riboflavin (Vitamin B2), Vitamin D Supplement, Folic Acid.

Crude Protein      32.0% min
Crude Fat      18.0% min
Crude Fiber      4.0% max
Moisture      10.0% max
Zinc      150 mg/kg min
Selenium      0.35 mg/kg min
Vitamin E      150 IU/kg min
Omega 6 FATTY ACIDS      2.8% min
Omega 3 FATTY ACIDS      0.3.0% min
Total Microorganisms      1,000,000 CFU/lb min

I just happened to have this dog food around because my dog eats it. And cat food should work just the same too as long as it has Omega 3 convertible fatty acids (Flax, Canola) or just direct fish oil or fish mean in it.

With this kind of diet you can feed your fish microworms, grindalworms and whiteworms (when the fish are adults) exclusively with no ill effects whatsoever contrary to what you may read online and hear elsewhere. (I do feed dried foods too, though, because they are convenient).

I do sprinkle some yeast on top when I start the microworm culture out of habit but I don't think it's needed. The old culture has enough microorganims (including possibly yeasts) to inoculate the new culture.

I routinely raise killies without ever using any form of artemia.  When first hatched, they get a little green water and my Ziegler's pellet food very very finely ground.  The only time i use bbs is if I am raising a bunch at once.  If I use bbs, I will mix in Ziegler's as week.  They will develop faster during the first week or so if bbs is used.

I also raise killies in the tank with the adults and those fry just eat what they can find in the tank.

Ken

Can you tell more about Ziegler's pellet food? Looks like an industrial-grade food, is it the modern successor to 'purina trout chow' which was a popular food for some killies in the '80's?

Any trouble getting any fry to eat it? I am always leery of prepared foods - some killies eat anything, some are really picky. Fry get picky, too, even if you raise them on prepared food. I would make my own food and raise fry on it - lazily made using cat food, earthworms, baby food - and a lot of them did great on it as they recognized it all their lives, but it really was hit and miss, lots of paste-food makers would admit that their stuff doesn't work for 100% of things.