DIY live food without starter cultures

[NatureFish]

I was reading JetaJockey's wonderful article on live food cultures and was inspired to do something like that myself. However there is a catch, I don't want to have to get anything other than what I have around the house...not because I am lazy but rather that I want to be resourceful and challenge myself. If anybody has any ideas on live foods that do not need starter cultures please post it here! Thanks!

 

[Nils]

Well, my black worm culture is pretty much fool proof. It's a jar with 3-4" of water, brown coffee filter and a sponge pre filter intake with an air stone inside. The air stone is used to aerate the water. I started with 1 teaspoon of worms and now have at 3-4 times that amount. Pretty easy.

 

[keegster803]

My 1-gallon hex is the same thing, I put a thing of java moss in there when I started it. Both the worms and the moss exploded, the moss grew to the size of a softball and the worms are just everywhere. I just put in a pinch of flakes once a day.


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[BillD]

The above require starter cultures. You can culture, various earthworms, redworms being the best, although you may not have them locally. Various aquatic insect larvae such as mosquito larvae and blood worms can be cultured by putting a pail of water containing organic material outside. Technically, both of the above require a starter, but the insect larvae come to you.

 

[NatureFish]

I'm going to just do that....put a cup of water outside and wait for the LFS's food to deliver itself naturally.


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[NatureFish]

I'm going to just do that....put a cup of water outside and wait for the LFS's food to deliver itself naturally.


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I will be periodically posting my progress on this. I can't start until this severe weather stops though...we have had a few tornadoes here in Texas! it's been really crazy this year. My yard is completely flooded and still raining.


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[NatureFish]

I tried the cup of water outside and to my disbelief nothing laid eggs in it. but the good news is that I've decided on flightless fruit flies. They are so small that they don't gross me out lol..not that worms gross me out but I don't have a lot of room or time at the moment and from what I've read flightless fruit flies don't require a whole lot of time, room or effort for that matter.


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[Johnny32561]

I got some wet fish flakes and worms started coming out just rehydrate the fish food it was under aquarium lid I did all this btw


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[splattered]

I left a small tub outside and got great results but what else is in there? I identified the mosquito and bloodworms but counted a few others as well. The fish indiscriminately devoured everything whatever it was. Pretty awesome