My tap water naturally has near – 0 GH and KH, which is great for some things, but difficult for others! A lot of commonly cultured live foods, like daphnia, need hardness in their water to thrive and reproduce. What are some types of foods that are easy to care for in soft or acidic water?
(I'm most interested in asking for my green neon tetras, but larger food suggestions for fish like bettas, gouramis, or corydoras are all very welcome!)
Posted by ViaScrybe
7 Comments
Look into infusoria. It’s basically old tank water in a jar with vegetable matter that you set in the sun. It takes about 10 days to culture that then can be fed to fish.
You can throw in a hand full of coral or limestone for kH and hardness for daphnia. It’s not that difficult.
I grow microworms and wingless fruit flies
Neither are grown in the water but provide outstanding nutrition
The microworms feed smaller fish, and the wingless fruit flies feeds everything else
I always have multiple cultures of both going using recycled containers
I HIGHLY recommend them.
Grindal worms can be done very easily, you don’t need a tank for them just a small container with moist substrate and some fish food.
You can get cultures on r/aquaswap
I’m selling mine in 8oz containers for $5
https://preview.redd.it/y3paopeqfjlg1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8ef4dd535fdf38d21c019358d118a0f7518bffca
I have the same kind of water and I just used carbonate minerals to sustain Moina (but not for my tank — unbuffered rules!) Like others have mentioned, white worms/grindals are very space efficient and scalable — you can feed them out often once things get rolling.
I just leave a bucket of water outside overnight, bring it inside and a few days later I got fresh mosquito larvae. Not exactly self sustaining but close to 0 work
My parents pond often has some sort larvae in the filter I often wonder if I can just lift it out of the filter and give it straight to the fish