These foods can be found in gardens, ponds and rivers but can also be found at your local fish store. Live fish food include earthworms, water fleas (Daphnia), bloodworms and feeder fish. Live foods for fry include infusoria, newly hatched brine shrimp (Artemia salina) and microworms. These are the most preferred type of food for fishes, but are difficult to get. However, freeze dried forms of earthworms, tubifex etc. are available now. Live foods are also great conditioning foods, and regular feeding may encourage spawning.

You must inspect collected foods extremely carefully as it is very easy to introduce dangerous predators into your tank. Caution is advised when feeding live foods, as you can bring fish diseases along with them. Make sure you don’t collect live earthworms from recently fertilized soils. After feeding live foods, you should remove all uneaten matter immediately as these animals will eventually die and cause pollution.

Microworms are another wonders to fish breeders. They are cheap, convenient and reliable.

Infusoria are fed by aquarists to their tiniest fish fry, such as those of tetras, gouramis and bettas.

Daphnia can be raised fairly easily. Daphnia can live inside your tank until the fishes eat them.

Grindalworms are small worms high in protein, vitamins and minerals. They are related to whiteworms (Enchytraeus albidus), but much easier to culture and much more productive.

Feeder Fish is rarely practised in captive-bred species.

Culturing Live Foods

Small worms and shrimps can be cultured to provide a supply of live food. A shrimp culture uses shop bought eggs, which are hatched out.

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