Growing your own fish food is a great way to produce cheap, nutritious food that’s free of parasites. It’s also one of the easier ways to obtain live foods, which otherwise can be hard to find locally.
Here we’ve given a quick guide to growing worms, daphnia and brine shrimp, three of the most common DIY live foods used by aquarists. We’ve also provided you with links to some very helpful how-to videos for setting up your own cultures or hatcheries.
Microworms and banana worms are an excellent food source for fry, and for smaller fish species such as neons. They’re also some of the easiest live foods to grow at home. Both types are tiny nematodes and thrive in similar culture conditions.
To set up a worm culture, you will need:
Setting up your worm culture:
Tips and tricks:
Please see Aquarium Co-op’s very helpful how-to video for microworm and banana worm cultures.
Daphnia, also known as “water fleas” are small planktonic crustaceans. They make very nutritious food and reproduce quite quickly.
To set up a daphnia culture you will need:
Setting up your daphnia culture:
Please see Glen Thode’s very helpful how-to article for Daphnia cultures.
Young brine shrimp are highly nutritious food for fry or small fish species. They are easy to hatch, and the eggs are sold in dry form, so are a bit easier to attain than starter cultures of Daphnia or microworms, and you also do not need to maintain a constant culture.
There are a few setups for hatching brine shrimp. We’re going to cover how to hatch them in a mason jar, which provides a very convenient setup.
To hatch brine shrimp, you will need:
Setting up your brine shrimp hatchery:
Tips and tricks:
Please see Lincoln Coleman’s very helpful article for more information on hatching brine shrimp.
Have any insights, tips or tricks on growing your own fish food? Please leave them in the comments section!