Culturing live food: A hobby within a hobby
I have to admit that the use of live food seems to get increasingly less popular, at least here in The Netherlands. There are obvious reasons for that of course. Most of the fish species we keep seem to accept prepared food and the local fish shops offer an enormous variety of such prepared foods. So there seems to be little need to culture your own live food or to go out catching some daphnids, mosquito larvae or whatever you might run in to. Still there are situations that we still cannot do without live food. There are those fish species that simply won't accept prepared foods or anything that doesn't move for that matter. Live foods have also proven their worth in the conditioning of fish for spawning or breeding. And what to think of feeding those freshly hatched fry...
I strongly prefer the use of live foods. Not just in situations where I cannot do without, but in any given situation with any given fish species. Why make my live so difficult you ask? Well, I just love to see my fish attacking their feed, a response I never get when feeding prepared food. Fish prefer live food above prepared food, it's as simple as that. Next to that, culturing all sorts of live food has grown into a hobby within a hobby. Anything to keep you busy, right... But then again, culturing live food is not at all that difficult or time consuming. In this section I will show you how to culture some types of live food. Give them a go, your fish will love you for it!