Live Food Farms

tdileo · Mar 11, 2018

Since upgrading tanks, I will no longer have anything to keep me busy in my bedroom. I’d like to start up some cultures as I figured they would be a neat little thing to do, especially since I will be getting a new closet and it can be out of the way. All I can think of is macroalgae for my herbivores, copepods, phyto, and blackworms. What else could I do? I really want to set up a “rack system with like a half dozen different tanks full of live foods so that I can give my fish and corals the best stuff I can grown out of my own house.

domination2580 · Mar 11, 2018

White worms? Amphipods

Frogg · Jun 19, 2018

Figure anything out? I was thinking the same, but in just one 20 gallon. Seed it with the right things and let it run. Almost like a bottom of the food chain ecosystem.

ectoaesthetics · Jun 20, 2018

My top four would be phyto (already on your list), rotifers, tigger pods (although in most parts of the country these are easier to culture in the back yard), and white worms.

If you do tigger pods in the yard you typically just need a darker colored bucket some salt water and a little bit of phyto. Occasionally top off with RODI and you are good. At night they are phytotaxic and will simply move towards any small light source.

jd371 · Jun 21, 2018

All you need for a White worm culture is a small container with moist dirt. Keep them in the dark and put a piece of wet bread in there every week and that's it. I started mine a few months ago. I feed my fish live Black worms and started the White worm cultivation incase the lfs ran out of Black worms, now they get both.

tdileo · Jun 21, 2018

Frogg said:
Figure anything out? I was thinking the same, but in just one 20 gallon. Seed it with the right things and let it run. Almost like a bottom of the food chain ecosystem.

I didn’t do anything just yet. This is for when I get around to building my new closet in my bedroom, which probably won’t until the winter. However I am thinking pods, phyto, blackworms, and whiteworms. All should be nice and simple, with the phyto being the hardest, simply due to lighting it and feeding them. Still not hard though.