Feeding Your Baby Oscar Fry Aquarium Cycling a Fish Tank Aquarium Has Turned Cloudy Aquarium Sump Filter Sump Filter Media Testing Aquarium Water Why Overstocking Is Bad Health I Think My Oscar Is Poorly Hole in the Head Disease Oscar Has Cloudy Eyes Humanely Euthanise Your Fish Oscar Is Breathing Heavily Treating ICK Oscar Fish Won’t Eat Oscar’s Stomach Is Swollen Fish Parasite Information List of Fish Medication Feeding Oscar Fish Food List Tankmates Breeding How to Sex Oscars Feeding Oscar Fry Why Brine Shrimp Hatchery FAQ Forum Infusoria: Zooplankton Infusoria is not a single type of food; it is comprised of different types of organisms that are 0.02 millimeters and larger in diameter, depending on the species. To create your own infusoria, place some hay, spinach or lettuce in a bottle of water, and put it in a sunny place. The problem with infusoria is that you have no control over what types of organisms are in the water, and some may be toxic to young fish. You could create a more usable infusoria by first boiling the hay, spinach or lettuce, and then introducing one of the paramecium species that is used as fish food. Aeration can be used to help decrease the decay and smell of the culture. For cultures intended to be kept beyond a few days, siphoning the bottom of the culture out every couple of days will help prolong the life of the culture. Several paramecium species may be used, and the culture of different species has a good bit of variation. If you purchase or obtain a culture of paramecium, ask about any special directions for keeping that particular species. Many can be kept simply by covering the jar that contains your “salad” mixture and putting the jar in a sunny place. Fill a 1-quart jar with water and your food source. Add the paramecium to the culture. You should be able to use the culture after about four days. Pour it through a piece of cloth to remove the wheat/hay/lettuce/spinach gunk. The water that has passed through the cloth should not be toxic to fish, and it and the organisms in it can be added to your aquarium. Infusoria cultures do not last as long as vinegar eel cultures, so start a new culture every few weeks to ensure that you don’t run out of food. One of the biggest benefits of the paramecium is its extremely small size. It will produce a large amount of food at a very small size that will feed typically even the smallest of fry. To avoid paramecium and other microscopic critters that are toxic or dangerous to fry, make sure you fully understand how to keep and feed your species before you begin feeding it to your fish. Infusoria: Phytoplankton (Green Water) Infusoria can be broken down into two categories. Zooplankton (discussed in the previous section) include microscopic living animals. Phytoplankton include microscopic plant material (0.02 to 2 millimeters in length). Aquarists speak of using green water as food, but they are actually referring to phytoplankton. Green water is very easy to cultivate and extremely inexpensive. Simply take some water out of the aquarium (you should not need spinach, hay or lettuce for a culture if you use aquarium water), put it into a 1-quart jar, and place the jar in the sun. The sunlight will cause the water to turn green within a couple of days. When the water turns green, remove some and feed your fish. Then add some new aquarium water back to the culture to help maintain its longevity. You’ll notice that this is very similar to how we cultured infusoria, and for good reason. Because they both contain microorganisms, we are relying on the replication of those for food. Any culture made from an aquarium will have both zooplankton and phytoplankton, but by increasing the direct sunlight by two to three hours, we encourage more phytoplankton to grow. On the other hand, if you keep the jar in an area that isn’t as well-lit, more zooplankton will grow. Green water is among the smallest foods available, and many aquarists consider it indispensable when raising newly hatched fry that are too small to accept most other foods. Because the green water will float in the aquarium water, it can stay in the fish aquarium for a long time until it is consumed. One drawback is that the culture may suddenly collapse and need to be replaced. For this reason, it’s recommended to have multiple cultures “percolating” at the same time. It is also possible to order specific phytoplankton and grow them with more specific culturing and harvesting techniques. Microworms Microworms (Panagrellus redivivus) are small nematodes (0.05 to 2.0 millimeters long and 0.05 millimeter in diameter) that may seem initially too small for your baby fish (or too gross to touch). However, they have qualities that make them ideal candidates for growing fish. To create a culture, mix about a tablespoon of corn meal with water until it forms a paste. Then add about a quarter-teaspoon of yeast. Place this mixture in the bottom of an empty peanut butter jar and add a culture of microworms. Screw on the lid, which should have holes punched into its middle. After a few days you’ll find that there are microworms crawling everywhere. Scrape them off the walls of the container with a razor blade or with your finger and feed them to your fish. Fish eat these worms ravenously. Unlike vinegar eels, microworms will not live long in the water, so don’t overfeed. In addition to the microworms, the medium they live in may sometimes be introduced into the aquarium. If this happens, don’t worry; it, too, will be eaten by the fish and may provide another source of food for young fry. Microworm cultures typically last about two weeks before they need to be replaced. You should not need to do anything to maintain this culture. As with green water, maintain two cultures at a time to avoid having any one culture crash. Opinions vary on how to maximize a culture. Some people recommend using rolled oats instead of corn meal. Be aware that the smell of the culture is unpleasant. On the positive side, microworms are probably a better nutritional food for your fish than baby brine shrimp. Baby Brine Shrimp Newly hatched brine shrimp (0.08 to 0.12 millimeter) have been used in the hobby for years because of the ease of hatching and harvesting it. They are active in freshwater and can live in it for up to five days. There are many opinions on how to make the perfect brine shrimp hatchery. One way is to start with a 1-quart (or larger) jar of water and add about 2 teaspoons of sea salt per quart. Add about 17 ounces of brine shrimp eggs per quart, and aerate the water with a pump and some air line tubing. You may want to use an airstone, but be aware that doing so can cause problems if you use one that makes very fine bubbles. Ultra-fine bubbles can become lodged in newly hatched shrimp, causing them to float to the surface and suffer an untimely death. Brine shrimp eggs hatch in 24 to 48 hours, after which the babies can be siphoned out and fed to your fish. Unplug the pump to stop the aeration, and allow the shrimp to settle to the bottom of the jar. Typically, hatched brine shrimp will congregate at or near the bottom of the water, and eggs will float. Use a piece of air line tubing to siphon the shrimp into a fine net or a cup (be careful not to siphon out any unhatched eggs). The little bit of saltwater you add to your aquariumaquarium while feeding brine shrimp is not a concern, but you can rinse the shrimp in freshwater if you wish.