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Whole batch facing starvation

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jeff

Guest
My larvae (p.waltl) are doing great, looking good, and about to start eating food. They are exactly 5-6 days old and I made the decision to put them in a half-full ten gallon with a sponge filter as opposed to small containers.

Now I have to get them food, and thats what is causing all the frustration
nono.gif


The daphnia culture is basically just for looks and I am brainstorming ways to reduce the water volume by displacement to get the most food density possible to at least start on the problem. I have bloodwrms and blackworms, and there must be a way to chop some up and let it sink down and just see what happens, but I am almost sure that they will just look at it. I have to order a culture I guess but I need so much for a few weeks I need to hear any other ideas. The whole brine shrimp thing seems to complicated to start messing with right now.

I have to get back tomarrow and I have no idea what to do with all these larvae, they must be able to eat bloodworms somehow, right?
 
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alberto

Guest
Hi Jeff
I have raise P.walts larvas with real good results with pond and lake water that had lots of healthy floating fresh water plants. Just make sure that you remove any insect larvas or other animals that could kill your P.walts larvas! You will find that many little organism that are more or less the size of the period at the end of this sentence. Will make a great food for your larvas for the first few weeks. Then you can start feeding them larger foods like blood worms or black worms!
Good luck!
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edward

Guest
Hi Jeff,

I have raised newt larva on chopped blackworms (C. cyanurus) and I have reared A. opacum larva on adult brine shrimp.
Most of the time, I don't even chop the blackworms for the cyanurus anymore. I have found that most of them will bite the small ends off the worms and do just fine.

Ed
 
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jeff

Guest
Alberto- I have allready been down that road and it was so much work for so few daphnia and other small things that it was decided that it just won't work for this current situation and water volume. And mainly I don't want introducing the many bacteria, and parasites from the pond water into my systems, once you do that, theres no telling what is there...

Ed, I have been feeding my 1 month old larvea blackworms, but beacuse they just couldn't get enough daphnia, they are very small and weak, but I only have about 10 of those, with one that is huge and growing feet. However, I think that one is the only one that will bite at the blackworm, even the small ones.

The new larvae which are a week old, are much more livley then the older ones, and it is my understanding that if I can get them some food right now they could be enticed to eat the worms.

The brine shrimp are on there way and alltough im not thrilled about the idea of using them, they will have to work i guess beacuse I can't get my culture into high yeild without additonal components.
 

michael

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For me the baby brine shrimp works best. I'm hard pressed to find something that is more efficient or economical than hatching out baby brine. I've tried most. I have blackworms all of the time but their price adds up. Pond water and daphnia often carry hydra and other pests.
 
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alberto

Guest
I have raise newt larvas using the kind of natural foods that they will have eating in the wild from ponds and lakes with out any problems for the first week or two. But I live very close to fresh water ponds and lakes. So collecting food for my newt larvas was really easy and free!
I have also use brine shrimp from pet stores when I can find them.
But once they start to eat blood worms, black worms and expecially chopped earth worms they become really easy to care for!
 
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jennifer

Guest
Many types of larvae have been raised on nothing but chopped blackworms from day one. The pieces stay alive and wiggly even when chopped. I would say keep trying with the chopped blackworms. It might help to pick out the smallest blackworms and use those for chopping.

(Message edited by jennewt on September 11, 2006)
 
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dane

Guest
I've raised the larvae I had this year on just brine shrimp
and let me tell ya, this was the first time I had raised larvae and this site helped them lil guys live
 
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