tell me about live foods

[ColleenT]

i have a bunch of Cories and i would love to offer them something live but not sure where i can get live food in PA. can it be ordered online? what is easiest to keep alive and what do they really love? i can get frozen stuff, and i used to feed Frozen- thawed bloodworms to my ADfrogs but they get bloat with it. Is there anything that cories should not eat?

[Coryologist]

not sure where i can get live food in PA.

Contact Craig for live black worms. He is located in PA. email: easternaquatics [at} yahoo [dot] com

Cheers. - Frank

[ColleenT]

thank you!

[MChambers]

You also could buy cultures of white worms, grindal worms, or microworms and raise your own. Corydoras love all of them. I've seen at least some these on www.aquabid.com.

[ColleenT]

are they easy to keep alive?

[racoll]

are they easy to keep alive?

A microworm culture is very easy. There will be lots of recipes online, but what I do is:

Mix half a cup of oat bran with about the same (or bit more) of water. Heat gently in a pan and stir until a stiff paste. Wait to cool, add two teaspoons of dried yeast. Mix. Transfer the oat bran ball to a container such as a small ice cream tub with few tiny holes in the top. Add microworms (buy online, or get from local hobbyist). Wait a few days and scrape the new worms off the side to feed your fish.

The warmer they are, the quicker they feed, breed, and die. They should last several weeks at room temperature, but experiment with the best place to keep them. When the colony starts smelling funky and production tails off, mix up some new oat bran for them and start over.

[Richard B]

Good advice from Racoll on a simple home set-up.

Frozen foods are great for convenience but for corys i'd use tiny amounts that are defrosted first. Daphnia & brine shrimp work well without any bloat troubles. You can also use mysis but i chop this up into minute pieces

[ColleenT]

thanks everyone.