Hi all,
Small scrape of micro-worms & grindal worms every morning, then either some live
Daphnia/Mosquito larvae, or a mix or earthworm/spirulina flake and some astax red crumb pellets in the evening and a fast day once a week. Larger fish don't get micro-worms, but get red worms (
Lumbricus rubellus) instead. One day a week I feed these after lights out and add a prawn to the vegetables, if the tank has
Hypancistrus or
Peckoltia spp. as well.
If I have a lot of live "pond" food (in the summer usually), I add the right amount to keep the cultures healthy, rather than the right amount for the fish, so sometimes they would be extremely "over-fed". I'm a lot more sparing with dried food, partially because the fish are quite "spoiled", and will only eat it when they are really hungry.
I leave some vegetables in at all times for the
Otocinclus and or Shrimps, and occasionally they get a Hikari Algal wafer or similar.
You can culture fresh-water rotifers fairly easily, but it is quite time consuming as you need to keep re-culturing, <
http://www.aquaculturestore.com/info/rotifer.html> or you can use the same set-up you use for
Daphnia.
If you want to have a "trial run" to see your fishes response to live rotifers, filter sponges are a great source. Just squeeze the sponge out into a beaker, and then give it a good swirl and you should be able to pipette (pipettes from here: <
http://www.ta-aquaculture.co.uk/Miscellaneous.htm>) the rotifers out of the central vortex without getting too much mulm etc.
If people are interested in culturing live food, I'd strongly recommend it for healthy fish, and I'd also recommend Mike Hellweg's book "
Culturing Live Food", £25 very well spent <
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Culturing-Live-Foods-Michael-Hellweg/dp/0793806550>.
cheers Darrel