Loaches Online Forum

there is intermittent supply of live feed in the nearby lfs, and i was thinking whether its a good idea to do a weekly feeding of live food as a treat.
re. bloodworms
1. how safe is it to feed bloodworms? im pretty sure its cultured, but i guess since i dont know what the cultivating conditions are, i should be treating it as wild-caught
2. how do i keep the bloodworms alive? my ambient temp. is 31-32... i've seen lfs keep them in shallow pans with hardly no water... coz the lfs will only sell them in some minimum quantity
re. brine shrimp
1. will large clowns (the largest is 5") still eat the brine shrimp?
2. how good a swimmer are the brine shrimp? do i need to cut off the filtration to give the shrimp a fighting chance not to get sucked?
3. how do i keep brine shrimp alive?
4. any chance of disease? i know brine shrimp could be hatched by myself, but i dont think i have the time to do it.

by the way, i've recently noticed that my clowns really like to eat king mealworms (fat content is really high, so i guess thats why they like it). They cant eat it whole, obviously, but i see one of them grabbing a piece and then the other clowns would chase him to grab the king mealworm. And in the morning, i see king mealworm exoskeletons lying around. So either clowns have small teeth for rasping, or the king mealworms become very soft after being soaked overnight.

Hey,

to keep live food alive you can put it into the fridge :) however it will die anyway just a bit later :/.

Brine shrimps are good swimmers but they won't be able to swim agains current - I think your loaches will eat them really fast :)) so there is no problem.

And about a risk of disease - there is always a possibility you will bring something with even a frozen food.

I give mine snails from the garden (small ones) and they lovem.....