INFUSORIA

[Mmathis]

Do any of you guys make this up for your fry, and if so, HOW do you go about it?

I got a container of pond water, added some pond plant leaves and a smidgen of fertilizer and left it out. It never did anything but start to smell bad. Some places have said it's supposed to get cloudy < mine never did > and some places say it's NOT supposed to get cloudy. Same goes for the odor.....

It's too conflicting and I just don't know enough to know the CORRECT formula. I have some fry that are eating BBS now, so probaly don't need the infusoria culture for them any more, but want to know for future reference.

 

[Waterbug]

These are living creatures so keeping them alive and reproducing does take some skill based on what I've read from shrimp and fish farms who raise these feeds. For a backyard pond I just buy the frozen food. The fish grow so fast each stage of food is only a couple of weeks. I've never even used an entire pack. So maybe $5 total cost. Then the fry are large enough for crushed flake food.

My best success for growing these kinds of creatures was to first get macro algae growing. The bugs were provided by nature. That way your water supports whatever bugs can live in the environment you just happen to have. When you buy specific species you need to provide the exact environment they need which isn't as easy. Green water doesn't seem to grow these creatures as well, but maybe I just couldn't see them as well.