Infusoria

Go to the grocery store and buy a turnip. Yes, a turnip. Peel the turnip, cut the white inside part into small 1/2 inch squares. Take the pint of water and drop two of these squares into the water,they will float like ice cubes. Eat the rest of the turnip, they are very healthy and taste wonderful raw. After 5-6 days the turnip pieces will have started to decompose and will be filled with visible infusoria. I take a three cc syringe and put the open tip onto a floating turnip cube and push it gently just under the surface drawing water into the syringe from the side of the turnip. If you take a clear shot glass or similar vessel, and fill it with the water you just gathered from the turnip cube you will see hundreds if not thousands of tiny one celled creatures moving about. Simply dump this into the fry tank a few times a day. Zebra danios can take newly hatched brine shrimp from 2-3 days old and the infusoria will get them off to a smashingly strong start.

On keeping the culture going, just get a second pint jar, fill it with water from the aquarium, put two cubes in it, wait two or three days and draw out some infusoria from the first jar to inoculate the next. You can keep cultures going till the end of time like this.

The advantage of doing it this way is that you will always have a clear culture, no green water, no stink, perfect culture.

Please note that I did not write this but got it on the internet some time ago.
I think credit goes to Bill.

 

Great I take it you can use the potato the same way?

 

I think so. I read it somewhere , in case you cant find a Turnip, but I cant say that for 100%.

AAA yes it was in my aquarium book. Can use patato or paddy rice ( unhusked rice ).

Naturally occur in your aquarium water but not in big quantities. Riccia in your tank would provide them with food to grow in your tank. The Infusorians that is.

 

You can sow the paddy rice on the bottom of the tank and it would eventually sprout providing food for the infusorians.

The method I think that works better is to put the paddy rice in one of those tubiflex worm feeders( about R20 at the LFS) and let it float in the tank.

 

Thanks for sharing. Are you using this method yourself?

 

Tried the lettuce one and it failed badly. Trying to get things to try the paddy rice in the worm feeder.
Will put it in my small endler guppy breeding tank. Will be vey carefull to try any of these in my main tank.
Think they are all meant for breeding tanks.

 

I recently tried the lettuce one with my angel fry... the problem with the lettuce solution is that it is recommended to add an airstone to the water because the water actually develops a PUNGENT smell.

 

That's my problem Zoom. When is it infusoria and when is it just vrot.
I think the paddy rise do not decay like the lettuce to provide food for the infusoria.

 

I found this video on youtube a while back. Have not tried it myself, but seems easy enough.