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Freshwater

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Live food — the stuff they really<br />

love and want<br />

Very few aquarium shops carry live food, making it very difficult to find. Your<br />

best bet for locating live food and the supplies to culture them is on the<br />

Internet. Live food includes:<br />

Fortified brine shrimp<br />

Bloodworms<br />

Silversides<br />

Feeder guppies<br />

Feeder goldfish<br />

To get you started, here are a few places on the Net that sell live fish foods:<br />

www.wormman.com/cat_fish.cfm<br />

http://aquaticfoods.com/Feedergoldfish.html<br />

www.livefoodcultures.com/babybrineshrimp.html<br />

Feeder guppies and goldfish are usually to feed large carnivores such as pacu<br />

and Jack Dempseys.<br />

Some people balk at feeding their aquatic pets live fish, and you should do<br />

what feels right for you. It may help to remember that live feeding just means<br />

going along with the natural pecking order in nature’s food chain. Feeder<br />

guppies and goldfish are raised in large hatcheries specifically for food<br />

purposes — if no one bought them, they wouldn’t have existed at all.<br />

Certain live foods should not be introduced into your aquarium because they<br />

may attack smaller fishes or fry. These predators include leeches, hydras,<br />

beetles, and dragonfly larvae.<br />

Brine shrimp<br />

Chapter 10: Diet and Nutrition for Your Wet Pets<br />

Brine shrimp (Artemia franciscana) are tiny saltwater crustaceans that are<br />

appreciated by most fish (see Figure 10-1). Brine shrimp are available frozen,<br />

though a few pet shops carry live brine.<br />

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