How to make a net for catching daphnia. Net for catching live dust. A man catches daphnia in his underpants

Crustaceans (Crustacea). Representatives of the class of crustaceans, along with bloodworms, occupy a leading position in feeding aquarium fish. Species of two orders are especially important: cladocera and copepods (Copepoda).

All cladocerans are usually called Daphnia. The body of most of them is enclosed in a bicuspid chitinous shell, fastened on the back and diverging on the ventral side. Branched antennae extend from the head, and when struck by them, the crustaceans make characteristic pushes: with each swing, the body moves forward and upward, then slowly lowers, after which another push follows. For such spasmodic movement they received the name water fleas. On the ventral side of the body, under the shell, there are 4-6 pairs of thoracic legs with gills that carry out breathing.

Cladocerans are found in a wide variety of water bodies, especially in small ponds, puddles, ditches, and pits. Sometimes there are so many of them that the water turns reddish, greenish or grayish.

Cladocerans feed on microorganisms: algae, bacteria, ciliates. They are very sensitive to light: when the light dims, they rise to the surface, and vice versa.

Throughout the summer, females reproduce virginally. In the brood chamber, located on the back, unfertilized eggs develop, from which young females hatch. Only towards the end of summer do some eggs hatch into males. After they fertilize the females, eggs are formed (usually no more than two), rich in yolk and completely opaque, they are enclosed in a dense shell. The shell containing the eggs forms a saddle, or ephippium. Ephippia swim freely or sink to the bottom, they tolerate freezing and drying. Dried ephippias, along with dust, are carried by the wind. Warmth and moisture awaken the eggs to life; from them females are hatched, capable of reproducing virginally for many generations.

Rice. 42. Cladocera crustaceans:
a - Daphnia magna, b - Daphnia pulex, c - Daphnia longispina, d - symocephalus, d - moina, f - ceriodaphnia, g - bosmina, h - chidorus, i - sida

Several hundred species of cladocerans are known (Fig. 42), all of them have great variability. Of these, the most common are representatives of the genus Daphnia. This genus contains the most widespread and well-known crustaceans. These include: the largest Daphnia magna(Daphnia magna Straus), reaching 5-6 mm in length; It usually lives in shallow bodies of water (ponds, pits). Very widespread in shallow waters Daphnia pulex(D. pulex De Geer) 3-4mm long. Daphnia longispina(D. Iongispina Muller) lives in both shallow and deep water bodies; it comes in a number of different forms.

Representatives of the genus symocephalus(Simocephalus) - flat crustaceans, often colored red, they are characteristic of stagnant bodies of water; their body length ranges from 2 to 4 mm.

Representatives of the genera are widespread ceriodaphnia(Ceriodaphnia) and moina (Moina).

Of the smaller forms, various representatives of the genus are found in huge quantities bosmin(Bosmina) with long beak-like appendages on the head and Khidorusov(Chidorus), characterized by its round shape.

Copepods (Copepoda) in contrast to cladocerans, most of which are a temporary component of plankton, usually live in water bodies all year round (Fig. 43). Representatives of two genera are of greatest importance for aquarists: diaptomus(Diaptomus) and cyclops(Cyclops). Usually aquarists call all copepods cyclops.

Rice. 43. Copepods;
a - Cyclops, b - Cyclops nauplius, c - Diaptomus

Diaptomus belong to the group of copepods of open waters; they are characterized by “hovering” in the water on long first antennae outstretched to the sides. In contrast, Cyclops are residents of the coastal zone; they move in characteristic leaps with the help of relatively short first antennae and thoracic legs. In both Diaptomus and Cyclops, both sexes always take part in reproduction. The female carries fertilized eggs in special facial sacs attached at the base of the abdomen - one in Diaptomus and two in Cyclops. The eggs develop in egg sacs and larvae emerge from them - nauplii, which are sharply different from adult individuals. Copepods feed on organic remains and small organisms.

Rice. 44. Folding net for catching crustaceans

To catch various small crustaceans and other types of food that make up plankton, a net is needed (Fig. 44); The crustaceans are usually transported in a special vessel - a canna. The net should be light, stainless and suitable for catching crustaceans of various sizes. The most convenient is a net with a diameter of 25-30 cm, made of stainless wire 3-5 mm thick and equipped with a screw thread for connection to the handle (Fig. 45). The handle can be made up of 4-6 screwed elbows (40-50 cm long each), made of duralumin tubes with a diameter of 25-30 mm. By connecting one or another number of elbows, you can use a net to catch crustaceans at greater or lesser depths and at different distances from the shore. A bag 50-60 cm long, rounded at the end, is sewn to the ring. The fabric of the bag should easily allow water to pass through and at the same time not be damaged by dampness. These conditions are best met by mill gas or nylon fabric; in extreme cases, cambric or voile can be used. It is better to have two nets or two removable rings with different fabrics: a bag of more common mill gas, nylon fabric, cambric or maya is pulled onto one ring, trapping both adult crustaceans and the smallest nauplii, rotifers and other small organisms, united under the general name "dust"; another ring, with a rarer mill gas, nylon or marquise, is used in cases where there is no need to extract “dust”. When catching food with such a net, it will be sorted at the same time; Working with a net made of rare fabric is much easier.

Rice. 45. Connection of the ring with the handle of the net

When catching crustaceans, you need to move the net calmly, without using much effort, and take out its contents without waiting until there is too much food in it. Daphnia and Cyclops caught in this way are better preserved.

It is better to catch crustaceans in polluted ponds and small temporary puddles, since here they have adapted to unfavorable conditions and in the future will be easier to transport and will remain alive longer.

When catching crustaceans, it is necessary to take into account that depending on the light, temperature, wind direction, as well as the time of day and year, the crustaceans move first to one shore, then to the other, sometimes they stay in the upper layers of water, sometimes in the middle layers, and often at the very the bottom of the reservoir. Observation, and subsequently experience, makes it possible to quickly detect the place of their greatest concentration. First, you have to do test catches, using a net ten times in different places and placing the contents in a transparent vessel (test tube). Thus, a suitable place with the highest concentration of crustaceans is found.

To avoid introducing infection into your aquarium farm, it is better to catch fish food in reservoirs devoid of fish populations. To avoid collecting hydras, you should catch food away from plants and various objects immersed in water. To catch food in puddles, it is better to use a small net with a short bag.

Caught crustaceans should be strained on the spot through a fine mesh or sieve so that various other aquatic animals and debris do not get into the food. It is especially convenient if a mesh of a suitable shape is mounted in a vessel intended for transporting daphnia and cyclops.

To transport crustaceans, you can use ordinary cans, but it is better to make a canna - a special low vessel with a wide neck. A canna made to suit the size of a suitcase is especially convenient; On top of the remaining free space are placed a folded net with handle arms of appropriate sizes, a glass jar for viewing water samples, and, if there is a need for high concentrations and long-distance transportation of food, a rubber balloon for blowing air through the water. You can transport wet crustaceans alive on wooden frames with a slightly moistened cloth stretched over them, placing them in a thin layer. Such frames can be placed one on top of the other and, tied together, transported as a whole package within one or two hours. You can design a special box or adjust the frames to fit the size of the suitcase. Such a relatively complex device should be made if it is intended to dry daphnia, and for some reason there is no time or opportunity to perform this operation on the shore of a reservoir.

You should not feed your fish freshly caught crustaceans. First, the food must be filtered, and then to store it alive, place it in a wide flat vessel, preferably in a white enamel basin. Here you can easily find various unwanted “guests”: swimming beetles and their larvae, nymphs and larvae of dragonflies, smoothies. The most dangerous enemies of fish - carp-eating crustaceans and hydras - quickly settle on the bottom and walls of the vessel. Water poured into a basin with food reaches room temperature within 1-2 hours. Only after this they begin distributing food.

Fish should be fed crustaceans without the water in which they are kept; To do this, water with crustaceans can be filtered through a net, and, if necessary, through 2-3 nets.

Rice. 46. Sieves for sorting plankton and bloodworms

It’s even better to make special sieves from zinc (Fig. 46) with holes such that the largest crustaceans are retained in the top one, small ones in the second, and “dust” is concentrated in the third. This kind of sieves can be made from a metal tin can with the bottoms cut out, and the mesh is attached to it using a rubber ring. Usually three sieves are sufficient. If any larger animals or plants are found with the food, you can place a fourth sieve with larger holes on top. For the same purpose, a sieve is often installed directly in the canna.

To preserve crustaceans, wide, flat vessels, such as enamel basins, are usually used. The vessel containing the crustaceans should be placed in a cool and dimly lit or dark place. The duration of storage of crustaceans depends on their species, as well as on the concentration. This period can be increased by blowing air through the water or by storing the crustaceans in the refrigerator.

Rice. 47. Vessel for keeping crustaceans

In all cases, when storing live crustaceans, a certain number of them die and fall to the bottom, so you need to periodically remove the dead ones with a pear or pour the top layer of water with live crustaceans with a hose. You can make a special vessel (Fig. 47) with an outlet tube at the bottom, through which to lower dead crustaceans that have fallen to the bottom. Using this tube, the crustaceans are released into sieves for sorting.

Tropical fish cannot eat daphnia, so they are kept in the aquarium all the time, but their excessive quantity leads to the fact that the crustaceans absorb too much oxygen. You can periodically add this type of live food without going beyond a certain density.

Frantisek Gavlena from Czechoslovakia kindly shared his experience of cultivating live daphnia with the author. For this purpose, a swimming pool 25 m long, 120 cm wide and 80 cm deep was built at a fish hatchery in Bratislava. In spring and autumn, the pool is covered with glass, and in winter the water in it is heated. In this basin, sustainable “harvests” are obtained, providing live food for the farmed fish until December. Daphnia can be bred in barrels, vats, 5-liter jars and even glasses.

Of the numerous species of cladocerans, according to the observations of F. Gavlen, Daphnia magna is most suitable for breeding, but satisfactory results are also obtained with Daphnia pulex.

To develop the culture of crustaceans, feed and baker's yeast are used. They are filled with 15 g/m 3 of water, then every other day 7 g/m 3 are added. After 3-5 days, the water turns green (“blooms”). To speed up this process, you can add water from the aquarium where it “bloomed”.

First, daphnia are bred in a 5-liter jar, and then the finished culture is added to large-volume vessels.

Daphnia should be caught in natural reservoirs in the spring or bred from ephippia. Ephippia are collected in the fall from the surface of a reservoir; they can also be obtained under artificial conditions. To do this, you must first reduce and then completely stop feeding daphnia. Usually after a week the culture dies out and a mass of ephippia forms.

The daphnia culture should not be too dense: to begin with, it is enough to plant 40-50 specimens in an 80-100 liter aquarium. Subsequently, the culture is “charged” at the rate of 200 specimens per 1 liter of water. 50 g of daphnia per 1 m 3 are placed in the breeding pool.

The water temperature is maintained at 20-25°, its color should be slightly green or slightly brown. Brown water is an indicator of unfavorable conditions, in which case feeding should be stopped. Usually after a day the water returns to a faint green or brownish color. Otherwise, the culture should be “recharged”.

Once or twice a week, 10 g/m 3 of ammonium nitrate NH 4 N0 3 should be added to the culture. Good results are obtained by adding blood or water in which the meat was washed to the culture.

When breeding daphnia, the best results are obtained if a certain number of tubifex worms with sand are placed in the culture, which serve as constant suppliers of bacteria. If all the specified conditions are met, 40 g/m of daphnia per day is usually obtained. The largest number of daphnia are collected three weeks after charging the culture.

Cyclops can also be bred under the same conditions.

Rice. 48. Artemia

In the southern regions of the USSR, relatively large crustaceans are widespread in salt water reservoirs Artemia(Artemia salina), reaching 8-11 mm in length (Fig. 48). Adult crustaceans are usually not used as food, but only juvenile Artemia are used.

Many aquarists believe that Artemia larvae are the best food for fry of most fish species. On the shores of those reservoirs where many of these crustaceans are found, you can often find a whole roller of eggs carried out by the waves. These eggs are carefully collected, separated from debris and grains of sand and stored in a cool, dry place. Artemia eggs can sometimes be purchased at the store.

Artemia is best bred in low vessels, such as cuvettes. In this case, it is recommended to blow the water with air. To obtain juvenile brine shrimp, 1/4 teaspoon of eggs is placed in a 5% solution of table salt (1-1.5 tablespoons per liter of water). At a water temperature of 28-30°, the fry hatch after 20-24 hours, at 17-19° - after 40-50 hours. It is better to hatch brine shrimp at the same temperature at which they will be fed to the fish.

Artemia are convenient because juveniles can be obtained during the absence of food in natural reservoirs; in addition, juveniles of varying degrees of development and size can be used to feed fry of different ages. Unfortunately, the percentage of juveniles emerging from Artemia eggs is often insignificant; usually the yield does not exceed 10-30%. However, if the collected eggs are fanned with air and the less light ones are separated, then the yield from the heavier eggs reaches 80%. Eggs can be stored in a cool, dry place in glass jars for at least 10 years.

As a separator for winnowing heavy eggs from light eggs and from shells, it is convenient to use a vacuum cleaner turned on for blowing. In this case, you can place a wide pipe vertically and select its dimensions in such a way that unusable particles fly out and only heavy eggs are preserved. With this method, 4 liters are winnowed in 20 minutes.

When feeding fish with artemia, as well as other crustaceans, it is imperative to filter them through a sieve or net.

Both young and adult brine shrimp can be dried, thus preparing food suitable for many types of fish. Recently, newly hatched Artemia larvae have been frozen and stored in this form and used to feed fry. Since the larvae are dead and sink to the bottom, this type of food is especially suitable for feeding catfish and puntius (barbs), the fry of which pick up food from the ground.

Rice. 49. Bloodworm

Mosquito larvae. The greatest importance in feeding adult fish is bloodworm. Bloodworm is the common name for the larvae of a number of species of mosquitoes from the bell family Chironomidae sin Tendipedidae. In aquarium practice, large bloodworms are used to feed some fish - the larvae of the widespread mosquito (Chironomus plumosus), usually living in reservoirs with muddy soil (ponds, lakes, ditches). Much more often, small bloodworms are used, obtained from rivers heavily polluted by sewage. This includes the larvae of several species of mosquitoes from the same family (Fig. 49).

These mosquitoes lay their eggs, enclosed in a gelatinous, transparent substance, in water; Colorless or grayish larvae hatch from the eggs; after the first molt they become red. By secreting salivary glands, the larvae glue particles of silt into silty tubes in which they live, protruding only the head end. With this end, the bloodworm rummages through the mud, extracting various plant and animal remains. The bloodworm breathes with the help of thread-like gill appendages located at the rear end, as well as over the entire surface of the body; being in a calm state, he makes wave-like movements with his body, promoting the change of water around him. The bright red color of the animal depends on the color of the blood, rich in hemoglobin, which ensures the absorption of oxygen by the body.

Mature larvae pupate. When the time comes for hatching, the pupae rise to the surface of the water, their covers burst, and adult insects - mosquitoes - fly out.

In cities where fishing and fish farming are developed, you can buy bloodworms in pet stores and in stores of the “Fisherman-Sportsman” society; You can get it yourself. To do this, they usually use a scoop with a more or less long handle or a bucket on a rope and a sieve. Using a scoop or bucket, scoop up silt from the bottom of the reservoir and place it in small portions in a sieve; using rotational movements, they get rid of small particles of sludge, after which bloodworms and various large particles (soil, plants, shellfish) remain in the sieve. -The sieve is removed from the water for a while, then carefully lowered into the water again. At the same time, the bloodworm, slightly dried from the surface, floats up and is collected with a small net. After repeating this several times, a new portion of sludge is collected into the sieve for washing. When obtaining bloodworms, you need to know well the places of its highest concentrations at different times of the year; It is especially difficult to find it in the spring and the first half of summer.

The extracted bloodworms contain a significant admixture of various debris. To obtain clean bloodworms, they are placed in a sieve with holes large enough for it to fit through; The sieve is placed on a basin of water so that its bottom touches the water. The bloodworm crawls through the holes into the water and falls to the bottom of the basin, from where it is collected with a net, placed in a canvas rag and wrung out quite vigorously.

You can use different methods to store bloodworms. The simplest is storage in a damp canvas rag or burlap; in this case, the bloodworms should be placed in a layer of no more than 1 cm. Slightly damp bloodworms can be placed in a tightly covered low glass vessel; Petri dishes are especially good for this purpose. These methods make it possible to preserve bloodworms for 1-2 weeks.

Bloodworms are well preserved when kept in low vessels with water changed daily. Particularly favorable results are obtained when it is kept in sand and water. For this purpose, a net is made, through the cells of which bloodworms do not pass; using this net, the sand is washed and sorted so that its grains easily pass through the cells. Sand is placed in a layer of 1-2 cm in a low vessel, filled with water 1-2 mm above its level and bloodworms are placed. Live bloodworms quickly bury themselves in the sand. The weak and dead should be thrown out with water. Before feeding the fish, the sand is washed through a net, and the bloodworms remaining in it are used as food.

Rice. 50. Feeders for live and dry food

There are many other ways to preserve bloodworms. In all cases, it should be stored at low (+3-5°), but not negative temperatures. Only live, well-washed bloodworms can be eaten.

To feed fish with bloodworms, it is very good to use a foam feeder with a mesh bottom, through which the larvae gradually crawl into the water (Fig. 50).

In an aquarium with established biological “equilibrium,” uneaten remains of chopped bloodworms decompose faster than whole bloodworms.

Young and small fish can be fed with cut bloodworms. To do this, place a bunch of bloodworms on glass or paper folded several times (newspaper can be used) and cut them all together with scissors. The pulp obtained in this way is introduced into the water with several sharp movements of the scissors.

In shallow places in reservoirs, you can often catch a large number of transparent fish using a net. coretre- larvae of mosquitoes from the genus Chacborus (Corethra), reaching 10-12 mm in length (Fig. 51).

Rice. 51. Koretra

Koretra differs from bloodworms in that it does not burrow into the sand and lives in an aquarium for a long time. It is apparently less nutritious than bloodworms. Koretra can be used to feed most types of fish, periodically replacing it with bloodworms or other food; it feeds on a variety of animals, including large ones such as daphnia. This should be taken into account, since coretras in aquariums pose a danger to fry. Correts live for a long time in low, large vessels at low water temperatures. You can keep them in a damp chamber or rag, like bloodworms.

Rice. 52. Larva and pupa of the Culex mosquito

“Devils” often called the larvae of ordinary mosquitoes of the genus Culex (Fig. 52). In summer, they can be found in literally every puddle, where they swim upside down, touching the surface of the water with a breathing tube.

Usually the larvae are dark brown, almost black in color; they got their name from their characteristic structure and rapid “twitching” movements. The size of the larvae usually does not exceed 1 cm. The “devils” should be caught with sharp movements of the net, otherwise they quickly sink to the bottom.

Fish of many species willingly eat “devils”, preferring them to many other foods.

The larvae of many other mosquitoes, often found in large numbers in various small bodies of water, puddles, etc., are also used as food.

Preparation of dry, live and frozen food for aquarium fish.
(Daphnia) (Do it yourself) (" Hunting for Daphnia")

A small digression.
Once upon a time (or maybe recently. As a teenager) I lived in a small town, in the area of a naturally regional city, i.e. next to him. This town was washed on both sides by two small rivers. One river was called Molochnaya (we called it Molochka), it began somewhere far from our city. And the second one originated right from the edge of the city, abundant groundwater helped it in this, and skirting the city it flowed into the same Milk River. And they called it “Stinky River”... This is due to the fact that it had no geographical name and, plus, water was poured into it from a sump (sewage treatment plant). But it’s stinky not because after purification the stinking water was drained, no, the water was constant and clean, it’s just that near its mouth the river organized flooding every spring due to an increase in groundwater, and in the summer it’s all a swamp (the exact definition for those places) emitted a smell characteristic of a swamp - peat, silt, rotting reeds and all that. So they called the river damn stinky, unfairly, because only positive acts of nature circled around this river. Fish, crayfish, turtles of two types - steppe and swamp, and other various amazing living creatures! And how many birds! Owls, falcons, warblers, crakes, ducks. Rats, andraders. In general, don’t blame me, the river is normal, the name is unfair.

Continuation and introduction.
In general, there were two rivers - milk and stink :) And I was also involved in aquarium fish even then. Therefore, age and its inherent curiosity, as well as passion and some personal requirements due to hobby, once forced me to engage in this most interesting activity - catching daphnia in rivers for my fish.
I froze the caught daphnia (in plates and pieces), and fed it alive, and even dried it!
Accordingly, if I caught more than one liter jar without water, i.e. strained daphnia so that more than a liter would come out, then I dried the remains. Now I will tell you in more detail about the whole process.

The photo shows a greatly enlarged Daphnia:

Enlarged Daphnia floats freely:

So, catching daphnia, preparing food.
To start the whole operation, the instigator, i.e. you will need the most important thing - the desire to go somewhere, catch something and bring it home. In our case, you need to go to a river or lake, catch a bunch of daphnia and bring them home.
By the way, rivers are small rivers, but daphnia lives in slow-moving water. These can be backwaters from a river, floods from the same river, lakes on their own, lakes cut off from rivers, and so on.
Another important point is that a large number of fish, especially fry, should not be seen in the reservoir. This does not mean that there are no daphnia where there are fish, but where there are fewer fish there are more daphnia.

Life-size Daphnia in a two-liter container:

Daphnia, a little bigger:

Daphnia lives in reservoirs all year round, but its numbers change throughout the year due to weather conditions - the amount of food that daphnia eats. Daphnia feeds on algae. Anyone who deals with aquarium fish knows that algae appear due to bright light and warm water. You've probably heard the expression " water blooms"? It's growing blue green algae, which Daphnia eats.

The Chinese caught and ate all the daphnia, which led to outbreaks of blue-green algae in water bodies:

I was joking because the Chinese ate daphnia.)

This is when the water blooms and there is an outbreak of algae growth in stagnant and calmly flowing reservoirs. At this time, there is an outbreak of daphnia reproduction; they fill reservoirs with their relatives in a matter of days in enormous quantities! This occurs approximately from mid-July to mid-late August (calendar for southern Ukraine).

Preparing the net.
When catching daphnia, it is good to have your own personal, conveniently designed net.
Firstly, the fabric of the net must be dense so as not to allow millimeter-sized daphnia to pass through when fishing and must allow water to pass through well. Those. should be dense but thin.
Secondly, the handle of the juice should be light and long, so that it can be reached far from the shore if the depth does not allow walking to that place. This can be done if you take several aluminum tubes and arrange threads on them for connection - this way the handle will be assembled, comfortable and light, as shown in the following figure.
The ring also does not need to be disfigured by making it too big or too small, up to 40-50 cm in diameter is enough.

Assembled net for catching daphnia:

Container for storing daphnia until delivery home.
Of course, it is advisable to have a larger capacity. But if you go hunting on foot or on a bicycle, which is most convenient, then choose according to your convenience - a bucket, etc.
I want to devote a separate point to containers for transporting daphnia because I had a bad experience... Daphnia is a very active crustacean and consumes a lot of oxygen from the water. And when there are a lot of them (and you want to compact them more and more, if the occasion allows), then the oxygen consumption is enormous. For normal existence, 10 daphnia need at least 1 liter of water.
From a lack of oxygen, daphnia suffocates and dies, and from the amount of oxygen and the summer heat outside + the time it takes to bring it to the freezer, daphnia acquires a bad smell and disappears. (This is me, just in case, if you suddenly want to admire nature - go home quickly with daphnia)

"Daphnia places"
Of course, you will need to climb around the reservoirs. I strongly discourage the squeamish and cowardly, so that they don’t blame me later :)
It is necessary to study the reservoir from all sides - under the trees, behind the reeds, near the banks and, if possible, in the middle.

A man catches daphnia in his underpants:

Daphnia loves fresh water saturated with oxygen and algae - if it is a flowing river, then you should look for daphnia near narrow overflows, under the reeds.
During a breeding outbreak, daphnia gather in “flocks” and red-brown “live lumps” form in the water, this is very convenient for hunting daphnia - with one capture of such lumps with a net, you can pull out up to 1 liter of water-free daphnia crustaceans!
In rivers and lakes that’s fine, but outside the cities there is a system of water canals for irrigating fields - this is a treasure trove for traders of aquarium fish food! Having walked several kilometers of a water channel with a net, you can easily catch daphnia, which can be counted in tens of kilograms.

I am the chef of my fish.
Here we are at home with a big catch.
Now you can feed your fish fresh daphnia (in most cases, still living daphnia) and start preparing three main dishes from it for stock.
Daphnia can be frozen - frozen daphnia, dry - dried daphnia, live daphnia- if there is somewhere to save one.

Frozen daphnia.

You can freeze daphnia in two forms - laid out in plates like chocolate bars and just in pieces, then put in the freezer of the refrigerator.
A good option. Better than dry daphnia, but not inferior in quality to live daphnia.

Live Daphnia.

If you have extra containers, you can keep daphnia alive for some time, but this is a very fatty option, the fish are too expensive in this case. It's inconvenient after all.
Although it was not difficult for me :) In the summer, in my grandmother’s garden (she lived in a private house) there was an old bathtub and several 200-liter barrels. They were filled with water for watering the garden, just in case if there was no water flowing from the hose, they would turn it off. But I never noticed that the water would be turned off and I was lucky to do whatever I wanted with the barrels and the bathtub :) that’s where I kept the live daphnia. And also in a separate aquarium at home, in case the fry are born;).
Dry food. Dried daphnia.
Well, we finally got to the technology of drying daphnia at home.
For that. In order for daphnia to be dried in terms of satisfaction, it is necessary that there be not a small amount of it and that it not be too small.
I dried daphnia in the sun, the result was the same as they sell at the poultry market, fluffy, the same color, smell and taste :)

In general, we place the strained daphnia (still wet, recently caught) on gauze and distribute it in a layer of up to 1-2 centimeters. During the drying period, it must be carefully loosened so that the daphnia does not dry out in clumps. Dries quickly - a liter from lunch to sunset :)
Dried daphnia should be hidden as usual in a dry, tightly closed place, protected from sunlight and children. That's it, you can feed the fish :)
At one time you can prepare a year's worth of dry food for a decent (household) household.
Good luck in preparing for your favorite fish!

And remember – wildlife is dangerous to the unwary. There may be rats, foxes, snakes, and deceptively hard soil near bodies of water.

And of course, daphnia in any of its types (or states?) can be bought at the poultry market from professional catchers and sellers.

By the way, you can always sell excess food;)

All aquarists know that raising young fish without live food is not very promising. You can, of course, try to make do with artificial food, but not all types of fish will feed on it. This is especially true for starter feed. Live dust is a universal food for most species. It may include nauplii of daphnia and cyclops, rotifers, ciliates and representatives of phytoplankton. But in order to obtain the living dust necessary for the fry, a special planktonic net.

You can try to buy a net from experienced aquarists. But it's better to do it yourself with your own hands. There are many designs of nets. Although in general it all comes down to a stick (handle), a hoop and a plankton net. For me personally, it turned out to be difficult to get hold of a plankton net. It must be made of a special fabric called “mill gas”. It is used in flour mills to sift flour. You can search for it on the Internet. Or you can go to fabric stores and choose a suitable analogue. The fabric should not stretch and should have as few cells between the threads as possible.

At different times, handles for nets were made from different materials. Starting from bamboo sticks, which were made detachable and connected to each other using tubes, like in a bamboo fishing rod. Next were structures made of duralumin and plastic tubes. But perhaps the most successful is the handle made from a plastic telescopic rod.

The ring for the mesh is best made from wire with a diameter of 4 - 6 mm. The diameter of the ring itself can vary from 20 to 60 cm. The wire must be elastic - steel or steel, preferably coated with zinc, anodized or tinned.

The plankton network is cut out in such a way as to form a cone. The net is sewn to the ring either directly, or you can cover the ring with thick fabric and sew a gas cone to it. The second option is more reliable - the gas will not rub against the metal hoop.

And now everything is in order. First of all, we decide what diameter the hoop of our net will be. It is better to take something in between 30 - 40 cm. First you need to bend a ring of the selected diameter, and then bend the wire at an angle of 90 degrees to attach it to the handle. In order to make the hoop even, you can bend the wire around an object, such as a bucket or tank. It is better to make the ends of the fasteners of different lengths.

For the handle we take a telescopic rod. Its length should be 5 - 6 meters. The last knee (the thinnest) needs to be removed. To do this, you need to remove the plug at the bottom, after which you can pull out the extra link. On some rods the plug is simply screwed on, but sometimes to remove it you need to immerse the bottom of the rod in boiling water for a few minutes and then remove it. Once the rod tip is removed, you can put everything back together as it was.

The next step is to attach the hoop to the handle. To do this, we insert the long part of the wire fastening into the second elbow, which has now become the first. The second part of the wire fastening remains outside. Now we slightly wedge the knee with the wire using a wooden wedge. And then we wrap the outer part of the fastening with nylon thread. After winding, you can coat the top of the threads with waterproof glue, after securing the end with a reliable knot.

Now we need to sew a cone of mill gas onto the prepared base of our plankton net. It is better to prepare it first by stitching it on a sewing machine. Threads should be taken from synthetic materials, then they will not deteriorate from dampness.

The good thing about the finished design is that it folds and unfolds easily. A net of this design is convenient to transport in transport. The length of the telescopic rod allows you to catch feed in hard-to-reach places. The rod's handle is springy and does not allow sudden movements in the water, which has a positive effect on the amount of live dust caught.

Hello to all readers of my blog!

Every aquarist can make a net for an aquarium. Perhaps someone will say that it’s easier to buy and they will be partly right, why bother with a needle, thread and wire when you can just buy, especially since it doesn’t cost much money.

In fact, how much easier and more convenient it will be for you when working with catching fish depends on the net, or rather, on its size. The idea for using a large net (a hoop with a diameter of 20 cm) did not come to me right away.

The large net that I now use for fish was originally made for catching coretras and daphnia, but the daily torment of catching fish for buyers gave me the idea to use a large net, because catching fish with an ordinary net takes a lot of time and patience.

If you don’t catch fish often and don’t go looking for bark and daphnia, you may not need a large net, but it still won’t hurt to make a spare net. Once at a pet store I was buying zebrafish and I felt sorry for the seller who took about 15 minutes to catch 4 fish. At this time I was thinking how I was missing a big net right now.

How to make a net with your own hands

To make a large net you will need: a piece of rigid wire approximately 120 cm, preferably (not necessarily) made of stainless steel with a diameter of 4-5 mm. Not very dense fabric organza, chiffon, nylon, nylon, voile No. 7-76.

The shape of the hoop, square or round, doesn’t matter, I make it square with each side measuring 20 cm, and twist the remaining tails of the wires, they will serve as a handle. If the handle seems short, you can lengthen it.

Next we make the pattern and the bag. Bags for nets can be different, for example, simply from two halves of fabric, the pattern of which has a parabolic shape. Or a cross-shaped pattern, which is considered the most profitable of all possible options. The bag turns out to be rectangular with a flat bottom and safe for fish when catching them.

Honestly, I used different nets and didn’t hurt a single fish, and it seems to me that this depends on the aquarist himself, and not on the shape of the bag. We carefully measure the pattern, taking into account the fact that the length of the bag should be about half the diameter of the hoop (in my case 30 cm), we also take into account the part of the wrapped material on the lining of the darling.

To improve the quality of the net, it is advisable to strengthen the areas where the shell is sheathed by sheathing it with additional material. To catch daphnia or coretra, we attach the net to a pole by wrapping the handle of the net with wire or rope.

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Preparation of dried daphnia | AquaDomik

At the beginning of summer, when the ponds inhabited by daphnia are not yet overgrown with duckweed, hornwort and other aquatic plants, you can store dried daphnia for the winter.

You need to dry daphnia on a clear, hot day in the morning, having previously prepared several wooden frames measuring about 80*60 cm with ordinary gauze stretched over them, taking with you a bucket and some kind of mug or just a tin can, squeezed on one side so that When pouring daphnia, the widest possible stream of water was obtained. Having 10 frames with you, on a good hot day you can prepare up to 2 kg of dry daphnia. A net for catching daphnia should be made of rare material, perhaps from ordinary gauze, with a handle longer than an ordinary net. Daphnia should not be squeezed out in a net; it is better to let the water drain and then dump it into a bucket. When half the bucket is full, you need to dilute the daphnia with water and pour it along with the water over a pre-wetted frame, holding it at an angle. You should pour by making quick movements with the hand holding the mug from top to bottom so that the daphnia is applied to the gauze in an even layer. When the entire frame is covered with daphnia, it is placed against the sun, placing a support under one edge so that the sun's rays fall perpendicularly on the frame. If the daphnia is spread evenly and not in a very thick layer, then its complete drying in good sunlight is achieved within two hours. You should remove the daphnia from the gauze using a knife, placing the frame with the daphnia on its edge. Daphnia is scraped off in the form of sticky pieces, which easily crumble when further sifted through a coarse sieve. Sifting dry daphnia is necessary in order to separate dried insects and any debris caught along with the crustaceans. This procedure, of course, can be done not at the pond, but at home. At the pond, it is enough to limit yourself to removing daphnia from the nets. You can simply dry daphnia on gauze or some other material laid out on the ground. The disadvantage of this method is that it can only be used in calm weather. At the slightest wind, the daphnia will be blown away, while with the first method, the wind, on the contrary, helps drying, significantly speeding it up.

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Chapter 3. FEEDING FISH

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The first live food for newly hatched fry of spawning fish are ciliates, bred as a pure culture or together with the smallest crustaceans caught in ponds in the form of live “dust”. To the naked eye they appear to be just small moving dots, but with a little magnification and a good magnifying glass you can see that they are living creatures. Newborn fry see them well and eat them in countless quantities.

If such food is given evenly, so that it is in the aquarium continuously, then the fry of all spawning fish grow quickly and soon reach a size that allows them to absorb larger food - small cyclops or daphnia.

Such tiny live food can be easily obtained in any standing body of water; it is separated from larger feed by filtering through a net made of awning or nylon stocking.

Spring is the season when water bodies are richest in such “dust”, so at this time of year it is easiest to feed aquarium fish fry. However, you can have such tiny food at any time of the year by maintaining an artificial culture of it at home. It is most advisable to use ciliates for this purpose, since maintaining a culture of crustaceans is difficult and they quickly grow beyond the size of the “dust”. Fish most willingly take a certain type of ciliate - the slipper, or paramecium (Paramaecium caudatum) (Fig. 18).

Rice. 18. Ciliates (slipper).

You can get a slipper in any standing body of water. It is abundantly populated by small, stagnant ponds with fallen leaves, small peat bogs, and country pits with rotting organic matter.

Such bodies of water often emit a characteristic hydrogen sulfide odor and are usually teeming with many different ciliates, especially near the shore. If you collect water from such a body of water in a bottle or test tube, you can view its population through a magnifying glass. Ciliates differ from crustaceans by their smooth movements and rounded outlines. In most crustaceans, movements are spasmodic, and under a magnifying glass their jointed limbs are already quite visible.

The shoe is a medium-sized ciliate (0.25-0.3 mm) and has a slender spindle-shaped body, shaped really like the sole of a shoe. The movement of the paramecium is very fast; during forward movement, the animal rotates around its axis.

The enemies of protozoa, including slippers, are all small animals that feed on them - predatory ciliates, rotifers, daphnia, cyclops, insects and their larvae. Therefore, and also taking into account the preference for using paramecia for food, you need to choose a crop that contains only ciliates - most of them are slippers. It is even better to create a pure culture, which is done as follows. You need to pour some water into the watch glass from the natural culture in which the shoes were seen.

The population located in the glass should be viewed under a dissecting loupe. If there are many ciliates of various types in the glass, then the culture needs to be diluted with water so that the ciliates are distributed less frequently, then individual paramecium can be caught under a magnifying glass, which is done using a pipette with a thinly drawn end of a glass tube. One to two dozen paramecia caught are placed in prepared jars with hay infusion (boil 10 g of hay in 1 liter of water for 1 hour). The slippers multiply quickly, division occurs at least once a day, and after a week, under favorable conditions, they can be seen even with the naked eye in the form of a mass of whitish moving points in the upper part of the vessel. The water in the vessel becomes cloudy and gives off a putrid smell, but this should not bother the amateur. The vessel with the culture should not be placed in direct sunlight; it can even be placed in a dark place. You should not be afraid of a drop in temperature even to 10° C and below. But ciliates reproduce well only at room temperature 18-22° C.

To maintain the culture, it is necessary to add boiled milk to the water no more than twice a month, based on the proportion of 5 drops per 100 cm3 of water.

It is better to feed the fry with filtered ciliates. To do this, filter or school blotting paper is inserted into the funnel, which retains the ciliates. After filtering, the paper with the ciliates settled on it is rinsed in places where the fry accumulate. You can simply pour part of the liquid with the culture of ciliates into an aquarium with fry, but this will spoil the water in the aquarium a little.

In extreme cases, you can replace live “dust” or an artificial culture of ciliates when growing fry of spawning fish with egg yolk. A small piece of the yolk of a hard-boiled egg is ground in a spoonful of water taken from the aquarium. In this form, the yolk should be given after 2-3 hours, a few drops at a time, to the places where the fry gather, where they quickly grab it.

The best live food for fry of spawning fish that have grown somewhat on ciliates or living “dust” or just hatched viviparous fish are lower crustaceans - cyclops and daphnia.

Starting in April, as soon as the sun really warms up and the water temperature in the ponds rises above +8°C, a cyclops (Cyclops) appears, belonging to the order of copepods (Copepoda) of the subclass of lower crayfish (Entomostaca). The body of the Cyclops is noticeably divided into a cephalothorax and abdomen. The body length ranges from 1 to 4 mm depending on its type and age. On the head there is an unpaired eye, which gave rise to the name of the crustacean. The organs of movement and soaring are antennae, lined with short hairs and bristles. By simultaneously hitting the antennae and rowing legs, the Cyclops jumps forward. Having jumped, the crustacean spreads its antenna wide, like a parachute, and, as if floating, slowly descends (Fig. 19).

Rice. 19. Cyclops.

Cyclops' food consists of microscopic algae and other small organisms. Cyclops, like all copepods, breathes over the entire surface of the body.

The eggs, when released from the female's oviducts, form two elongated egg sacs, which are located on the sides of the end of the body until the larvae hatch from them. The larva swims animatedly in the water, grows and moults. During its transformations, the Cyclops goes through five unsegmented and six segmented stages, the last of which corresponds to an adult sexually mature animal.

The same order of copepods also includes a number of Diaptomus, distinguished by their elliptical body shape and longer antennae. Diaptomus is less readily eaten by fish due to the hardness of its shell.

Cyclops is good to feed all fish of relatively small size, but for larger fish in the summer, the best live food is the daphnia crustacean (Daphnia pulex. Subclass Entomostaca, order Phyllopoda - phyllopods, suborder Cladocera - cladocerans) (Fig. 20).

Rice. 20. Daphnia.

The body length of daphnia reaches 5 mm, its body is enclosed in a chitinous sheath. The head of the daphnia, not covered with a shell, has a large compound eye, next to which there is a small simple eye. The second pair of antennae, each with two branches, represents the crustacean’s powerful rowing organ. During daphnia's jumps, followed by a smooth descent - soaring, fatigue is not noticeable; it never sinks to the bottom: this is facilitated by the small specific gravity of the crustacean due to the abundant fat, visible through the transparent body of the crustacean in the form of brightly colored drops.

In the warm season, daphnia reproduces; females lay unfertilized eggs in the embryonic sac, which quickly develop and after 3-4 days, fully formed small daphnia, ready to emerge, can already be seen through the walls of the case. Juvenile daphnia grow quickly and, after going through three molts, reach sexual maturity 8-10 days after leaving the egg. If we take into account that the female gives birth to offspring every 3-4 days in the amount of about 80 individuals, each of which itself gives birth to offspring after 12-14 days, then it becomes clear where the masses of daphnia populating our water bodies come from.

The best daphnia for fish food is red. It appears in almost all dirty standing waters in the spring, at first very fine in the form of dust, and with the onset of hot days it becomes larger and larger and in such quantities that it can be seen hanging along the shore in whole clouds of rusty color.

Only large fish can be fed with large live daphnia. To catch cyclops and daphnia you need a net. A ring for a net with a diameter of 250-300 mm must be bent from a piece of wire 3-5 mm thick, leaving two ends bent, which should be attached to a stick up to 2 m long. A bag 50-60 cm deep, shaped like a cone, rounded at end. The bag should be made of a material that easily allows water to pass through, for example, awning to catch “dust.” The lower part of the net or the entire net is made of denser material.

When fishing in the summer, you should keep in mind that there is more food on the side from which the wind blows, but in calm weather the food is kept in the same quantity throughout the pond.

In a musty reservoir, daphnia stays at the surface of the water closer to the shore; in relatively clean water, it sinks into the lower, cooler, oxygen-rich layers of water.

You should not drive the net for a long time, waiting until there is more food in the net; it is better to remove the net more often and throw cyclops or daphnia into the can, since when driving the net for a long time, part of the food suffocates. For the same reason, you should not use much effort; it is better to move the net calmly.

In both winter and summer, you should never feed fish with freshly caught cyclops. First of all, you need to strain the food through a thin mesh or sieve into a basin so that water insects, larvae and debris do not get into the food. Food poured into a basin in winter should stand in the room until the temperature of the water in the basin is equal to the temperature of the water in the aquarium. Only after this can you feed the fish. Otherwise, due to a sharp change in temperature, almost the entire Cyclops dies, settles to the bottom and causes water spoilage.

To keep the food alive for several days, it should be poured into a flat container so that the water level is no higher than 3-4 cm, or, if left in a basin, it should be blown with air. Dead cyclops and daphnia settle to the bottom; they should be periodically removed using a blower or by pouring the top layer of water with live crustaceans into another vessel and discarding the remaining sediment.

Since live daphnia is a good food for all fish, dried daphnia is one of the best foods after live food. Therefore, at the beginning of summer, when ponds inhabited by daphnia are not yet overgrown with duckweed, hornwort and other aquatic plants, you can store dried daphnia for the winter.

You need to dry daphnia on a clear, hot day in the morning, having previously prepared several wooden frames measuring about 80X60 cm with ordinary gauze stretched over them, taking with you a bucket and some kind of mug or just a tin can, squeezed on one side so that when spilled Daphnia received the widest possible stream of water. Having 10 frames with you, on a good hot day you can dry up to 2 kg of dry daphnia.

A net for catching daphnia should be made of rare material, perhaps from ordinary gauze, with a handle longer than an ordinary net. Daphnia should not be squeezed out in a net; it is better to let the water drain and then dump it into a bucket. When half the bucket is full, you need to dilute the daphnia with water and pour it along with the water over a pre-wetted frame, holding it at an angle. You should pour by making quick movements with the hand holding the mug from top to bottom so that the daphnia is applied to the gauze in an even layer. When the entire frame is covered with daphnia, it is placed against the sun, placing a support under one edge so that the sun's rays fall perpendicularly on the frame.

If the daphnia is spread evenly and not in a very thick layer, then its complete drying in good sunlight is achieved within two hours.

You should remove the daphnia from the gauze using a knife, placing the frame with the daphnia on its edge. Daphnia is scraped off in the form of sticky pieces, which easily crumble when further sifted through a coarse sieve. Sifting dry daphnia is necessary in order to separate dried insects and any debris caught along with the crustaceans.

This procedure, of course, can be done not at the pond, but at home. At the pond, it is enough to limit yourself to removing daphnia from the nets.

You can simply dry daphnia on gauze or some other material laid out on the ground. The disadvantage of this method is that it can only be used in calm weather. At the slightest wind, the daphnia will be blown away and the work may be in vain, while with the first method, the wind, on the contrary, helps drying, significantly speeding it up.

Dried daphnia should be stored in tightly closed metal or wooden boxes. If the daphnia is not completely dried, mold may appear during storage and destroy the entire daphnia. Dried daphnia should not be stored in a bag, as it can harbor moths, the larvae of which turn the daphnia into dust, making it completely unsuitable for food.

In winter, you can also catch live food in almost all ponds, but it is much more difficult. If there is a pond with a permanent ice hole, then cyclops can be caught in such a pond throughout the winter until February. From February or the end of January, very few of them are made and in the end they completely disappear, appearing only when the ice begins to melt and ice-free water appears near the shore; At this time, you can start catching cyclops from the shore.

In winter, live food is obtained in an ice hole, which should be cut with a crowbar, the end of which is flattened in the form of a hatchet. First, you need to cut a furrow along the contour of an oval shape (the desired size) for two-thirds of the entire circumference, right through to the water. Then, with several blows on the uncut part of the circle, break off the ice floe and push it under the ice. After this, all that remains is to clear the water of small pieces of ice floating in the water. The vessel intended for cyclops should be carried in a cotton case in winter so that the water does not freeze.

If you place some cyclops or daphnia caught from a pond in a glass vessel and look closely, then among the caught crustaceans you can distinguish completely transparent corethra mosquito larvae (Chaoborus crystallinus - Corethra plumicornis) 10-12 mm long, which are revealed by their black eyes and tracheal bladders. The coretra larva feeds on plankton. Standing motionless in the water, she tracks down cyclops and daphnia, pounces on them with a sharp throw, grabbing her prey with the trapping apparatus of the mouthparts (Fig. 21).

Rice. 21. Development of the coretra mosquito.

The larva is dangerous for fry of spawning fish, especially small ones, such as lalius. At the same time, the coretra is a good food for all fish: it lives in an aquarium for a very long time, does not bury itself in the sand like bloodworms, stays among thickets of plants, and the fish have the opportunity to hunt for it all the time. Koretra can be stored for a long time in the same way as bloodworms, in a damp cloth in a cool place, but it is better to keep it in periodically refreshed water.

An excellent live food for all fish without exception, not only adults, but also for grown-up fry of many spawning fish and all viviparous fish, is the well-known red larva of the mosquito (Tendipes - Chironomus plumosus) - bloodworm (Fig. 22).

Rice. 22. Bloodworm.

The red color of the bloodworm larva is given by the hemoglobin contained in its blood. Bloodworms live in silt and, rummaging in it, find abundant food. The larvae weave a web around their passages and, clinging to the walls of this peculiar tube with the hooks of their legs, can protrude from it or hide in the depths of the silt. In warm weather and an abundance of food, the larvae grow quickly and 15 days after laying eggs reach a length of up to 15 mm. The larva molts three times and pupates after maturation. The pupa floats to the surface of the water just before the mosquito flies out. This mosquito does not bite, it differs from the ordinary one in its large size and the manner of twitching its front legs extended forward, for which it received the name “twitch mosquito.”

Large bloodworms the thickness of a match are only suitable for feeding large fish (veiltails, telescopes, large viviparous fish and all predators). For other fish, you should take small bloodworms. It is important that the bloodworms are fresh and alive. This can be seen if you move a bunch of bloodworms with your finger, the fresh bloodworms begin to move vigorously. Stale bloodworms stick together and have a dark color. Eating such bloodworms is risky; it can cause illness and sometimes death of fish.

You can catch bloodworms yourself, but to do this you need to know the places where there are a lot of them, although they are found in almost all dirty reservoirs, both with standing water and with quietly flowing water. To catch bloodworms, you need to have a bucket with a rope 8-10 m long and a sieve with a fine mesh. The bucket tied to the rope is thrown further away. When it sinks, it is pulled to the shore, dragged along the bottom in order to scoop up the bottom mud, in which the bloodworm lives. When the bucket is pulled ashore, a little dirt is collected from it into a sieve and washed in water, making rotational movements until all the dirt comes off and only bloodworms and debris that do not fit into the holes of the mesh remain in the sieve.

The entire contents of the sieve, with the exception of large debris, which can be removed immediately, are dumped into a rag made of rough canvas prepared for this purpose.

In winter, bloodworms are obtained in the same way from an ice hole.

At home, the bloodworms are laid out in a wide sieve with large holes, which is placed over a basin, into which water is poured so that the bottom of the sieve lightly touches the water. Having felt the water, the bloodworm immediately begins to crawl through the sieve and within a short time, depending on the total number of bloodworms, it is all in the water. The garbage is thrown away, and the bloodworms are laid out on a dry rag, and when all the water has drained from it, the entire procedure for preparing the bloodworms should be considered complete.

Since the bloodworm tends to quickly burrow into the sand, it is best to give it by placing it in a special floating bloodworm, through the holes in the bottom of which the bloodworm crawls gradually and the fish grab it, not giving it the opportunity to burrow into the sand. Some fish pull it out of the moth as soon as it starts to crawl out. This method is also good because only live bloodworms will pass through the holes, and the dead ones remain in the bloodworm and can be easily removed. Small fish and fry can be fed with cut bloodworms. Having placed a little bloodworm on a small piece of glass, holding it slightly inclined so that the blood drains, you need to quickly cut the bloodworm with scissors until it turns into a bloody pulp. To make it easier for fish to find cut bloodworms and eat them without leaving a trace, they need to be thrown into the aquarium in a lump.

For storage, bloodworms should be placed in a thin layer of 1 cm in a dry, thick canvas rag, folded in half, which should be wrapped in a burlap rag, soaked in cold water and wrung out well. In this way, bloodworms can be preserved for 7-10 days, of course, only in a cool place. In winter, you can use bloodworms completely frozen, but you should not give them right away, so as not to catch a cold, but first warm them up or simply pour them over with hot water. All fish eat such bloodworms with pleasure, although it cannot be considered complete.

If in the summer it is possible to get a large amount of bloodworms, it can be dried. Dried bloodworms are a good food, but only if the bloodworms are dried fresh and not in the sun (during prolonged drying, some of the bloodworms may deteriorate), but in an oven, so that drying occurs quickly, but so that the bloodworms do not burn. Should be stored in tightly closed boxes.

For large fish, dried bloodworms should first be scalded with boiling water before giving food and given in this form to the aquarium; small fish can be fed, like dry daphnia, by first rubbing the bloodworms between your fingers.

Small earthworms are good food for all large fish. They can be given whole, but it is better to cut them into small pieces with scissors and then give the amount that the fish can eat at one time.

You can get earthworms in the summer in damp places, store them in a box with garden soil, occasionally moistening it, in a cool place. In this way, you can preserve worms all winter in any quantity.

Among some hobbyists, another type of live food is common, bred as an indoor culture. These are oligochaete worms belonging to the genus Enchytraeus, yellowish-white in color, up to 1.5 cm in size, which are bred in boxes with moist black soil at room temperature. They are fed with pieces of white bread soaked in milk, sour porridge, mashed potatoes, etc., which are buried in the ground (Fig. 23).

Rice. 23. Enchytrea (a longitudinal section of the body is given at the front).

A small pinch of these oligochaetes, finding themselves in favorable conditions, multiply so quickly that after 3-4 weeks you can begin to take them for food. To do this, you should dig out the place where the feeding was placed, and there will be whole tubers of worms, which you can take either with tweezers or just with your fingers and give to the fish. All fish eat them willingly. To separate the enchitrae from the ground, you can fill them with water - the worms will quickly crawl to the surface, from where they can be easily collected. Like bloodworms, enchitraea burrow into the ground, so they should be fed according to the number of fish. This food is interesting because it reproduces equally well all year round and is easy to preserve and breed.

In terms of nutritional value, only raw meat without fatty layers can be compared with the live and dried food described above, which, in the absence of live food, is good to feed almost all adult fish, for which it is scraped with a knife and given to the fish in this form. In extreme cases, fresh meat can be replaced with dried meat, for which it is passed through a meat grinder and kept in a hot oven until completely dry. Before giving it to the fish, scald a portion of dry meat with boiling water. Small fish can be fed with the same dry meat, previously crushed in a mortar and given as dry daphnia.

In the absence of other food, you can feed almost all fish (except predators) with food made from cereals: semolina, millet, buckwheat; This food is well eaten by all types of carp fish, as well as labyrinth fish, but you should resort to it only as a last resort. A steep porridge is cooked from the cereal, then it should be washed in cold water until all the mucus is separated, then strain through a sieve and stored in a cold place. Buckwheat should be raw, not fried. Buckwheat food, since it is larger in size, should only be fed to large fish, such as veiltails; Semolina and millet cereals can be fed to livebearers and other small fish.

With all types of non-living food (egg yolk, dried daphnia, cut, dried and frozen bloodworms, raw and dried meat, porridge, etc.) you need to be very careful: the remains of food quickly decompose and spoil the water. This food should be given in such quantity that it is quickly disassembled and eaten by the fish without any residue.

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A net for obtaining food (live dust).

You can try to buy a net from experienced aquarists. But it’s better to do it yourself. There are many designs of nets. Although in general it all comes down to a stick (handle), a hoop and a plankton net. For me personally, it turned out to be difficult to get hold of a plankton net. It must be made of a special fabric called “mill gas”. It is used in flour mills to sift flour. You can search for it on the Internet. Or you can go to fabric stores and choose a suitable analogue. The fabric should not stretch and should have as few cells between the threads as possible.

The good thing about the finished design is that it folds and unfolds easily. A net of this design is convenient to transport in transport. The length of the telescopic rod allows you to catch food in hard-to-reach places. The rod's handle is springy and does not allow sudden movements in the water, which has a positive effect on the amount of live dust caught.

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Suborder: Cladocera Latreille, 1829 = Cladocera

Catching daphnia in nature.

They catch daphnia with a net. For this you need a special net - with a long handle (up to 2-3 meters, usually made of several screwed sections), with a diameter of about 25-30 cm and a fabric cone about 50-60 cm long with a rounded end. The net ring is made of durable material, for example stainless wire with a diameter of 3-5mm. If you make it from a thinner one, it will bend easily, and considering the possible snags on the bottom... But the most difficult thing is to choose the fabric for the net. Here, synthetic materials are preferable, such as nylon, which do not rot from prolonged contact with water. The mesh size of the net depends on what you are going to catch; very fine fabric greatly slows down the net in the water, so it is better to have several interchangeable rings with different fabrics for catching food of different sizes.

They operate the net calmly, smoothly, without much effort, moving it with a figure of eight in places where daphnia accumulate. We did it a couple of times - took it out, shook out the catch, and began to fish further. If you push a full net, many daphnia will crumple and die, so it is better to take it out more often with small portions of prey. Otherwise, greed, you know, does not lead to good. For fishing, it is better to prefer smaller bodies of water, for example, puddles - there daphnia are more accustomed to oxygen starvation and will more easily endure further transportation. True, it is difficult to catch in small puddles with a standard net; there you have to use a net with a shorter cone - otherwise it begins to cling to the bottom and create turbidity. In order not to catch hydra with daphnia, you should try to catch prey away from thickets of aquatic plants or objects in the water to which it can attach. And in no case is it recommended to catch food in reservoirs where fish live - with such food you can easily introduce pathogens of various diseases.

The caught daphnia are placed in a container - a can or a special can for transportation. Before pouring, it is advisable to strain the catch through a thin mesh to remove any trapped debris and any large unwanted guests - swimming beetles or large dragonfly larvae. It is very desirable to have a battery-powered compressor in the transport container - it will keep most of the catch alive during the journey home.

At home, caught daphnia are poured into a wide flat vessel, for example a white enamel basin. There, for some time, all the unwanted organisms settle on the bottom and walls; on a white background it is easy to spot the larvae of dragonflies and leeches, and everything else that has nothing to do with daphnia. There, at the bottom, dead crustaceans accumulate. When feeding, daphnia are caught with a net; the water in which they are located cannot be poured into the aquarium!