Microworms

Microworms are an easy live food to culture. And are a superb food for small fry. I personnaly use them in conjunction with newly hatched brine shrimp to raise strong, heathly fry. Below is a video of microworms that have been maginfied two hundred times, they look delicious, don't they.

The materials you require to start a micro worm culture are, a live starter culture, one transparent container with a tight-fitting lid, oatmeal, water and active dry yeast A plastic sandwich container would be perfect for this. Make sure it has a tight-fitting lid and has transparent sides. Poke some holes in the lid with a nail. Or drill some holes in the lid. These holes will allow air to reach the culture. Rinse the lid and container in hot water to make sure it is clean. Cook the oats for five minutes, stirring the mixture the whole time. Don't over cook it, it should be thick but you should still be able to pour it.
Most plastic sandwich containers can withstand some heat, so it shouldn't cause any problems if you pour the mixture straight into the container. place the mixture in your refrigerator so that it can cool down quickly. Use a spoon to take a few teaspoons of the starter culture or from an old culture and spread it onto the oatmeal, which should be cool to the touch, If the mixture is still too warm, it will kill the microworms. You now need to dissolve a few grains of yeast in a small amount of water. Pour this over the mixture. You should now keep the culture in a cool, shaded place (not in direct sunlight). When the culture starts to smell badly, and starts to darken in colour. It is time to replace this old culture by propagating a new culture with the old culture, as desrcibed above. You can harvest the microworms using a small flat stick, a small brush or any other tool that can scoop up the worms. You should try to avoid the oatmeal, when scooping up the microworms from the sides of the container. You can rinse the worms by putting them into a small amount of water. And then use an eyedropper to feed them to your fry, if you wish to be extra careful about cleanliness but i prefer to just feed the microworms straight to the fry using the scooping tool. But you have to be careful you don't want to add any of the culture you may have accidentally scooped up, to your aquarium water.