Neptun
In past articles we have talked to you about such types of live food as trumpet fish and earthworms. Today we will talk about feeding mosquito larvae and some other insects to aquarium fish.
Coretta Mosquito larvae Culicidae
Corethra (Corethra or Chaoborus) is a larva of blood-sucking mosquitoes Culicidae of small size, usually up to 10 millimeters. Transparent, is in the water column. It can be fed to adult fish. It should not be given to juvenile fish, as it is predatory and may harm young fish.
Catch bark mainly with a kapron cloth net in the cold season. It can be stored on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator at a temperature of about five degrees Celsius wrapped in a damp well wrung cloth. When the bark larva gets into warm water, it turns first into a pupa and then into an adult mosquito.
Culex mosquitoes
The genus Culex has about 1200 species. The larvae of the common mosquito are black in color. They are about a centimeter long. They hang below the surface of the water upside down, in contact with the air breathing tube. At the slightest danger, they rapidly head to the bottom in zigzag movements. Therefore, this larvae should be caught with a sharp movement of the net, bringing it under them from below.
Culex mosquito larvae should be stored in the same way as bark. That is, wrapped in a damp cloth and placed on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator, in the area where the temperature is maintained at five degrees Celsius.
Mosquito larvae Mycetophilidae
The larva of the mushroom mosquito (Mycetophilidae). This is an entire family consisting of 150 genera with about 4000 species. They’re very widespread. This mosquito got its name because it lays its larvae in the body of a mushroom. Sometimes there can be up to a thousand larvae in one mushroom. They have a length of about 10 millimeters. The color is milky white.
This type of larvae can be bred at home on fresh or dry mushrooms. The latter are pre-soaked before use. Tubular mushrooms are used to infect mosquito larvae.
It should be remembered that any mosquito larvae will sooner or later turn into an insect, i.e. a mosquito. Some species are very painful to bite. Therefore, it is desirable to avoid conditions that accelerate their maturation when storing them.
Other types of supplementary feed
On forest puddles in spring, summer and fall you can catch many species of other mosquito larvae or other insects. In addition to mosquito larvae, moths – larvae of a mosquito-like insect called the common bellworm – are an undisputed delicacy. It is described in detail in the article Moths.
You can still catch various representatives of bocoplaves, the most famous of which is gammarus.
It is only necessary to choose food of such sizes that it suits your fish. And they will be grateful to you for the treats that you indulge them. Well, if the winter and will be a short break with live feed, most fish feeding dry food will be much easier if at every opportunity will receive a worm, a mosquito or its larvae.
The topic of feeding your pets is endless and we will definitely return to it many times in the future. The purpose of these articles was to tell about the most common small creatures in our country, which can be relatively easy to obtain on your own and thus diversify the diet of your aquarium fish.
