Live food such as brine shrimp, daphnia and that sort of thing...

My LFS are shocking, they have it one week and none the next. If I threw a load in a bucket and kept it warm, would they multiply and give me a constant supply?

In my experience and maybe it's just my experience, it's not worth the aggro Pete, for one it normally starts smelling, and then i find a lot of the live food just dies off.

Other's maybe able to shed some more light on it.

Now for a slight distraction to your thread........

I'm not a fan of getting live food from the LFS, i think the risks (i.e. bad bacteria or parasites) outweighs the positive (nutritional value and perhaps some stimulation for the fish).

And if you are talking about your community fish, which i guess you are, i certainly woudn't bother, but perhaps that's just my attitute, as i wouldnt like to spend ages on my set-up then introduce some dodgy bacteria or parasite out the blue.

Rinsing them in water doesnt really reduce the risk of problems in my opinion.

I stick to prawns, white-bait, mussels, frozen foods mate and a good selection of branded dried foods with fresh vegetables for those that require or benefit from it, that's my practice.

I would be tempted to go down the live route if i could culture/grow the stuff myself, but i am a bit lazy. I tried my hand at growing my own brine shrimp once, just seems such a hassle!

The only thing i would probably do but i dont really have any fish that would really take advantage or need it, is use my own live bearer's and live-bearer fry for live food for bigger fish.

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Yeah I can see what you mean about bringing in live food from LFS.

I've done it before, but after reading that don't think I'll be doing it again!

I stocked up on frozen foods today, so should last me a month.

The sterbai and loach colonies are eating me out of house and home!

well i am sure there are peeps out there who have been using LFS live food for ages and report no problems.

i just think it's risky

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As far as I know live brine shrimp are totally safe, as they live in salt water so should not carry any fish parasites.

Daphnia can be cultured at home if necessary, then they should be safe.

However as Fry Lover says, there is no need for live food for most fish, unless you are raising fry or keeping difficult species. A good dry food and variety of frozen or fresh foods should give them everything they need.

There is no substitute for live food that wild fish naturally feed on. Natural live foods have no best before date and the benefits speak for themselves. You should try to supplement the diet with live food of some description.
Having said that, I wouldnt trust my LFS with a barge pole. Source your live food from a specialist supplier. I would also recommend a booklet "Culture your own" by I. Bangham, produced by Carter Graphics

I agree that live food is good for fish and is the most natural food. However, I have heard a lot of horror stories recently of diseases being introduced by live food, so it is a matter of deciding if the risk is worth it.

The following are almost 100% safe:
- Brine shrimp
- Mosquito larvae from a water butt without fish
- Bloodworm from a water butt without fish
- Daphnia, Cyclops, Gammarus, Asellus from a home culture
- Infusoria or rotifers from a home culture

The following should be treated with caution:
- Anything from a wild source such as a lake or river
- Daphnia and Bloodworm from a shop if you are not sure of the source

Never feed your fish live tubifex, it comes from polluted sources and can carry very nasty diseases.

I would never fed any live or raw dead food that is freshwater to a FW tank,evey living thing carries parasites to some degree,these can become a problem in a closed system very quickly,especially if the fish are stressed,with the range of foods available I dont think it is worth the risk.

I don't see how foods like bloodworm and daphnia can carry fish parasites, if they have been cultured in an environment without fish or other animals, such as a water butt or spare tank.

They do,we are talking micro organisms,to larger parasites they are a fact of life,we all have some,a lot of us carry MRSA without any ill effects until we are injured,our intestines are bulging with bugs,they are everywhere.