Food for small sunfish

Does anyone know of a food source for sunfish that can be added to their tank that will reproduce in the tank and supply the fish with constant live food source. I currently feed freeze dried blood worms and brine shrimp, plus micro carb pellets and chiclid flakes which they are not really fond of.

Scuds and livebearers such as guppies will happily reproduce in tank, but probably not enough to keep your sunfish happy. The only way that would work out is if you had a big tank with a burgeoning feeder population and just a very few sunnies.

Ramshorn snails. My longear goes nuts at the sight of me holding a big one. He loves it when I squish them for him. They'll also eat the small ones unsquished. I never see small snails in any of my tanks with sunfish. I have medium sized sunfish like the longear, also orangespots and bluespots. Something else they love is earthworms. Of course you can't raise those in the tank, but they are cheap or free, so I thought I'd mention them. I feed mine red wigglers and nightcrawlers. They like mealworms, too. The longear acts like I'm feeding him candy when I drop in mealworms.

My Bluegill are a bit picky when it comes to dried foods compared to frozen. And they don't like frozen shrimp at all.

When they do like something they eat until it's gone. I can't see raising anything in there as a constant food source as they'd eat it until it was gone.

Hey schambers, do you think my Bluegill will eat snails? I don't know what Ramshorn snails are but there are some good aquarium supply stores around where I live.

Rams Horn Snails:

Link: http://en.wikipedia..../Ramshorn_snail

Daniel

Hey schambers, do you think my Bluegill will eat snails? I don't know what Ramshorn snails are but there are some good aquarium supply stores around where I live.

Probably. The snails I use for feeders came free with plants. Pond snails would work as well. Ramshorn and pond snails are generally considered pest snails. I consider them free fish food. Your aquarium store may have some they'd give you. I have multiple aquariums, so the snails reproduce in the tanks without snail eating animals.

I'll check into that. I have a tank without any "snail eaters" too. Thanks for the tip!

My wife has started raising worms for me again. This is the second time she's started a "worm bin" as she calls it, so it was easy for her. Here's basically all it takes: (OK, she's taking over control of the keyboard....)

Buy or make a bin. The first bins were wood, this time plastic. Wood 'rots' over time; if you do wood, no pressure treated... leave 'slat type' spaces for air circulation, not too big or the dirt and worms can get out. If plastic, drill small 3/16” holes in bottom for air, then cover with screening or burlap...

Size of bin: about 2' - 2 1/2' long x 18" wide x 12-18" tall; any larger and it gets too heavy to carry.

Put moist dirt, top soil or peat moss or a mix into bottom of bin; about 1/4 the way full.

Tear black and white newspaper into strips and soak in water and place on top of dirt, fluffed up; about 8 pages worth.

Put more dirt on top of paper to cover; then add kitchen scraps to one side of bin; no meat, not too much citrus. Worms love egg shells, coffee grounds, fruit & veggies. Put more dirt over food and other side of bin to within 3” of top of bin. Keep a breathable cover on the top - screening, burlap…

Keeping the food to one side of bin allows you to harvest any worms in one area, although this is not necessary, it is neater. Feed worms about every 3-4 days. Keep switching sides with the food; once the first food source is gone the worms will move over to the other side.

Get a bunch of worms from someone's garden compost, (after a good rain) or purchase trout worms at Walmart, or Red Wigglers at Petsmart to begin your breeding bin.

Make sure you have 'older' breeder size worms in the bins, or all the baby size ones will be used up before they can breed. You want a cycle to develop where you have every 'age' group in the bin. I forgot the life cycle time line, but you can google that.

Worm eggs look like translucent match stick heads. So if you see lots of these, it’s a good thing.

I don't recommend night crawlers because, yes, they do crawl out of the bins at night and that's not a good thing when you're on the way to the bathroom at 2am.

Over time, you can add more wet paper; worms eat this too, and it helps keep the bin moist. When you start seeing/feeling the dirt drying out you’ll need to moisten it. A watering can works well; not too wet, you don’t want mud.

After about 6 months you’ll need to have another worm bin to transfer your worms into. The previous bin will now contain ‘black gold,’ otherwise known as worm castings, or worm dung. People pay a pretty penny for this stuff in the stores for their gardens. Now, 2 businesses are created out of one, worms for sale and castings for sale. There are actual businesses out there that are just this.

Raise your worms in a non-freezing environment: basement, furnace room… If you do extend your love for worm raising you can build bins right under rabbit hutches; self feeding. Worms love rabbit dung; they also love cow/horse dung. In fact, the latter will heat up their contained world thus enabling them to be outside year round if you live in the north. There is a special way to set this type of breeding environment up so as not to ‘burn’ the worms; there are several books out there on raising worms. Chicken dung is too strong and should be diluted.

Well, that’s all I (Wendy) can think of right now; don’t hesitate to ask any questions.