[Zbrafish] Feeding C. elegans to Zebrafish?

[Bill Trevarrow]

Hi Shizuka,

Like David has said microwrms, Walter worms, and 
vinegar eels  are frequently used by hobbyists. 
My understanding is they are in different but 
related genera.
I have used both microworms and vinegar eels, to 
feed larval and small juvenile Zfish.
Larger fish will also eat them but they will not 
be getting as great a nutritional component per 
bite as they would with larger foods.

Before using microworms and vinegar eels, I tried 
growing some C.elegans I obtained from a lab. I 
did not have the methods to grow the C. elegans 
in sufficient quantities to be useful, but if you 
are able to get sufficient quantities of C. 
elegans I would expect them to work as well as 
the microworms. The microworms and vinegar eels 
can be cultured and collected in gram quantities. 
I suspect that there are ways to do this with 
C.elegans that I am not aware of. Large scale 
microworm culturing methods might work with C. 
elegans. Here is a link to a method that has work 
well for me: 
http://zfin.org/zf_info/zfbook/chapt3/3.8.html

I like the vinegar eels better than the 
microworms because they are aquatic animals 
(unlike the microworms). They would swim up in 
the water column, making them a more appealing 
prey item and they would stay alive for a week. 
The microworms would squirm around on the tank 
bottom and die in a few hours.

You might be able to make a floating mesh worm 
feeder, from which the worms would slowly work 
their way out of and fall to the bottom, 
presenting themselves as a more obvious prey item 
in the process.


Hello Shizuka

Aquarium hobbyists use microworms, Walter worms and vinegar eels as live
food for feeding fry.  I would assume C elegans would be very similar to
these nematodes as food item.

Best Fishes
David Lains <}}}><
Aquaculturist, Research Assistant
Zebrafish International Resource Center
5274 University of Oregon
Eugene, Or 97403
Email: david from zebrafish.org
pH: (541) 346-6028 ext. 18
fax: (541) 346-6151

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Sent: Thursday, January 24, 2008 8:35 PM
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Subject: [Zbrafish] Feeding C. elegans to Zebrafish?

Dear All:

Hello.  I have a question concerning food for zebrafish.  For an
experimental purpose, I would like to feed c. elegans to zebrafish.

Do any of you have feeded c. elegans to your fish?

Any comments are welcome.

Thank you very much for your help in advance.

Shizuka
--

Bill

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Bill Trevarrow
Institute of Neuroscience
University of Oregon 1254
Eugene, OR 97403-1254
Off. Tel: (541) 346-4598
Cell: (541) 844-9054
Fax: (541) 346-4548
e-mail: trevarro from uoneuro.uoregon.edu
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