live food

I'm still regularly collecting mosquito larvae for my fishes.

It seems to take five days for the larvae in the puddle to reach the stage of 'tumblers' (right before they become proper mosquitoes and leave the water) so I harvest every four days. I've set out a deep plastic dish to replace the puddle with- because I want to get rid of the object tarp is covering- and I alternate between the two, collecting from one or the other every other day.

So far the new dish doesn't have a lot of wigglers, so I'm also collecting from the little container pond. This pic of it after I'd scooped off most of the floating spirodela polyrhiza to have a clear view. I also usually lift out all the rocks with hornwort stems attached, so it's easy to get my hand in there and track down the larave. Never very many- I do keep it covered with a screen- but I keep checking because somehow a female finds her way in every so often. The hornworts in here continue to look healthy and pretty with their dense, soft foliage:

I found this time that at least two malaysian trumpet snails in here are still alive- in spite of the heat! I siphoned out mulm with the straw, and topped off with old tank water. Don't do this very often, definitely not on a regular basis, yet the few plants in here seem to thrive. Bit of buce is still alive, subwassertang floats around- none of it attached to the sides or pot like I'd hoped- I guess I'd have to tie/glue it in place. Happiest plants are the greater duckweed and hornwort, for sure.