wild fry food?

i would say bad idea. you dont know what those things are. they could be potential parasites. they could be carrying dieases. you never really know. i would say, better to be safe than sorry.

Could be daphnia, or copepods, or a whole bunch of other micro-critters. Last time I got wild food for my fish (some gammarus amphipods I knew would be hiding in a clump of lake plants), I got two years’ worth of parasite nightmare in the bargain.

What I didn’t know also came along was a bunch of copepods. Great fish food in their own right, but they were carrying one of the life cycles of what I now know to be widespread (at least in northern North America) cammalanus roundworms — intestinal parasites. Lucky me I added them to my daughter’s guppy tank . These worms thrive in livebearers. The guppies started falling off one by one, starting with fins clamped, then losing weight, then a few days before dying, a few red threads could be seen hanging from their vents and wiggling. You guessed it – egg sacks of the worms getting ready to pop and re-infest. It took several treatments of diluted pig dewormer powder to finally get rid of the buggers. By the time I figured out what they were, they had spread to my Mbuna African cichlid tanks as well (not to mention my nephew’s tanks, since I had given him some of my fish in the meantime). No cichlid losses, but infected and needed treatment. During the 3-4 day treatment, the fish lose their appetite, and refuse to eat. Oh yeah, and in my paranoia I overtreated a tank of my favorite fancy plecos (healthy, beautiful, and $50+) and lost several.

The only way I’d ever do that again is if I had an isolated tank with local fish who co-evolved with those parasites — and fish that don’t cost $$double-digits at that!

Great idea in theory (lots of people harvest wild daphnia to feed their fish), but very risky, parasite-wise!

I’d suggest treating every tank exposed or possibly cross-contaminated with the wild food as now in quarantine for two to three months while you keep those fish under careful observation, and keep a pail of net dip mixed up in case any nasty hitch-hikers came along for the ride, so they don’t cross-contaminate into other tanks.