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After doing some research I decided to give vinegar eels a try and ordered a culture. It seems to be an easy process from what I read (and of course the seller told me the same )

Has anyone else cultured vinegar eels? Any problems with them? And do the fish like them?

Thanks

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There is water at the bottom of the ocean

i wanted to have one...but i cant import it here in canada...from what ive heard and read....its easy to cultivate and yes, loved by fish.

I received the culture today and set it up, the eels are supposed to be ready to harvest between 2-4 weeks.

It's been easy so far. Hopefully harvesting will be as well. It would be nice to have a convenient source of live food.

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There is water at the bottom of the ocean

Do you know whether one could start a vinegar eels culture without a starting culture?

I don't think you can without a culture.

I have quite a few set up.

The easiest way i have found to harvest them is to pour them through a paper dust mask Its the most effective and time-efficient way I have tried so far



Last edited by Callatya at 18-Sep-2005 06:07[/font]

For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

well...arent we have lots of culture in there eh!!! thats nice...hope i can have one..but right now..ill settle with my white worms...speaking of...my 2nd culture almost crashed...coz of the mold that grew in it..just took out the soil with mold and hopefully will recover..otherwise..im back on the drawing obard.

I had to do a bit of web trawling to find out what these creatures actually were. Confusion not helped by the appearance on one web site of an old taxonomic name, Anguillula aceti - the generic name looks a lot like Anguilla, the type-genus of the Eel Family Anguillidae.

It transpires that these creatures are, in fact, non-parasitic, free-living, unsegmented roundworms (Nematodes). They feed upon bacteria and fungi, and are adapted to live in low-pH environments. Typical culture media include natural cider vinegar (usually cited as a favourite), into which a small piece of apple is dropped. Callatya's pictures probably depict apple slices in cider vinegar, though no doubt she'll pop in pretty quickly to correct me if my hunch is wrong!

When attempting to culture these creatures, do not use a distilled vinegsr or one to which agents have been added to stop fungal or bacterial growth - it is these fungi and bacteria that are needed for food.

There are several sites devoted to these creatures (I am told that the correct taxonomic name is Turbatrix aceti). Two links are given below:

Vinegar Eels 1

Vinegar Eels 2

Enjoy ...


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

i had one culture, but never really figured out how to get the eels out. so i ended up flushing it. but in theory it should be easy to do.

Fuji apples They stay together remarkably well, I reculture about every 6 months and the apple slices are always in one piece at the end. I add a new slice or two monthly.

Do make sure they have enough oxygen, they tend to reduce in numbers if you lid the containers. They DO climb the sides of the jars if you lid them, so it does make for easy harvesting if you can get in there to scrape them out

EDIT: and that mix is 1/2 tankwater and 1/2 apple cider vinegar

Last edited by Callatya at 18-Sep-2005 11:30

For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

Calilasseia

Do you know if it will be a problem importing them from the UK to Malta due to EU regulations?

Super easy to culture....so much so that I really know very few people without a culture.....possibly even more easy to culture than microworms.

Toirtis

When you say easy, without a starter culture?