I am already not too happy because the fireworks fiasco in Philly..
So I come home, and I check the new babies, and sure enough, there are a good number of them off the tank bottom, and I think, OK, time to set up the VE's.
I pull out a bottle that has been sitting since 3.5.. I shine a light on it, nothing.
Pull another bottle.. Nothing.
Pulled another dated 4.1.. Yeah, well the joke was on me, cause there was nothing in the bottle.
Of 8 bottles, 5 were dead cultures.
Of the three active cultures, one was no where near as active as the other two.
I have no idea why this is, but no matter, I am going to reset those cultures today..
The only thing, is I am not going to be able to breed for a month, while those cultures catch.
Yeah, I could feed the babies microworms, but I don't like microworms..
So, I am just going to have to hold of on a spawning..
Well..
I had planned on trying the lunar phase only, and seeing how sucessful I was at it, so I would not be spawning for a couple weeks anyway.
I guess I am just mad that these reset cultures didn't take, and I have at least 10 jars to set.

What happened to the fireworks in Philly?

Im sory about the VE. Wonder why they all died......

Most of are spawns just get BBS off the bat. Only when the spawn is very small and we really want to encourage the most to survive do we feed VE's (like my 2 successful spawns, both were tiney spawns of 26 and 30+). Like one od RC's opaque spawns was HUGE, it ended up taking 3 10 gallon tanks when they were growing out so every one wasn't on top of eachother! So he always from the begining loaded them up with BBS, and let the strongest survive (he really likes the Darwin theory, and practices it with his fry).

So not having VE's might not be the worst thing to happen? Just toss in really freshly hatched bbs with them, they should be fine.

So, I'm gonna be the silly one here...
What are VE's exactly?

The problem is my spawns aren't large enough to do that.
Even when they are, I don't pratice like that when they are that small. I will feed VEs up to a week, if need be...
To each their own.
I know that a lot of fry starve when they are not given size appropriate foods. Most BBS are Utah which can be too large for a number of fry to handle.
If I had San Fran BBS, MOST fry can handle those from the beginning, it would be different.
I don't care if they are just fish, starving to death is the most horrible ways to die.
I have seen far to many animals dead because of this for me to even contemplate doing that to new hatched creatures that are here because of me.
Even when it is time to transition, I do it in such a way to insure that the maximum number of fry do NOT reject their food.
But it is different from not eating something because they don't like it, than providing food that they cannot eat.
Liek Marie Antoinette saying let them eat cake.
Sorry, I am just not that cold.

Vinegar eels.. A first fry food.

Anyway, like I said, it doesn't matter, the moon is wanning, and I don't plan on breeding again, until it is waxing... So there is plenty of time for the new cultures to catch.

I try to do the same thing, for at least the first 3 days, the Vinegar eels are in being fed to the fry. Infusoria and such are nice when they form but usually that means snails and I have had some bad luck with snails doing bad things to fry. VE's are great and make a wonderful starter food for newly hatched fry and are easy enough to keep for beginners just getting into the live culture deal. Only downfall is anything more than a week and it's time to move on to something else.

A direct quote from Waynes this and that

With that in mind, I'll feed VEs for three days, and VEs and BBS for up to a week, before discontinuing the VEs.
By that point, they are all on BBS