3 Ways of Harvesting Vinegar Eels

Vinegar Eels are one of the simplest live food to culture for feeding aquarium fish. 

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I tried 3 different ways of harvesting Vinegar Eels.

 The most efficient way of harvesting Vinegar Eels requires culturing them in a bottle with a long narrow bottleneck. 

Insert a piece of polyester foam into the bottleneck. 

Make sure the piece of foam fits easy in the bottleneck - never too tight. 

Push the foam into the vinegar leaving the top part of the foam above the liquid. 

Slowly add dechlorinated tap water to cover the piece of foam. 

The foam prevents water from mixing with vinegar and it allows Vinegar Eels to climb up to the surface.

 Different types of polyester foam can be used for this purpose. 

In this example I rolled the piece of polyester foam and secured it with a fishing line. 

Just make sure the polyester foam is porous enough for Vinegar Eels to pass through. 

I personally prefer foam attached to plastic sticks - makes it easier to handle for me.

Vinegar Eels naturally swim to the oxygen rich surface.

 Give it a couple hours and there will be enough Vinegar Eels in the water section for feeding fish.

 I use a pipette to suck the water with Vinegar Eels. 

Drop Vinegar Eels into the aquarium at a regular feeding time.

 My top feeding Blue Star Endlers get very excited! 

Though undeniably, the tiny sized Vinegar Eels are the best for feeding small fish fry.

 After using all the water from above the foam I push the foam down into the vinegar.

Give Vinegar Eels trapped in the foam 20-30 minutes to get out before you pull the foam out.

 And then pull the polyester foam out, wash it and air dry it.

 The same foam can be used to plug the bottle for preventing fruit fly and such from getting in. 

Finding a bottle, even a small one, with a long straight neck suitable for harvesting Vinegar Eels in the described way could take time. 

Use disposable coffee filters for harvesting Vinegar Eels from any container. 

First I filter the culture over an empty container. 

Then flip the filter and rinse it in another container filled with tap dechlorinated water. 

There are many more Vinegar Eels in the first container. 

Vinegar Eels are small enough to get through the filter. 

Empty the first container back into the culture. 

Empty the second container with tap water and Vinegar Eels into the aquarium.

Vinegar Eels live in water for many hours. 

Your fish will find and eat them all. 

And finally, there is a way of harvesting Vinegar Eels from the walls of the container.

 Swipe Vinegar Eels off the wall using a soft brush in this example. 

Rinse the brush in the aquarium for your fish to eat all those Vinegar eels.

Normally, Vinegar Eels don't climb on the walls for easy picking.

 Making observations helps me to figure out how to force Vinegar Eels to climb on the walls :)

Feed Vinegar Eels cultures with slices of fresh clean apple. 

That is a way of making apple vinegar as you may know. 

Also, you can use different sugar rich fruits for making vinegar ;)

Let it sit overnight. 

The next couple days you will see Vinegar Eels climbing on the walls right above the liquid level.

 Vinegar Eels gather in clusters above the liquid making it easy to pick huge quantities in one swipe.

 Watching fish go into a frenzy after Vinegar Eels leaves no doubts - Vinegar Eels are great live food.

 Check it out! 

Adults and fry - they all love Vinegar Eels protein snacks.

 I should add that cultivating Vinegar Eels is simpler than cultivating any other live food for that matter.

 We can use Q-tips or any cotton swabs for collecting Vinegar Eels from the walls. 

And we can make more walls! to increase surface area for collecting even more Vinegar Eels.

 Some of you may recall doubled walls aquariums I did for harvesting algae :) 

Let's make doubled walls again for harvesting Vinegar Eels this time.

Feed Vinegar Eels culture with fresh apples.

 I cut a plastic soda bottle into pieces.

 Roll the plastic piece to make a tube shape.

 Insert the plastic tube into the bottle. 

Dip the bottom end of the plastic tube into vinegar.

 Make sure the top part of the tube protrudes out of the bottle - so you could pull it out later! 

Cover the top of the tubes to prevent insects of any kind from getting in. 

Notice that tubes also keep the apples fully submerged - which prevents growing of mold. 

Let it sit overnight. 

The next day, clusters of Vinegar Eels gathered on the walls of the tubes.

 Pull the tube gently out of the bottle.

 Here you can take a closer look at the clusters of Vinegar Eels. 

That's a lot of Vinegar Eels for my fry to digest :) 

Rinse Vinegar Eels from the tube in the aquarium. 

I saved some Vinegar Eels for the next feeding. 

You may have noticed that I tried harvesting Vinegar Eels using double walls in all kinds of bottles.

 Different sizes, shaped differently. 

It works great! 

Well, collecting Vinegar Eels from the walls works only a couple days after adding apples in the culture. 

It can be done once a month or when it's necessary to get a large quantity of Vinegar Eels at once.

 So, here you have three ways of harvesting live food for your fish. 

And check my video about simple ways of culturing Vinegar Eels. 

Have fun and happy fish :)