“Vinegar Eel” is the common name for this group of microscopic,
non-parasitic, small Aquatic Nematodes (Turbatrix Aceti) used as a food
for small fish fry. This means that the Vinegar Eels can live in a water
environment like an Aquarium for some time. Most smaller adult
fish will also eat the Vinegar Eels, picking at them throughout
the day. Unlike baby brine shrimp, vinegar Eels will last much
longer in your tank until your fry or adult fish eat them. Vinegar eels
can live in an aquarium for days on end and they swim throughout
the water column. This means less chance of these live food
fouling the water. To reproduce they need to live in apple cider
vinegar. The female Vinegar Eel gives birth up to 45 young every
8-10 days, and live for an average of 10 months. The adults reach
a size of about 1/16 inch or 1 - 2 mm in length, young are much smaller.
Vinegar Eels need air exchange to survive and they live and eat off of
fermenting apple in the vinegar culture.
egg, four larval stages, and adult. This cycle will occur completely
in the vinegar medium; it takes five weeks to reach the
adult stage. The total life span is about 10 months. A healthy
culture can reproduce at 20X it's population in just 8 days.
Vinegar Eels are not harmful to humans.
CULTURING INFORMATION
Culturing Vinegar Eels is very easy!
Vinegar Eels do well at temperatures from 60-90 degrees. Room
temperatures of 68-85 degrees are ideal for optimum reproduction rates.
MATERIAL NEEDED TO START A VINEGAR EEL CULTURE:
1. A Clean, Soap & Chemical free, clear, long neck bottle.
(Wine bottles are a good choice, any clear bottle with a neck)
2. Raw Unfiltered Apple Cider Vinegar
(With the 'Mother' is best, We use Braggs)
4. Coffee Filter or Paper Towel & Rubber Band
5. Vinegar Eel Starter Culture
Fill a long neck bottle 3/4 of the way to the top with a 50/50 solution of raw,
unfiltered apple cider vinegar and spring or bottled water. Add a few pieces
of sliced apple
and pour in your vinegar eel culture. Top off the bottle to just
at the bottom of the neck. The neck of the bottle should have air in it.
Cover the top loosely with a coffee filter or paper towel securing it with
a rubber band. This will allow air exchange for the vinegar Eels.
Set in an out of the way place at room temperature. A new culture will take
anywhere from 7-14 days for harvesting and can take up to a month, depending
temperature, size of the starter culture or size of the container. You
will know when your Vinegar Eel culture is doing well, you will see them
gathered around the top edge of the Vinegar mixture in the bottle. They
are very tiny and hard to see. I use a 10X Magnifying glass used for jewelry.
COLLECTING THE VINEGAR EELS
MATERIALS NEEDED
Cotton Ball
Fishing Line or Strong String
Fresh Water
Eye Dropper or Pipette
There may be some slight evaporation of the solution, so you might need to
add water to the mix once in a while. If your culture was not originally at
the bottom of the neck, pour a 50/50 solution of vinegar and water into the
bottle until it reaches the bottom of the neck. Don't fill the neck, you want to
have it just at the bottom of the neck. Place a cotton ball with Fishing line or
strong string attached down into the lower 1/3 into the neck of the bottle.
This will make getting the cotton out of the bottle much easier. The bottom
of the cotton should just touch the culture. Leave space between the cotton
and the top of the bottle. Gently fill the neck of the bottle with water. The water
will stay on the top, the vinegar will stay below the cotton. Vinegar Eels need
air. Leave the bottle set for a couple hours. They will crawl through the cotton,
into the fresh water and in the top of the bottle neck to get oxygen. Using an eye
dropper or Pipette, siphon the fresh water, full of vinegar eels out of the top
portion of the neck of the bottle.
FEED THE FISH!
To collect more Vinegar Eels, simply add more fresh water to the bottle neck.
Or: Remove the cotton and siphon just enough liquid out to return the
level to the bottom of the neck.
A culture can produce Vinegar Eels well for 6 Months
& up to a year or longer.
Every few months or 6... add a few slices of apple. Make sure to
keep the culture topped of with water once in a while. When doing
this, adding vinegar is not necessary, only the water will evaporate.
Start a second culture or more using the method above.
It is good to have several cultures going at the same time
just in case something happens to one.
Using the method above, you can produce a continuous supply of Vinegar Eels