bloodworms The aquatic larvae of a midge, they're called 'bloodworms' because of the similarity in appearance to human blood - this is n accident, they contain a hemoglobin molecule similar to our own blood. Some people are allergic to this and can still use them as fish food only if they don't come in contact with them. This is the only fish food that contains selenium, an essential trace mineral. The lack of sufficient selenium can cause reproductive failures (eggs will fungus) and note that many fish are from areas of high selenium. Bloodworms can only contain decent levels of selenium if harvested from areas where it is abundant. Distribution of the mineral is spotty. Only Germany and Finland have decent amounts of it everywhere; it occurs naturally in Germany, Finland has been adding it to all farmlands for some time now. This important food is commonly fed from frozen as a staple, but can be collected, usually in the spring. daphnia Found in the spring any pond with a high amount of organic matter like, um, from cows or ducks, will usually spur a good Daphnia colony in a pond all summer. Also found in numbers in the spring in clean ponds. fairy shrimp Similar in appearance to adult brine shrimp but much larger, fairy shrimp appear only in vernal (seasonal) pools in the spring. As a kid I used to ride a bicycle dozens of miles to a ditch next to the road of the old highway six from Burlington to Guelph in Ontatio where they were extremely abundant.

glass larvae Winter food, found by breaking the ice in a clean pond. mosquito Around here (northeastern Ontario) they show up in April and are gone by the first or second week in May. Never mind we have ample mosquitos all year round, the larvae are only found in any numbers in the ponds here for only a couple of weeks. But when they're here there's a very large number of them; a lot get frozen and fed later on. You will invariably introducd damselfly and dragonfly larvae as well. Gularis and the largest killies will eat them, but the larvae will eat smaller killies.