130 



GOLDFISH VAKIETIES AND 



When fish have been without fresh or living food for some time it is 

 well to occasionally give them a small quantity of scraped raw beef 

 (scraped crosswise to grain) or the dark, soft part of oysters, chopped 

 and slightly rinsed. Fresh shrimp, obtainable in most fish markets in 

 Winter, if passed through a fine meat chopper, makes an excellent change 

 of diet. 



LIVING FISHFOODS 



Living fishfoods are divided mainly into larvae and Crustacea, the 

 latter on the whole being the more important and the more generally 





84 



Fig. 83. Daphnia (Greatly enlarged) 



Fig. 84. Mosquito Larva (Greatly enlarged) 



Fig. 85. Egg Raft and Individual Eggs (Greatly enlarged) 



Fig. 86. Pupa Before Transforming to Mosquito (Greatly enlarged) 



Fig. 87. Cyclops (Greatly enlarged) 



Fig. 88. Cypris (Greatly enlarged) 



obtainable. Those which are of practical value to the breeder of fancy 

 aquarium fishes are few in number. Like the insect enemies of fishes, 

 four is the number of really important kinds. 



Daphnia. Undoubtedly the best food for aquarium fishes is living 

 daphnia and this should be used at all times in preference to prepared 

 foods if obtainable. The fish will consume great quantities of these 

 crustaceans without suffering the usual effects of being overfed. A 

 certain degree of care must be exercised not to place so much daphnia 

 into the aquarium as to suffocate the fish. Daphnia breathe the free 

 o.xygen in w^ater the same as do fish and therefore too many will soon 

 exhaust oxygen from water. The fish will die of suffocation sooner than 

 the daphnia. Many fanciers have lost fish in this way. A good practise 

 is to give the fish all they can eat in about a quarter of an hour and still 

 leave some few daphnia swimming about. 



A popular name for daphnia is "ditch fleas." This will give a key to 

 their appearance, as they are approximately the size and shape of a flea, 

 except that they have two rather long, branched swimming arms which 

 are always in motion and which gives the animal a sort of hopping 

 motion through the water. Without this perpetual swimming the daphnia 



