Cultivating live foods?

[Zerox]

This is more of a fish oriented question than a snail one, and I'll probably keep posting these at this rate...

This mainly arises from the want to keep Stickleback/Minnow in a tank at a later date. Bullhead's, already I know I'm having since they will eat fish flake/pellets, but Stickleback (and the Minnow I think) will not take flake foods, and so need live foods. Outside in my sink pond, though they do not really need feeding there (due to being outside, things living in tehre for them to eat etc.), they love mosquito larvae from teh water butts. This would be useable, but off course not year round, through the winter. So I need something better that can preferably be cultured outside in these waterbutts. One thing I read was apparently a culture of Daphnia can be kept outside year round in waterbutts, though will adult Stickleback still eat these when fully grown, or will they not bother due to them being too small?
I don't particularly feel I'd be able to professionally culture Brine shrimp or anything indoors, and not reliably enough to feed my Stickleback. So pretty much any available information would be very much appreciated, thanks.

[badflash]

Brine shrimp are by far the easiest to culture and most fry and adults eat them. Daphnia are quite hard to keep going and are not worth the effort in my opinion. White worms and walter worms can be grown easily in pablum spiked with yeast. This is probably the easiest. If stickbacks like fruit flies, it is very easy and cheap to culture wingless fruit flies too.

[Zerox]

Oh yeah, the fruit flies. Those would be good. I'll have to look into Brine shrimp a bit more, I suppose. Thanks.

I've been thinking about Minnow more. Though I'd give them live food when I can, they may be able to live off other substances at other times. Apparently they eat: algae, plant debris, mollusks crustaceans and insects. I see them outside often nibbling the sides of the rocks, presumably for algae, but how much could they live on this? I will test this myself when I get home, but is there any chance they'd eat any vegetable pieces I'd put in the tank, do you think?

...why is this in the marine section? O.o

[badflash]

Probably because you are in the wrong forum for this and there is no place to put it.

Anyway, minnows eat anything. Try flake food and granules such as sinking goldfish food. Most fish will eat regular fish food once they learn it is food. It takes a week or so.

I've cultured a wide variety of foods. Walter Worms are the easiest for fry and they like them. As to brine shrimp, if your fish are tolerant to a few teaspoons of salt per gallon, the brine shrimp can live in the tank until eaten. Otherwise you need to do lots of water changes to keep from fouling the water. Ramshorn snails (little ones) are good at clean-up too.

[Zerox]

For clean up, we have (too many, I fear) MTS's and some Great Pond Snails.

I tried putting some flake in the sink pond a while ago, but nothing was interested. My own timing, I think, sucked though. I'd put in mosquito larvae not too long ago before that, and was anxious to test it. Minnow aren't so good at getting the larvae as the stickleback, but they did eat a couple. I also tride one in a small net with flake, but I think it was too busy trying to get out the net instead.
My hopes did improve when last night I read about that Minnow eat algae, plant debris etc. as well as small crustaceans and so on (just 'omnivorous' isn't so helpful, and wikipedia didn't even help). I believe they should eat it, though. Why not?

I don't think sinking food would be an option, as at the very least the tank I was going to keep these in was to contain Bullhead's, which I have read in an aquarium book will readily take flake or pellet foods, and they sit on the bottom.

...and that still doesn't explain well why this is in the marine section, for pete's sake. Surely freshwater would have been better, if anything...?