Live BlackWorms: Best Fish and LPS Food Ever?
- Thread starter Ycore
- Start date
Is that a statement or a question Steve?
I wish that I knew. Actually it was more a question than not.
Paul B
Premium Member
I do think that spawning is a great indication of fish health and I think I have been feeding CBWs longer than just about anyone on here as well as most researchers.
Cold blooded animals are very different from us. We could not live on a diet of whole fish if we were to eat the fish livers as well as the other fish organs. That diet would give us much too much oil. I take a fish oil pill every day which is probably 1/10,000th of my weight but if a 100lb shark eats a 20lb fish every day, at the end of a week he will have eaten about 20lbs of fish oil. The same with Lionfish, they eat almost nothing but whole fish. Whole fish is about 1/5th oil and if the fish is loaded with eggs, it would have a much higher oil content. Fish could do this and they need to do this.
I myself am on a low fat diet, but I am a human and fat would clog my arteries, fish do not eat fat, only oil. A fishes temperature does not allow it to digest fat because fat melts at about our human temperature. Saturated fat in a fish would not be digested and you will see it expelled out the fish.
I am sure some of it gets into the blood but a fish needs oil in the quantities it gets in the sea. Even krill are full of oil, you can buy krill oil. Fish love to eat fish eggs, they are mostly oil.
If a fish is pregnant, it is full of oily eggs. A fishes life is surrounded by oil.
The only fish I could think of that eats fat is a Great White Shark, they can do this because they are almost warm blooded. Their muscles warm their blood enough that they can digest a sea lion.
I can only go by my experience buy my fish get CBWs almost every day and some of them are still spawning after 16 years. I never lose a fish to disease.
Of course I also feed other things, most animals will not live on just one food item.
Fish also need calcium which they get from fish bones. I feed fresh clams almost every day also along with the worms. Then they may get mysis, krill, or some other commercially prepared frozen food.
I think of the worms more of as a suppliment such as the fish oil pill I take.
Fish oil is not found in prepared foods because of a couple of reasons, it stinks like He_l,
it is very slimy, and just nasty stuff. My Mother used to make me take it on a spoon.
Yuck. And it goes bad very fast in the presence of air. Thats why it now comes in capsules and they don't sell it in those little bottles any more.
If I have fish that can live 12, 16 and 18 years and still breed, and they eat worms almost every day of their lives, I assume it can't be bad for them.
How long should I test this theory? Are there a lot of older fish out there that are spawning at that age and don't eat oil?
Do many people here have fish continousely spawn for years without feeding oil?
If so then maybe I am wrong. Maybe the worms or the oil is hurting them.
I don't know how long my fish will live, they may outlive me. I'm old so that is no real indication. But my hermit crabs are about 12 or 13 years old and they are also speaning. They also eat plenty of worms that die in places where my fish can't reach. I am not sure if worms are good for crabs either, how long do they have to live to come to a conclusion? :wavehand:
Here are the old coots
Stuart60611
New member
Well, I just got a fresh 1/4 lb from someone local, and it sure is a whole lot of worms. For me, I will have a hard time using a 1/4 lb in one month feeding them, along with other foods, daily to my crew. As such, for those trying to figure out how they should purchase, take a look at my profile for my stocklist which should help people gauge how much they should purchase.
Thales
Active member
You have done that long enough - what you haven't done is do everything you are doing except for the CBW (and oil) and seeing if there is any difference. It could easily be that the CBW don't make a lick of difference in regards to long term survival and spawning.
This thread prompted me to purchase a couple of ounces from my LFS. My fish did go crack-head crazy over them with the exception of my black Ocellaris. After a week of feeding blackworms non stop, he still investigates what the commotion is about but ultimately ignore the wriggling worms in front of his face.
Stuart60611
New member
Experimental Technique To Maintain Blackworms Longer
Experimental Technique To Maintain Blackworms Longer
Well, I am trying something new to maintain a larger volume of blackworms longer (in theory in perpetuity) and fater in the refrigerator without a keeper like Paul's. I purchased 1/4 lb of worms which I am keeping in an uncovered glass pyrex baking dish in the refrigerator in about 1/4 to 1/2 inch of water. The glass dish is great b/c there is no way the worms could ever crawl out since they cannot gain traction on the glass and have several inches of glass to climb above them. I am draining out all the water (about 8 ounces), replacing it with clean water, and puting the dish back in the refrigerator daily. Several times a week I also take the worms out of the refrigerator and bring the water to room temperature. I then feed the worms NLS pellets. I feed them sparingly so that just a few pellets are fed in all areas of the dish so as to avoid fouling the water. I leave the worms to feast on the pellets for several hours outside the refrigerator. I then change out all the water with fresh water and replace the dish with new water back in the refrigerator. Therefore, I change the all the water of the dish everyday and twice a day several times a week when I feed the worms. So far so good, and no problems. I hope to maintain larger volumes of the worms for longer periods of time and keep the worms plump in the refrigerator this way. If this works, I expect to maintain my 1/4 lb of worms in the refrigerator for several months and also aim to keep them plump for this entire period. Without feeding them in this way, I was only able to keep the worms in the refrigerator for at most 1 month, and they became very thin at the end of this period. Also, for anyone who thinks that this involves a lot of work to maintian the worms, I can change the water from the dish in less than 1 minute so I spend very little time doing this. I would think also that feeding the worms NLS pellets certainly would not hurt and could only improve their nutritional profile.
Experimental Technique To Maintain Blackworms Longer
Well, I am trying something new to maintain a larger volume of blackworms longer (in theory in perpetuity) and fater in the refrigerator without a keeper like Paul's. I purchased 1/4 lb of worms which I am keeping in an uncovered glass pyrex baking dish in the refrigerator in about 1/4 to 1/2 inch of water. The glass dish is great b/c there is no way the worms could ever crawl out since they cannot gain traction on the glass and have several inches of glass to climb above them. I am draining out all the water (about 8 ounces), replacing it with clean water, and puting the dish back in the refrigerator daily. Several times a week I also take the worms out of the refrigerator and bring the water to room temperature. I then feed the worms NLS pellets. I feed them sparingly so that just a few pellets are fed in all areas of the dish so as to avoid fouling the water. I leave the worms to feast on the pellets for several hours outside the refrigerator. I then change out all the water with fresh water and replace the dish with new water back in the refrigerator. Therefore, I change the all the water of the dish everyday and twice a day several times a week when I feed the worms. So far so good, and no problems. I hope to maintain larger volumes of the worms for longer periods of time and keep the worms plump in the refrigerator this way. If this works, I expect to maintain my 1/4 lb of worms in the refrigerator for several months and also aim to keep them plump for this entire period. Without feeding them in this way, I was only able to keep the worms in the refrigerator for at most 1 month, and they became very thin at the end of this period. Also, for anyone who thinks that this involves a lot of work to maintian the worms, I can change the water from the dish in less than 1 minute so I spend very little time doing this. I would think also that feeding the worms NLS pellets certainly would not hurt and could only improve their nutritional profile.
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Matt_Wandell
New member
Paul, I am confused where you pull these numbers from. Tropical fish that a lionfish would eat are generally very low in fat. Take grouper for instance. There is no doubt that lionfish eat a lot of grouper, agreed? They are certainly doing a good job of it in the Caribbean. I can't say this holds true for all groupers, but here is one study where the fat content of the eggs alone is only 14%.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1749-7345.1996.tb00621.x/abstract
Grouper is very low in fat:
http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/fishwatch/species/red_grouper.htm
Here is a study showing that juvenile grouper (which presumably also eat small fish, shrimp, etc.) grow fastest when fed a diet of 4% lipid, and grow slower as the lipid content increases to 8, 12, and 16%:
http://www.scsagr.com/upimg/200853010912.pdf
Some fish are of course very high in fat, but they are generally coldwater fish that a lionfish would never encounter--cod, herring, sardines, etc. that we think of as "oily".
DeathWish302
Clown Hoarder
Holy Snikes! Two months and all these pages of constant debates on why BWs' are not the key to success?
PaulB helped me out a earlier this spring with my initial BW decision. Have my clowns had better spawns....No. Have clowns that did not spawn before eating the worms begin to spawn....No. Have my occys' survived off solely Spectrum pellets for the last year...Yes! Does the Spectrum claim that that single pellet can support my clowns...No, as I cannot make claim that it is only allowing those fish to survive versus thrive.
Moral of my story is that I observed a much more energetic feeding response when feeding BWs'. Call it unscientific, but I deem energetic bursts of this response healthier than the occassional dart at some frozen foods. Diversity in feeding is the spice of breeding and I cannot see why a few worms will make or break a feeding regime.
If Paul's feeding method ain't broke, why try to over-anlayze what is working for him and others' as myself?
Happy Reefing
DeathWish302
Clown Hoarder
I use a $1 Rubbermaid-type tub I bought from Lowe's on sale. I have only an air pump in this container. You could substitute a 1-5gal aquarium for this. I will disagree with Paul on the 2 weeks. I placed a Seachem Ammonia Alert in my tank and it took nearly 1.5months of changing the water every 1-2 days before the bacteria was established. It didn't help changing 100% of the water either. So, before you order 1lb of worms do yourself and worms a favor and cycle your enclosure. If I had as much trouble as I did with 2oz, you would have a nightmare with 8x that qty.
To harbor a greater qty of bacteria, I threw some Bioballs in the water which also act like islands for the worms.
For feeding, I throw in any vegetable matter I can find. I've found that they go nuts for apple cores and spinach, but you have to watch the water with high sugar food items.
Thales
Active member
Because its a discussion forum where we discuss things in order to get a better understanding of whats actually happening in our tanks.
I can't see anywhere in this thread a place where anyone said that diversity in feeding was bad, or that sometimes feeding CBW is bad.
To try to determine if what is being claimed is what is actually happening. This hobby is littered with claims that have 'worked' just fine to be later shown to be not needed or actually the cause of the claim in the first place.
Happy Reefing
Absolutely!
DeathWish302
Clown Hoarder
Because its a discussion forum where we discuss things in order to get a better understanding of whats actually happening in our tanks.
I can't see anywhere in this thread a place where anyone said that diversity in feeding was bad, or that sometimes feeding CBW is bad.
To try to determine if what is being claimed is what is actually happening. This hobby is littered with claims that have 'worked' just fine to be later shown to be not needed or actually the cause of the claim in the first place.
Absolutely!
I'm discussing....my opinion.
Never read nor stated diversity in feeding was an underlying theme to this post. Just making the suggestion that even some food manufacturers claim their products are superior enough to be fed as a single means of nutrition. I do not agree and am willing to try anything to have healthier clowns and larger spawns that make it to meta.
I understand the soap box stance by some posters' claims and understand the damage this can do to newbie ears! What I would like coming out of this thread a exciting new (not really new) food that many have been feeding for months or years. I care what I feed to my clowns, but I guess not enough to have an intense debate on whether the oils in worms provokes spawning or if it was all in my head. I have limited free time and would enjoy it more tinkering with a tank than thinking analytically after doing that all day at work.
If anyone posts a survey, post the results as I would be interested in the results.
:bounce2:
Paul B
Premium Member
I hope I said somewhere that this is my opinion and what happens in my tank. In your tank I don't know what is happening. Worms or oil will of course not make all fish spawn. It won't make any fish spawn, but it will "allow" fish to spawn if other factors are in place.
In some tanks fish will not spawn no matter what you feed them. Food is just one aspect of fish health.
As for some fish like groupers not being a fatty fish, that is a discussion of fish for human consumption. We as humans do not eat the guts of a fish.
At least I don't. But fish such as a lionfish do. We only eat the muscle of the fish, that is the fillets, just the muscle. There is not much oil in muscle as it is almost all found in the liver. We also don't eat fish loaded with eggs. If you have ever cut open a fish that was ready to lay eggs, it looks like half the fish is filled with eggs. Those eggs are almost all oil as they are almost all yoke sack. Look up how much fat is in caviar.
Healthy fish in the sea are half the time filled with eggs as they spawn continousely. If a lionfish ate a fish that had eggs, almost half that fish would be oil. Between the liver and eggs.
As for where I get my numbers from, you are correct, they could be off. All fish have different percentages of oil. Fish like a menhaden or bunker as we call them in NY are almost all oil and they are harvested and squeezed for oil to make cosmetics, it is so oily that it can't be eaten by humans. I also read it in a fish biology book but I have many decades of cutting open fish as my family has been in the sea food business forever.
I spent my youth watching my Father cut open fish and discarding the eggs and guts. The eggs took up a large portion of the garbage can.
We can not talk about fish and lump all fish together. All fish are vastly different in their oil content. A fish like a shark has loads of oil in it because it has no swim bladder and uses oil for buoyancy. Fish also use oil for buoyance but most (not all) fish also use a swim bladder for the adjustment in buoyancy.
As I usualy, say I am not a doctor, researcher or scientist so my numbers may be off but they are close. Like how long it takes to cycle a container used for blackworms. I don't remember, but it would be determined on what you cycle it with, how much water is in it and what material it is made from. The main problem with these forums is that are too many variables. We all have different fish in varying states of health in differing systems of different ages. This is not auto mechanics or electronics where many variables are the same.
If my blackworm keeper cycles in 2 weeks, yours may cycle in one week or one month, it takes as long as it takes.
And a fish, any fish during it's life will have varying levels of oil in it's muscles and guts.
I can't put a number on it as they are different as to species, and times of their cycle.
You just have to have a history of cutting open fish, spawning fish, swimming with fish and being part fish
You can't learn everything in a book but it helps.
Have a great day.
paul
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Ycore
New member
FYI.. I just ordered a 3/4lb of worms from aquaticfoods and they arrived in great shape. I just couldn't be bothered to drive an hour for them anymore. I have them set up in their "worm keepers" which is a device that makes washing them easier. Ultimately 3/4 pound is way more than I need, and most will eventually die before I can feed them all, so if anybody lives in the central Dallas area and wants a free scoop of worms to try out with their fish, send me a PM.
DeathWish302
Clown Hoarder
I hope I said somewhere that this is my opinion and what happens in my tank. In your tank I don't know what is happening. Worms or oil will of course not make all fish spawn. It won't make any fish spawn, but it will "allow" fish to spawn if other factors are in place.
In some tanks fish will not spawn no matter what you feed them. Food is just one aspect of fish health.
As for some fish like groupers not being a fatty fish, that is a discussion of fish for human consumption. We as humans do not eat the guts of a fish.
At least I don't. But fish such as a lionfish do. We only eat the muscle of the fish, that is the fillets, just the muscle. There is not much oil in muscle as it is almost all found in the liver. We also don't eat fish loaded with eggs. If you have ever cut open a fish that was ready to lay eggs, it looks like half the fish is filled with eggs. Those eggs are almost all oil as they are almost all yoke sack. Look up how much fat is in caviar.
Healthy fish in the sea are half the time filled with eggs as they spawn continousely. If a lionfish ate a fish that had eggs, almost half that fish would be oil. Between the liver and eggs.
As for where I get my numbers from, you are correct, they could be off. All fish have different percentages of oil. Fish like a menhaden or bunker as we call them in NY are almost all oil and they are harvested and squeezed for oil to make cosmetics, it is so oily that it can't be eaten by humans. I also read it in a fish biology book but I have many decades of cutting open fish as my family has been in the sea food business forever.
I spent my youth watching my Father cut open fish and discarding the eggs and guts. The eggs took up a large portion of the garbage can.
We can not talk about fish and lump all fish together. All fish are vastly different in their oil content. A fish like a shark has loads of oil in it because it has no swim bladder and uses oil for buoyancy. Fish also use oil for buoyance but most (not all) fish also use a swim bladder for the adjustment in buoyancy.
As I usualy, say I am not a doctor, researcher or scientist so my numbers may be off but they are close. Like how long it takes to cycle a container used for blackworms. I don't remember, but it would be determined on what you cycle it with, how much water is in it and what material it is made from. The main problem with these forums is that are too many variables. We all have different fish in varying states of health in differing systems of different ages. This is not auto mechanics or electronics where many variables are the same.
If my blackworm keeper cycles in 2 weeks, yours may cycle in one week or one month, it takes as long as it takes.
And a fish, any fish during it's life will have varying levels of oil in it's muscles and guts.
I can't put a number on it as they are different as to species, and times of their cycle.
You just have to have a history of cutting open fish, spawning fish, swimming with fish and being part fish
You can't learn everything in a book but it helps.
Have a great day.
paul
I have to say you sound like my father. That's not a bad thing at all, as experience should be regarded right behind if not above book smarts! You purveyed the postings and summed everything I was thinking but could not purvey w/o controversy. Us youngins' (ok, 31) need to gain a few more years of knowledge to be at your status w/o always going off half-cocked.
Regardless if anyone feeds BW as a supplement, I owe half my knowledge of keeping these worms alive and historical experiences to you. I hope everyone starts feeding these, then maybe they'll start selling them in my relocated area!
Happy Reefing
Paul B
Premium Member
And you are exactly my daughter's age.
When I entered this hobby there were no books on salt water fish and no one that anyone would call an "expert" (I hate that word) Gradually books were translated from German because most of this started in Germany. Then some people like Robert Straughn started to write books. I was an avid reader and would buy any book that came out. I still have them all. I would read the books over and over and when I dove, I would try to find the fish in the books. Every year for about 30 years my wife and I would go to a different Island to dive. She also dives so we went diving on about 30 different Islands in the Caribbean and South Pacific.
We also have our own boat and have dove in NY hundreds of times.
Gradually I learned that much of the information I read about in my books was incorrect.
There was no internet and books are static, you write one and thats it. If some new research comes out that differs from what you wrote, the book stays wrong.
Anyone can write a book. Everything I have ever submitted to magazines has been published. I am not a scientist, marine biologist, researcher, doctor or even a college graduate. But my work is published anyway. This is scary. I could be making this stuff up.
Don't get me wrong, books are great and I still read everything I can get my hands on, but you also have to mix reading with observations of your own.
You can even see on here that many things I write are disputed by other people. That is the way it should be. I would not believe everything someone says just because they have more experience than me, but I would put more credablity into what someone says if they have more experience than I do and their tank seems to be thriving. More thought than someone who started in the hobby two years ago and received 100% of their knowledge from reading the internet.
I am probably wrong 50% of the time, maybe 80% and in time that may be proven, but I am probably correct a larger percentage of the time than a hobbiest with a new tank especialy one who never spent time in the sea with these animals.
Yes I am older than most here and probably more stubborn. I also do not have anywhere the nicest tank here and I am not the smartest or best looking. (well maybe I am, I am not sure as I never seen you people)
But anyway, this debate or whatever it is is a good thing.
Have a great day.
Paul
Matt_Wandell
New member
I looked up the fat content for grouper eggs, the link is above. The content of one species of grouper's eggs was 14% fat, not "almost all oil". The fat content of sturgeon eggs is certainly worthy of discussion but it provides no information about the fat content in tropical marine fish that lionfish would be consuming.
Regarding book smarts vs. experience: Of course experience is important. I pay attention to the people with book smarts when the books they are writing are about the same exact thing we are doing, which is to feed fish different diets and assess their health with measurable evidence. We do know that some tropical marine fish can live as long as Paul has been in this hobby, so until any of us are keeping tangs alive for that long, my opinion is that none of us have gotten it "right" yet. We still have a lot of work to do.
Bottom line is that I am not telling anybody they shouldn't feed blackworms. I feed blackworms to my fish during QT sometimes to get them feeding, and use it as an occasional treat for butterflyfish. I probably fed about a pound of blackworms recently when we brought in a group of 6 copperbanded butterflyfish; we got all of them through QT eating and chubby by feeding blackworms, enriched brine shrimp, and live mysis several times daily. Just please keep in mind that if fed heavily or exclusively long term blackworms can contribute to health problems, especially fatty liver disease.
Just my 2 cents. Glad to be engaged in good discussion!
DeathWish302
Clown Hoarder
IMO...using tangs as an example points to one of the best examples of poor nutrition and aquaria keeping. I don't have tangs, or any WC fish for that matter. My oldest clown is about 11yrs old. One battle of ich and a perfect bill of health after I broke through the newbie hurdles. So, do I deem all my clowns are on a successful diet...Absolutely! Then again how many people feed wax worms, mosquito larvae & blackworms? I'm guessing not many. Will you ever have a 'Bottle-O-Tang-Food'...probably not. There are some great comercially available clown-based foods, but I choose to feed my own blend.
What can be deemed heavily or long-term? I know there is no real answer, as this is a blanket statement. I would really like to know if the 2-3 worms 4x week is causing any of my pairs to endure FLD. I'm pretty sure I'm not willing to dissect any to find out and I don't have a control speciemen fed exactly the same in the same environment that entire time.
Off to research......
