Live BlackWorms: Best Fish and LPS Food Ever?

[snorvich]

And I copied Paul's design and added a few features. For the sump, I added a hang on the back filter (with carbon), I use egg crate through out, and I cycled the system with pond bacteria. All worms are happy, eat nicely on the brown paper, and may even be reproducing (shhh, they do it in the dark when it is totally quiet)

 

[Stuart60611]

I happen to think this is a very clever idea.

What is unknown (at least not discussed yet) is that if the BW's can come out of their slowed metabolic state (from the fridge) and consume enough food in a couple hours to regain any nutritional value. Also, I wonder how long it would take the BW's to properly digest the food to the degree in which it's actually converted to BW tissue/oil/blood/etc. Putting them back in the fridge after the food is eaten doesn't mean that it's metabolized and has nourished the BW's. I would suspect that putting them back in the fridge with a full gut will slow the digestion of the food and may lead to lack of uptake of the nutrients into the BW's body.

Even if you're just gut loading them and not allowing them to metabolize the food, then at the very least you could gut load them with something of high quality like NLS pellets. If the food is just sitting in the gut and it isn't digested by the BW then at least it would be taken in and digested by the animal eating the blackworms. This may be a clever way to get finicky fish to get the nutritional value of some quality pellet food - just let a live critter eat the high quality pellets and feed that live critter to the animals that will only eat live critters (until they can be weaned off live food). The same concept could be done with ghost shrimp but the advantage of using blackworms is that it sounds like you can put them in a semi-dormant state with the cool temp of the fridge thus prolonging the digestion of the food they eat which means that the nutritional value of the gut full of undigested high quality food will directly transfer to the fish or other animal eating it.

Maybe this concept would be good "food for thought" for those who are skeptical about feeding BW's because of their fat content. Let them get skinny (theoretically decreasing the fat content of the worm itself) then gut load it with high quality food. You get a live animal that fish will accept much more readily than the pellets, but at the same time you're not feeding big fat blackworms which would have a high fat content. Only theoretical, but a sound theory as best I can determine. Of course, all of this is based on the BW's rate of metabolization after they eat the food and how much the gastric metabolization of food is slowed when placed back into a semi-dormant state.

I'm certainly going to try this method of BW keeping and see what sort of results I get.

Jeremy

Well, as an update, I have been feeding my blackworms as I describe on the prior page of this thread now for about 1 month or so, and things are working out pretty good. A couple of things I have discovered along the way. I find this system works best when you crush the NLS pellets into fine particles and then feed the worms with the pellet dust. I found that the hard pellets seemed like they were difficult for the worms to injest and had a tendency to be concealed uneaten under the mass of worms to later rot in the water. This actually happened where when I drained the water after feeding I missed a couple of uneaten pellets which then roted in the water and actually fouled the water resulting in some worm die off. Once I discovered the problem, I then removed the uneaten pellets and dead worms and was able to save most of the remaining worms. Remaining worms remain fat and are doing well. Your above point about allowing the worms time to digest makes a lot of sense to me. I allow the worms to typically feast upon the pellet dust for about 4 hours. At the end of this 4 hour period, the water starts to get cloudy from perhaps the uneaten pellet dust but also perhaps as a result of the worms excreting waste from digesting the food I feed. I use the cloudy water as a signal that it is time to end the feeding session and change out the water and replace the worms back in the refrigerator.

 

[Paul B]

All worms are happy, eat nicely on the brown paper, and may even be reproducing (shhh, they do it in the dark when it is totally quiet)

My worms in their ghetto worm keeper are very jealous. :strange:

 

[jlinzmaier]

Made my keeper today. Took 30 minutes and $10 (already had the aqualifter lying around). I used 3 feet of plastic rain gutter and a few buckets I had lying around to create a sump like Paul has described.

The aqualifter seems to provide a nice gentle flow. I'll be putting some PVC rings and other peices of plastic in the trough to keep the worms upstream.

I also came up with an idea that I thought was pretty clever and may help keep the worms out of the sump. At the top of my overflow pipe I put a large circular piece of plastic. The water level just barely raises over that plastic in one small and gentle stream then goes into the sump. The worms would just about have to climb up at exactly the right spot to get into the stream that flows down into the sump. Basically, they just can't climb up the overflow tube to get into the sump. That plastic piece blocks them from using the PVC to climb up and into the overflow.

I've added some Cycle to the water and I'll do 50% water changes for a few weeks before I add any worms. My worms come in tomorrow so I'll be keeping them in the fridge and with half of them I'll try the "warm up and feed" type of routine and see what sort of results I get.

Very curious to see how my fish react to them.

Jeremy

 

[Paul B]

At the top of my overflow pipe I put a large circular piece of plastic.

I forgot to mention that circular piece of plastic over the drain hole, I also have that and you need it or all the worms will end up in the sump. It keeps the water at the proper level as do the small barracades I have along the trough. The worms gather in front of each one where they can easily be sucked out.

 

[jlinzmaier]

I forgot to mention that circular piece of plastic over the drain hole, I also have that and you need it or all the worms will end up in the sump. It keeps the water at the proper level as do the small barracades I have along the trough. The worms gather in front of each one where they can easily be sucked out.

Gosh and I thought I was going to "one up you" with an improved design. I should have known better. At the very least I can say I thought up a good idea even if I now find out it isn't a new concept. LOL!!

Jeremy

 

[snorvich]

Not a new concept, but necessary. Also, the slant from one side to the other should be minimized as the blackworms seem to sense gravity.

 

[get-r-done]

SD Guy

What kind of coral is your avitar? It is gorgeous

Jim

 

[get-r-done]

ops

sorry guys

I will PM SD Guy

 

[jlinzmaier]

Not a new concept, but necessary. Also, the slant from one side to the other should be minimized as the blackworms seem to sense gravity.

Surprisingly setting my rain gutter worm trough on an upside down 5 gal pail leaves it almost perfectly level. There is less than 1/32 of an inch difference in the water level from one end to the other. Don't know how that worked out so well????

Jeremy

 

[snorvich]

Surprisingly setting my rain gutter worm trough on an upside down 5 gal pail leaves it almost perfectly level. There is less than 1/32 of an inch difference in the water level from one end to the other. Don't know how that worked out so well????

Jeremy

Well, you do not want it to be level. You want enough tilt so the water runs from one side to the other so it will clean away the waste. On the other hand, you do not want it to be so tilted that the water runs too fast or all blackworms will be to the lower side.

 

[jlinzmaier]

Well, you do not want it to be level. You want enough tilt so the water runs from one side to the other so it will clean away the waste. On the other hand, you do not want it to be so tilted that the water runs too fast or all blackworms will be to the lower side.

Ok. I see. I'll monkey around with it and see what I can come up with. It still needs to cycle for a week or more so I'll have to wait a bit before I experiment with worms in it.

Thanks!

Jeremy

 

[snorvich]

I used a 1/4 inch elevation and that seems to work well.

 

[jlinzmaier]

I'm truly interested in culturing these blackworms as opposed to just buying a new batch every month.

I've got my "Paul B worm keeper" set up and just tonight I added a few worms to see how they do. I plan to change the water (but not scrub it clean) every week and I also plan to keep a continual supply of paper bag pieces in there to keep them fed.

I'm wondering if paper bag pieces will be enough to keep nourished enough to reproduce. I was thinking about maybe adding some pasta or some other type of food component for them that would keep them nourished enough to proliferate but not decompose quickly and pollute the water too fast.

Any ideas??

Jeremy

 

[snorvich]

I'm truly interested in culturing these blackworms as opposed to just buying a new batch every month.

In my case, with multiple tanks to feed, I use them faster than they reproduce (if in fact they are reproducing). In fact, another pound arrives tomorrow.

I've got my "Paul B worm keeper" set up and just tonight I added a few worms to see how they do. I plan to change the water (but not scrub it clean) every week and I also plan to keep a continual supply of paper bag pieces in there to keep them fed.

I'm wondering if paper bag pieces will be enough to keep nourished enough to reproduce.

Jeremy

They seem to love the brown paper bags and I doubt that any other food would be better.

 

[jlinzmaier]

Thanks for the reply Steve!

Jeremy

 

[snorvich]

You are most welcome Jeremy. By the way you will need a turkey baster to extract them most easily.

 

[Paul B]

I was thinking about maybe adding some pasta

Stick with 1X1" pieces of brown paper, the worms are from California, not Italy :lol:

 

[snorvich]

Stick with 1X1" pieces of brown paper, the worms are from California, not Italy :lol:

Oh, I don't know. I have a lot of diverse backgrounds for my worms. Based on their siesta schedule, they may have come from some warm countries.

 

[sltyncopa]

Nice avaar fisht

Nice avaar fisht

Live blackworms are a great food to invoke a feeding response from hard to feed fish. I have a fish that didnt eat for about 11 days from the day i got him(paracentropyge multifasciata). I tried about 25 different things from frozen, to flake, to pellet to freeze dried everything and he wouldnt even mouth the foods. I figured id give the blackworms a shot because if he didnt eat now he probably wouldnt survive. Well sure enough the second they hit the water ALL of the fish including both of the multibar's tore into the blackworms like they never ate in their lives. Live blackworms bought me time to ween the fish onto other foods. I keep them on a counter in a few plastic cups with an inch of water in each one and change out the water once a day. They usually live about 3 weeks for me at room temperature with no food. +1 for live blackworms

I dont get stumped on fish often(corals all the time!):fun2: Is that a 12 Stripe Butterfly or what? It is so Freakin COOL! Damn another for "MY LIST" :twitch: Also you guys have given me an idea, Why not take something like a Old auto ice tray or tupperware that is shallow that fits in the top of a particular size tank. Then either drill holes in the bottom put screen over the holes to prevent the worms getting thru. Or put a bulkhead with Pvc and screen/drilled holes and a small return pump with bio balls/media in the tank itself for biological filtration. Whadya think? EDIT: We use to use airstones as well for low agitation of the worms..