Live BlackWorms: Best Fish and LPS Food Ever?

[knight2255]

I use both. Grindals are only 1/4" to 1/2" and live a few minutes in saltwater but they stay suspended the whole time. White worms are around 1" but they drop right to the floor....they stay alive for hours though wriggling around. White worms need to be kept in a cooler with a frozen water bottle...I switch it out everyday. Grindals are fine at room temp. If you try breeding the worms it is very important to use high quality potting soil, they are sensitive to high or low ph.

My grindals feed all my fish except for my powder blue tang, he only eats spirulina pellets. I put the white worms in an upside down pvc cap embedded in the sand, basically a feeding bowl, and the only thing that eats them is my copperband and occasionally my yellow tang.

 

[kabe87]

I am able to get grindal yay

 

[SpartaReef]

OK so built this after reading about Paul B and his worm trough...

Questions I have are; what do I do to convince my fish to try them? How do I keep them from falling out of the trough and into the lower tank?

Tried to use a tray to catch them and that failed...

 

[SpartaReef]

Ugh, I forgot to subscribe... Wish it was automatic.

 

[Beenalongtime79]

OK so built this after reading about Paul B and his worm trough...

Questions I have are; what do I do to convince my fish to try them? How do I keep them from falling out of the trough and into the lower tank?

Tried to use a tray to catch them and that failed...

That is way too complicated my friend. I have been breeding my black worms for approximately 6 months now with just a little foam cooler and an air pump and some brown paper as their food substrate. They are doing well. Just do a water change with ro/do water every two weeks and change out brown paper once a month. Suction up as many as you desire with turkey basted once it is time to feed. It will take about 3-4 feedings and then the fish will get the idea that those worms are very tasty!

No need to get all crazy with a trough.

Cheers,
John

 

[Paul B]

The trough just provides more aeration so you can keep more worms and if that is a heater in there, take it out as cooler is better.
I have been keeping worms like this for about 40 years but you can put them in a tank with circulation, I like my way better but there are quite a few ways to do this.

 

[SpartaReef]

It is a heater but its unplugged, I just haven't pulled it out yet... Never turned it on either.

 

[SpartaReef]

BTW I'm already finding baby worms....

 

[Paul B]

BTW I'm already finding baby worms....

The worms re produce by breaking off pieces of themselves and they do it all thew time, but they don't grow fast enough to be self replicating unless you have a load of them.

 

[Beenalongtime79]

Doubtful they will grow without a food source.

 

[Paul B]

They eat the decomposition products from the paper. They probably live on bacteria and rotted organics as they do grow and live forever as long as you feed them paper and keep the water flowing. But they grow very slow.

 

[SpartaReef]

I will be using up the frozen dead ones and ordering more next month, I should be able to get a growing population. I read, I think above, someone said 34 weeks to double population?

 

[Beenalongtime79]

They eat the decomposition products from the paper. They probably live on bacteria and rotted organics as they do grow and live forever as long as you feed them paper and keep the water flowing. But they grow very slow.

Yep, decomposing brown paper and the bacteria it supports feeds the little wrigglers, they love to entangle themselves in bundles of decomposing paper.

They will double their population almost every 4 weeks in the right conditions.

Cheers,
John

 

[SpartaReef]

That's better than 34 weeks

 

[SpartaReef]

Has anyone considered fish eggs? I'm a trout fishermen, and often wonder about uses for the parts that get thrown away...

 

[hobbzz]

Resurrecting this from the dead, hopefully someone who keeps these is still subscribed. How many pounds should you start out with if you were going to culture them and not just keep them in the fridge? How much volume do they take up (what does a pound look like)?

One site lists a half pound as anywhere from 1000-2000 worms. I'm thinking of getting about 1-2 pounds so I can culture them and also start using them right away. Too many? Too little? Thanks.

 

[SDguy]

I have my LFS get me a pound every ~3 weeks. Easy peezy in the fridge with a shallow rectangular Tupperware.

 

[hobbzz]

Thanks Peter.

 

[las]

Bump

 

[hobbzz]

What kind of volume does a pound take up? As in what sized container do you keep them in.

Also specifically to Peter, how many fish and how much are you feeding? A bunch of us in town are going to order some and we're not sure how much to order.