Worms as food

I still feed worms every day and all of my fish (except the copperband) are spawning. I am having a white worm problem. I went to Hawaii for a couple of weeks and when I came back I noticed that my white worms no longer eat Cheerios or Matzo's. I am not sure what they eat any more as I have tried clams and peanut butter along with other things. I still have plenty of white worms but now that I can't get them to eat, it is very hard to harvest them from the dirt. A few days ago I removed all the dirt and placed new dirt on the bottom of their container, then I put window screen over that and replaced the old dirt and worms on top. The worms are migrating down to the new dirt and soon I will remove the old dirt. I think the worms are mad at me for going to Hawaii and leaving them home. I will keep trying different types of food and if nothing works, I will dump them and buy a new culture. Maybe after a while they get bored of certain foods. I really like the white worms because they can live forever in fresh water and I throw them in with my blackworms where they all sit around hugging singing Coom bai Ah.
The whiteworms also live a very long time in saltwater and my mandarins hunt them. Blackworms only live for a few seconds in salt water but they do that Macarana dance before they croak and that is a big enticement for fish, expecially fish with rythum.
This picture has absolutely nothing to do with worms but it is my very new Grand Son Teddy. I put it on here because I can. :wavehand:

 
I also feed black worms , buying every couple of weeks from lfs . I'm thinking about starting my own culture , are they pretty simple , do you have culture crashes?
 
I got some from my LFS. Apparetnly they sold them the entire time, but hide them in the back and don't advertise them at all. :confused:

Anyway, it took a little bit for my fish to start eating them, but ultimately, my clown and two Banggai Cardinals started eating them, but my Tang would just spit them out. He refused to eat them.

I was able to keep them alive in the fridge for about 2 weeks without doing anything other than rinsing them with RO/DI once a day. I think they were still alive at the end of the second week, but you could tell they weren't as fat and didn't move around as much so I got rid of them.

Unfortunately, the LFS that sells them isn't so local. It will have to be a treat for the fish, as I can't be making a 2h round trip every other week to buy worms.
 
Paul
I think you need to determine your w. worms ethnicty. Perhaps they are Jewish and that's why you were so successful with matzo crackers. Perhaps they are no longer observant? Maybe there are Italian and pasta will work. As I mentioned my worms are asian, probably Chinese as they didn't take off until I provided rice.

Do you harvest your white worms for each feeding or do you attempt to hold them in refrigerated freshwater for several days? If so, how long can you hold them? I'm flushing more than I feed and was told you couldn't keep them for any length of time out of dirt.
 
I threw a bunch of them in the water a week ago and they are still hanging out with the blackworms. Now they don't eat any more it is very hard to harvest them. I am not sure if they are Jewish, Irish, or Nepalanese. One day they just stopped eating what they used to swarm all over. I may have to offer them some wine with their food, perhaps a nice merlot. I am sure I will figure it out and if now, they will be in my garden where it is about 14 degrees now. That will teach them.
 
Tubifes worms are collected from cattle feeding troughs and drainage ditches, not good for aquarium life. They are lighter in color and thinner than blackworms which are commercially grown in California in ponds for aquarium food.
 
Thanks Paul, I'm pretty sure I have black worms. They both look so similar from the pics I've seen of them, I just wanted to be certain.
 
Paul, can I feed these black worms anything to keep them fat longer when they are in the fridge? They last about 2 weeks, but you can definitely tell they get thinner and thinner as time goes on. I end up throwing a ton of them away because after about 2 weeks they just don't look too terribly nutritious.

I took a few out, threw them in a shot glass and put some Selcon in with them. They went insane. I thought they were going to fly right out of the glass. I'm not quite sure if it is toxic to them or a feeding response.
 
They don't eat or grow in the fridge, thats why I built a worm keeper. They really don't like Selcon or salt which makes them do the Macarana.
 
How many worms do you go through in the two weeks-ish they live for?

I'm trying to figure out how many worms I have to order to be cost effective but still be able to use before they die.
 
I use about an ounce a week and I have about 20 fish. But I also feed other things or I could use an ounce a day easily
 
Paul B said:
I still feed worms every day and all of my fish (except the copperband) are spawning. I am having a white worm problem. I went to Hawaii for a couple of weeks and when I came back I noticed that my white worms no longer eat Cheerios or Matzo's. I am not sure what they eat any more as I have tried clams and peanut butter along with other things. I still have plenty of white worms but now that I can't get them to eat, it is very hard to harvest them from the dirt. A few days ago I removed all the dirt and placed new dirt on the bottom of their container, then I put window screen over that and replaced the old dirt and worms on top. The worms are migrating down to the new dirt and soon I will remove the old dirt. I think the worms are mad at me for going to Hawaii and leaving them home. I will keep trying different types of food and if nothing works, I will dump them and buy a new culture. Maybe after a while they get bored of certain foods. I really like the white worms because they can live forever in fresh water and I throw them in with my blackworms where they all sit around hugging singing Coom bai Ah.
The whiteworms also live a very long time in saltwater and my mandarins hunt them. Blackworms only live for a few seconds in salt water but they do that Macarana dance before they croak and that is a big enticement for fish, expecially fish with rythum.
This picture has absolutely nothing to do with worms but it is my very new Grand Son Teddy. I put it on here because I can. :wavehand:

Click to expand...

Nice shirt!
 
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