Black worms and fish that hunt them.

[Madscientist]

Ok, so I had a large culture of black worms that I was keeping as a sustainable food substitute for my 55 long The worm colony eventually started to decline, I conducted a bunch of research and made a decision to integrate the remaining into my 55 gallon. And, while I knew they would thrive,  and help out in many ways, none of my fish seem to be interested in them until I harvest from the substrate and introduce them to the water column. Sometimes my guppies are seen picking at them but not really chomping or hunting. And the worms are all located on one side of the tank opposite filtration about 5 inches in frome the sidewall so there aren't TOO many but more than I wanted to maintain and I don't want to feed them the worms regularly...just for general information purposes pH, kh, ammonia nitrates and nitrites are all in suitable conditions.

The inhabitants are; 2 male guppies,  11 Rasbora mix of pork chop and harlequin with (1 being an emerald stowaway I got for free) 4 peppered cory's, 3 Julii cory's, 5 (full grown now) otocinclus, 3 black khuli's, 2 marble hatchets, and 1 whiptail pleco. 

Nearly all of my bottom dwelling/scavenging cats are not really going after them as I'd hoped.

Are there any smaller more aggressive hunting fresh water fish out there that I could add to help with maintaining this, crop, of sorts? Keeping in mind I have 31 little occupant's already?

 

thanks in advance!

[KaitieG]

This is a great question--I have a small number that have reproduced from when I was feeding them to an ADF (he got a new home because he was a pain in the patoot to feed).  The corys in my tank are semi-interested, but the black worms duck down whenever they swim over.  The population doesn't seem to be growing for me, but I'll be interested in what other people have experienced!  Sorry no good answer from me, but interesting question!

[Perry]

In my big tank where I feed the worms I have a course sand substrate and I’ve never seen a fish catch one successfully or even make much of an effort honestly. However, my worm culture is in a 10 gallon tank with a thin layer of gravel. I recently put a bunch of chili rasboras in there for fun … they’re so little I assumed they would leave the worms alone. They LOVE hunting them though and on several occasions I have seen them yank a worm out of the gravel and suck it down (a bit slowly as I think the worm may be bigger than the chili’s belly). 
 

Not sure that’s helpful. I don’t know if I can recommend the chili rasbora as a great worm hunter or if they just have an advantage because of the shallow gravel. I’ve also never actually fed them the worms so it may just be that the fish in the big tank have been spoiled and prefer not to have to work for their worms. 😊

[Colu]

I would think loach would be a good option as they like to dig in the substrate

[Madscientist]

On 6/17/2021 at 7:39 PM, KaitieG said:

This is a great question--I have a small number that have reproduced from when I was feeding them to an ADF (he got a new home because he was a pain in the patoot to feed).  The corys in my tank are semi-interested, but the black worms duck down whenever they swim over.  The population doesn't seem to be growing for me, but I'll be interested in what other people have experienced!  Sorry no good answer from me, but interesting question!

Yea when my 1 guppy picks at them, the worms duck down back into the sediment. I really didn't think that the worms would repopulate to this extent considering how much of a frenzy my fish made whenever I fed them. And I once harvested enough to where is seemed that there had been a population dip, but either there were more than I realized or they recovered. I'm impressed seeing as care information for black worms are shallow water with cardboard for food lol when they are thriving in a fully cycled, regulated, and planted, tank. 

[Madscientist]

On 6/17/2021 at 8:38 PM, Perry said:

In my big tank where I feed the worms I have a course sand substrate and I’ve never seen a fish catch one successfully or even make much of an effort honestly. However, my worm culture is in a 10 gallon tank with a thin layer of gravel. I recently put a bunch of chili rasboras in there for fun … they’re so little I assumed they would leave the worms alone. They LOVE hunting them though and on several occasions I have seen them yank a worm out of the gravel and suck it down (a bit slowly as I think the worm may be bigger than the chili’s belly). 
 

Not sure that’s helpful. I don’t know if I can recommend the chili rasbora as a great worm hunter or if they just have an advantage because of the shallow gravel. I’ve also never actually fed them the worms so it may just be that the fish in the big tank have been spoiled and prefer not to have to work for their worms. 😊

That's interesting and I'm glad you mentioned the shallow layer! I should note that the worms have colonized the side of the tank with a thinner layer of sediment within the tank. Something I didn't consider when I made my initial observations.