Live Foods

[Daniel]

How I take care of blackworms

I order my blackworms from Craig Shaubach at Eastern Aquatics and I have always been happy with the quality of his product.

1.  I try to get the package of worms inside as soon as UPS delivers the blackworms. The longer they sit the more their quality can deteriorate
2.  I open the box at a sink and dump the entire shipment (in my case typically 1 lb.) into a very fine mesh aquarium net.
3. I pour 1 gallon of pre-chilled water over the worms to rinse away any foul water and worm waste.
4.  I put some of the worms in a 100 sq. inch baking dish with just enough chilled water to cover them.
5.  After 36 years of marriage my relationship is strong enough so that my wife lets me store them in the refrigerator.
6. If the refrigerator option is not available, put them in a low sided container with a lot of surface area and place them under a cold dripping faucet in a sink.  
7.  Rinse the worms daily in the net with a gallon of cold water and they will live indefinitely, or at least until your fish eat all of them.

I use both the sink and refrigerator methods because it is never smart to put all your worms in one basket!

[Steph’s Fish and Plants]

This is such a great tip! Its a good thing I have my own "fish fridge", I'll have to give this a try in the future.How often do you feed the blackworms?

[Daniel]

13 minutes ago, Steph’s Fish and Plants said:

This is such a great tip! Its a good thing I have my own "fish fridge", I'll have to give this a try in the future.How often do you feed the blackworms?

Sometimes I give them a piece of zucchini or squash, but honestly I can't really tell if they eat much because the blackworms themselves become fish food in short order. People who do feed them often use algae wafers or fishfood. I've thought about setting up a 10 gallon tank with a couple of sponge filters and stocking it with a 1/4 pound of worms and cultivating the worms. You've got me thinking about that again...

[Bill Smith]

Thanks Daniel, unfortunately, for me, this one fails the wife test.

Live brine: yes.

Live worms: no.

[kkarsten]

I'm with you Bill... I just showed the boss and she said, "Absolutely not!"

Once upon a time... the bottom shelf of my fridge was covered with flats of earthworms, blackworm keepers, and all sorts of other things that are not for human consumption.  

Now there's food in there... for people! 

[JimmyGimbal]

Delicious. Worm casserole haha

[ForestJenn]

We were keeping earthworms in the fridge and the lid must have been loose.  We had earthworms all over the inside of our fridge door.   My husband found me cleaning them up, sighed and walked away.   I never thought to ask him if it was ok to store them in the fridge.  He's used to my foibles.

[Brandy]

I just had to show my guy that the container of daphnia "milkshake" was not for consumption, or throwing out... 🙂 

[BQuick]

19 hours ago, Bill Smith said:

Thanks Daniel, unfortunately, for me, this one fails the wife test.

Live brine: yes.

Live worms: no.

Mine too.

[Flumpweesel]

Reading this makes me worry that buying the brine shrimp eggs is just the start of a slippery (maybe wiggly) slope

[eatyourpeas]

I "will" be asked to move out if I ever were to put blackworms in the refrigerator. So, I use of ACO specimen container hanging from the side of the QT., and ACO nano airpump with an airstone. It benefits from the photoperiod the QT tank plants enjoy, it is kept cool (65F) and easy daily water changes. Occasional feeding of flakes, and a piece of hornwort to protect from ammonia.

On 7/15/2020 at 8:07 AM, Daniel said:

After 36 years of marriage my relationship is strong enough so that my wife lets me store them in the refrigerator.

I have to wait 6 more years????

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

I think I’m going to get some dwarf African frogs and they need worms so I’m thinking of seeding that tank and another 2.5 gallon with black worms and seeing if I can culture them. 

[OnlyGenusCaps]

On 10/9/2021 at 4:51 PM, Beardedbillygoat1975 said:

2.5 gallon with black worms and seeing if I can culture them

I could keep blackworms in the fridge (spouse can't complain too much when they store found dead animals and birds in the deep freeze until they can be donated to the local natural history museum as specimins).  However, I keep blackworms similarly to @eatyourpeas with a few differences.  I keep them in a small Sterilite container with a lid, and a hole drilled into the lid for the airline.  I then use a piece of aquarium sponge I've cut down and stick an airline in there to act as a not particularly great sponge filter.  I also have a shallow gravel  layer on the bottom.  It seems to do the trick and I can keep them for weeks with daily (or near daily, when I am lazy) water changes.  I am fully convinced that if I dedicated a bit more space to it, I would easily propagate them for my own use.  I tend to feed the Bug Bites flakes, because I'm hoping I am essentially gut loading them (plus, nothing else I own with even touch that crap, even the snails!).  If you want the source of my madness here is a YouTube vid I took the idea from.  The man's a genius with this technique! 

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

That’s a great video - I watched him a few months back totally forgot about it think I’ll use some smallish lava rocks instead of gravel but a diy sponge filter seems super doable I’ll post a pic when I’m done!

[eatyourpeas]

On 10/9/2021 at 3:03 PM, OnlyGenusCaps said:

The man's a genius with this technique! 

I also started out from this video. I do the cutting up as he suggests and it works well. My culture does not seem to slow down.

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

@Danieljust placed an order with Eastern Aquatics so I’m excited to get started. @eatyourpeasjust cleaned up my 2.5 g tank I was using for infusoria culture and it’ll be home to 2/3 of the worms. I’ll put the other 1/3 in my cracked flex. 

[OnlyGenusCaps]

On 10/9/2021 at 5:37 PM, eatyourpeas said:

My culture does not seem to slow down.

I think if I had them in something larger than the tiny plastic container where I keep them, and didn't feed them out so often and heavily to my greedy little gobies (which, as noted in another thread, I love to do!), they would be a sustaining colony for me.  I can keep a 1/4 cup of them around for weeks, and I'm fairly confident I'm feeding more than that out by the time it is all said and done, so they must be growing a bit.  Blackworms are by a wide margin the easiest live food I've worked with! 

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

@OnlyGenusCapsI’m really worried about the freeze coming as that’ll be the end of my mosquito larvae supply. That’s why this blackworm culture is really exciting. 

[OnlyGenusCaps]

On 10/9/2021 at 9:46 PM, Beardedbillygoat1975 said:

freeze coming as that’ll be the end of my mosquito larvae supply

I'm listening.  I'm listening.  I live where the mosquito is the state bird, but I've not thought about using them as a food resource for my fish.  That's a decent plan!  But, I suspect that blackworms are even easier. 

Although, significant caveat here, not all my fish love them.  My Endler's don't really know what to do with them.  And in a move that utterly shocked me, my Tangs looked them over and rejected them outright!  The blackworms hang out in the sump now in that tank.  The Tangs and the Endler's dig my pods though!  As do the gobies.  Pods just aren't as easy for me to get or breed.  Although, now that I am feeding my pods oak leaves from my yard, they are doing better.  They go through about 4 leaves a week!

I just think it's hard to say which fish are going to like what.  I don't know what you are keeping, but I hope they are into the blackworms.  So easy!  Good luck, and let us know.

[eatyourpeas]

On 10/9/2021 at 8:10 PM, OnlyGenusCaps said:

I live where the mosquito is the state bird, but I've not thought about using them as a food resource for my fish. 

Somehow I think blackworms have to be easier, with the added benefit that they do not come after you at some point!

[OnlyGenusCaps]

 🦟 🦟 🦟

[Daniel]

On 10/9/2021 at 6:57 PM, Beardedbillygoat1975 said:

@Danieljust placed an order with Eastern Aquatics so I’m excited to get started. @eatyourpeasjust cleaned up my 2.5 g tank I was using for infusoria culture and it’ll be home to 2/3 of the worms. I’ll put the other 1/3 in my cracked flex. 

I hope you (and your fish) like the blackworms. Mosquito larva and blackworms are the my fishes favorites.

[Leo Schordje]

On 10/9/2021 at 10:10 PM, OnlyGenusCaps said:

I'm listening.  I'm listening.  I live where the mosquito is the state bird, but I've not thought about using them as a food resource for my fish.  That's a decent plan!  But, I suspect that blackworms are even easier. 

Although, significant caveat here, not all my fish love them.  My Endler's don't really know what to do with them.  And in a move that utterly shocked me, my Tangs looked them over and rejected them outright!  The blackworms hang out in the sump now in that tank.  The Tangs and the Endler's dig my pods though!  As do the gobies.  Pods just aren't as easy for me to get or breed.  Although, now that I am feeding my pods oak leaves from my yard, they are doing better.  They go through about 4 leaves a week!

I just think it's hard to say which fish are going to like what.  I don't know what you are keeping, but I hope they are into the blackworms.  So easy!  Good luck, and let us know.

 

i'm new around here. Question, what is this "pods" you are referring to? Is it animal, mineral or vegetable? 

[Streetwise]

My guess would be copepods, smaller invertebrates.

[Odd Duck]

On 10/11/2021 at 4:15 PM, Streetwise said:

My guess would be copepods, smaller invertebrates.

Or amphipods (AKA scuds).

Edit to add: maybe isopods, the terrestrial version of amphipods.

Edited October 11, 2021 by Odd Duck