Gut-loading Grindal/white worms

[Sammy]

My cultures are all doing fine but after reading some threads about gut-loading just prior to feeding my fish, I'm still unclear on a couple points...

Firstly, I find that people want to increase the proteins, color-enhancing properties, etc but I feel that once these items are consumed, would they not be broken down quickly by the worms digestive system and be "altered" (for lack of a better word)? 

Secondly, has anyone tried moistened gel fish food to gut load worms? I use a commercial high grade gel food to feed fish from CPDs to Discus and it has the highest protein available to non-commercial users. If I did use it, would it be better to feed it in its raw form moistened or the prepared, gel form? All anyone mentions is that the food needs to be wet/ moistened. 

Thanks for your time and consideration.  😊

[Guppysnail]

I find gut loading my worms not necessary.  As long as I feed high quality to them always I see no issues. Some folks feed just bread on the regular which is not high nutrient.  In those cases it may be beneficial but otherwise it’s probably so negligible a difference as to not matter.  
 

take small portions of your main culture and put into 2 dishes and try both ways.  I would love to see your testing results.  I personally would not just experiment on my mother cultures and risk crashing them. 

[Sammy]

On 3/15/2024 at 8:46 AM, Guppysnail said:

I find gut loading my worms not necessary.  As long as I feed high quality to them always I see no issues. Some folks feed just bread on the regular which is not high nutrient.  In those cases it may be beneficial but otherwise it’s probably so negligible a difference as to not matter.  
 

take small portions of your main culture and put into 2 dishes and try both ways.  I would love to see your testing results.  I personally would not just experiment on my mother cultures and risk crashing them. 

I'm thinking along the same lines. Unless I harvest them moments after they feed, digestion alters all the compounds (the law of conservation of matter). I still believe in feeding them properly and avoiding unnecessary bacteria. Keeping them healthy and breeding is enough.

... but I'm still going to dedicate 2 cultures and try it for myself. I just can't help myself. Gotta tinker.

[Sammy]

Don't know if it's gut loading or not but the Mazuri Omnivore gel food disappeared faster than any previous food source - gel food chunks the size of the 1/2 dog food pellets were gone in 12 hours in the Grindal worm cultures. Loaded up the same size last night, all gone this morning. The Grindals moved right off the Weetabix/ nutritional yeast flake combo (which they've always loved) and onto the gel food. I'll do a feeding this morning and see if the numbers increase as well. Started 3 new cultures last night on coconut fiber scrub pads (trying to get cleaner feedings as opposedto substrate). 1 with 2 feeding zones - gel food and flakes/crushed cereal sides (because I'm used to the volume the yeast and cereal produce). 1 each with only the yeast/ cereal mix & Omnivore gel food. If the cultures become stable, I'll feed each gutloaded worm to individual tanks of Daisy's Ricefish and see if health and egg production are affected. 

Should be interesting. 

[Sammy]

Well, the separate tank feeding may be difficult to gauge. While showing my son the cultures, I noticed that the sheer volume of Grindals has exploded - the gel food is almost gone while 50% or better of the cereal/ yeast flakes remains. The difference in the numbers of worms is noticeable- many small/baby worms are visible on the gel food. 

As for the Daisy's (and a CPD tankful where the excess goes), the fish don't care either way. They attack the worms voraciously. None reach the bottom of the tank. 

Cost estimate for Grindal worms feeding with Mazuri on three 20gals (36 fish) = $0.0085/day. With that kind of ingredients gut-loading, I wish I could feed the Grindals to the fish every day... high quality, clean & cheap 

[Sammy]

Split the cultures again. Now have 4 Mother cultures, 4 growing cultures and 4 starter cultures. Every tank gets a feed every 3 or 4 days. Keeps the CPDs, Daisy's Ricefish,  Ember Tetras & Kubotai in prime condition. Add 1 light feed of chopped blood worms and everybody is on their spawning grounds in the morning. 

Gel food for Omnivorous fish is the bomb - less mess than bread, yeast and yogurt combos. No mold to clean out with gel food - it's gone before it molds. White worms love it too (but I like to keep up with the fish flakes/ spirulina/ baby cereal combo rotation). That food experiment seems to have just increased their size and numbers. 

 I freeze any gel food leftovers (after 4 days worm feeding) and grate it into my community tanks, they love it.  Corys and Plecos go nuts on anything that gets down to them. Zero waste.

LFS said they have requests for Grindals and white worms... all those unused deli cups are about to come in handy ☺️. Going to supply the gel food mix too.

I dont know if gut loading actually helps the fish but the Grindal worm population is large enough to sell/ trade in under 2 weeks.

Now to finish the egg harvesters and grow out tanks... and start the Paramecium farm

[Sammy]

Cultures are down to 9 Grindal worm & 6 White worm batches. Cut 2 of each in half and add new substrate - no crashes yet. 

Paramecium batch was a wash out. Not sure why. New batches started. 200 baby fish cut into my green water/ infusoria big time. Another big breeding round would likely cost me so I'll wait until they get going again. Wheat berries/ yeast didn't work out as well as seined rice bran and milk drops did before but ya gotta try new things.

On that note, tried a new fish food. VitaComplete. Impressive. Might even grind some up and try it on the little ones.

BTW, egg harvesters are the best thing ever!

[AdamS]

This is great info. I might have to try out grindal worms, I have stayed away from them due to it seemingly like more work than microworms.  But your process doesn’t sounds so bad.

Also, what sort of project do you have going on with egg harvesters?

[Sammy]

I have my CPDs and Emerald Dwarf Rasboras in 5 gallon tanks with nothing but rocks on a bottom matten filter UGF. I hook up a dual sponge filter with cut down soda bottles and 10ct plastic craft mesh glued to the tubes with the sponges taken off(most just pull apart), and add some silicone tubing to increase the distance between the 2 intakes. The air lift tube goes to a exterior breeders box hanging on the tank (also with plants for the eggs to rest on). High oxygen content in the breeder box limits the egg loss to fungus.

Fatten them up for 2 days on Grindal worms,  last evening feed of chopped blood worms and throw some Java moss or fine leaved plants in the bottles over the mesh and go to bed.

Next morning is the start of the rigorous breeding... the eggs are drawn down through the mesh and carried by the water flow into the exterior breeder box where the parents can't eat them.

As soon as I see a dozen babies in the breeder box, I remove the dual sponge 'nests' and the parents back to their home... 3 or 4 days later, there 40 or 50 babies in the beeder box. I feed them infusoria & paramecium (if I've got them), then homemade powdered food and powdered egg yolk, then banana worms/ microworms.

Once they are taking BBS and microworms steadily,  I submerge the breeder box and release them into the 5 gallon to grow out. I have 2 tanks doing this all the time for CPDs alone. 1 month tops in the breeder box then a month in the grow out before I put them in the big tank. I sell 50+ a month to recupe my food costs (worms are super cheap to culture)... and pay my son for feeding the worms and fish while I'm away... or buy more tanks and UGFs 😊 

The emeralds are pre-bought by my LFS.

Any fish that likes to lay or scatter non-sticky eggs could probably be harvested this way. I'm going to try Red Neon blue eye Rainbowfish next with larger in tank egg catchers. 

Lowell's Fish Lab on YouTube, aquariumscience.org and Aquarium Co-Op get all the credit. 

 

Edited May 18 by Sammy

[AdamS]

Do you have any pictures of the egg harvesters?  I’m trying to picture it but am having trouble. 

[Sammy]

On 5/18/2024 at 9:24 PM, AdamS said:

Do you have any pictures of the egg harvesters?  I’m trying to picture it but am having trouble. 

Sydney Aquatics, Blake's Aquarium, etc on YT have great videos on how to build one on the cheap.

I make small ones out of dual sponge air filters for 5 gallon breeding tanks. They come apart easy... silicone tubing and hot glue extend the piping for separation between the hornwort cups with plastic craft mesh bottoms. Air lift tube deposits the eggs in a Marina breeder box. I feed and fatten them up, then plunk them in a 3.5 gallon el-cheapo half-moon betta grow out tank with water from the parents' big tank. In 5 weeks, they join the parents or get put into the bare breeder tank to be sold or traded at 10 or 12 weeks.