# Chopped blackworms



## darkfalz (May 7, 2006)

I gave up my silly notion of trying to culture my tiny amount of blackworms, and decided to chop some up and feed them to my platy fry. They went nuts for them. A piece would be hanging out of ones mouth and another would come and snatch it right out. Plus, unlike the dried bloodworms and tubifex worms I tried, these are soft and mushy and the fry can swallow pretty large pieces no problem.

So now I'm going to get a lot more and feed them daily, it should help them grow faster. They don't particulary seem to favour the Mikropan and other powdered foods I made, and microworms are probably too small for them now although they still eat them.

Anyway, is the bacteria in the blackworm water dangerous to the fish? It's a pretty horrible smell (the bacteria that turns the water cloudy). I rinse the chopped worms before feeding. I am thinking that logically in nature fish eat all sorts of things that will have all kinds of bacterias in their digestive tracts but it can't hurt to ask.

Also I tried some chopped up cooked inner pea the other day, because platys should have some vegetables. They went nuts for that too. So I'll give giving them some of that every few days.


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## Puffer Pita (Jun 16, 2006)

Your blackworms shouldn't smell. If they do, you aren't caring for them properly. They should be rinsed with cold water every 1-2 days at most and kept in the fridge. Mine never get cloudy or smell.


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## darkfalz (May 7, 2006)

The worms don't smell, the water does.


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## Puffer Pita (Jun 16, 2006)

Ok, that's splitting hairs.  The water shouldn't smell either. Are you rinsing and changing the water every day or every other day at the most?


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## darkfalz (May 7, 2006)

I was putting brocolli stalk in there for them to eat, it was most likely the vegetable matter causing most of the bacteria bloom.

How long can they live with nothing to eat in the fridge? I thought if they had vegetable to eat, and it was inside them when I fed to the fry, then it's more nutrition for the fry.


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## Puffer Pita (Jun 16, 2006)

Broccoli? First I've heard that one. I don't think you can really gut-load blackworms. :lol: Most people I know of throw a very small piece of apple in but change it every other day and do daily water changes. They don't really need to be fed though. Mine live up to two weeks without any food and never get stinky or die. Dunno about longer than that, I usually run out before then but that's the longest I've had them.


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## violet (Mar 17, 2006)

The idea of blackworms is to keep them cold (and in very clean water) so the nutritive value isn't used by them sustaining life without food. I have heard of a few people culturing them but the difference between them eating and increasing in mass and turning into a foul mess is a fine line. I had a problem that could only be traced back to BWs so don't use them anymore. But boy do those fishies love them!


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## darkfalz (May 7, 2006)

Oh they ate the brocolli, believe me.

Two weeks in the fridge isn't very long. I wanted to buy a large amount and feed them to my fry every day. I think with some food and water changes should last longer than that.


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## Puffer Pita (Jun 16, 2006)

Mine didn't die after two weeks, they were all eaten. They usually don't last more than a week. I have a lot of fish that eat them.


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## darkfalz (May 7, 2006)

Mine will just be for the fry, got plenty of other food for the other fish. They might get some one a week for a treat though. But I can't really afford live food all the time especially when I have plenty of food they all like. Just for my little platys to grow up.


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## Puffer Pita (Jun 16, 2006)

Don't feed them the worms exclusively. Platies are omnivores and need a variety of nutrients to grow properly and healthy. You're better off just feeding them crushed flakes with an occasional treat of worms.

BTW, getting them to grow faster is not a good thing. That can actually cause health problems. They should be allowed to grow at a normal, healthy rate.


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## darkfalz (May 7, 2006)

I dunno what a normal rate is. They are now 7 weeks and the biggest about 2cm long. Just seems they are growing slowly and without the big bellies they had before, they don't really eat the prepared food that much. I was only going to give them the chopped worms once a day instead of the microworms, the other 3 or 4 feedings would be dried food. They are also getting tiny bits of cooked pea from now on every few days.


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## Puffer Pita (Jun 16, 2006)

You feed them 4-5 times a day?? I would recommend cutting back to 2-3 times at most. You'll probably find they'll eat better then. It takes several months for them to get to their full size, which is actually pretty fast. It takes us at least 3-4 months for our black lyretail mollies to get to be a good enough size to sell to the LFS and they're not full grown by then. Platies are similar.


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## darkfalz (May 7, 2006)

Yes I feed them many times because they don't eat very much at a time.


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## Puffer Pita (Jun 16, 2006)

Of course they don't eat much, they're babies!  That's like expecting a human baby to eat a box of mac 'n cheese. :lol:


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## dmarcus (Apr 13, 2006)

I had some bad experiences with blackworms as well ive heard due to the hyper salinity of brine shrimp that those are better high protein snacks and lower risk than the worms. If your feeding fry you can find baby brine shrimp that might suit your needs.


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## harif87 (Jun 5, 2006)

Personally i wouldnt use blackworms or tubifex since both are known to carry horrible diseases. The reason for this is because naturally tubifex and black worms live in nasty areas such as sewage holes and places of the like. If the worms are cultured then you shouldnt have much of a problem. Its just the purchased kind that are bad. If you want to reduce the risk of disease transmission put the worms in a tray slightly filled and have cold water run through it.

Also if your smelling a rancid smell its because there i still bad bacteria growing there. You need to wait some time before the smell goes away (which means the bacteria is dead). You shouldnt feed the worms to your fish if they still smell.

Also yes, they will last quite some time in a tray of water filled just enough to cover them.


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## darkfalz (May 7, 2006)

Is there some reason to use "just enough to cover them" over more than that? I got them from a very reputable place (specialist aquarium store, biggest in my city) that feed the same blackworms to their own fish, so I am not worried about their quality.

The blackworms have changed the behaviour of my fry, now they go crazy when I come near and all bunch together in a corner jockeying for position, expecting food.

Thankfully, they now eat the prepared stuff more readily (once I leave the room, that is). Nothing like live food to stimulate the appetite. Contentment is a little fish chewing on a still wriggling piece of worm.  They've grown a lot this week, can't wait for the 8 week mark, time to take pictures. The melanoma spots are appearing on them!


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## Puffer Pita (Jun 16, 2006)

I've never had a problem with my blackworms. As long as you are getting them from a reputable place, there shouldn't be an issue. Most of them are cultivated, not wild-caught, from my understanding. Tubifex is a different story, I would never use those. For the blackworms, just make sure you are rinsing them every day, every other day at the longest, and there shouldn't be a problem with smell.

Brine shrimp should only be given as an occasional treat, unless they are newborn brine shrimp. Older brine shrimp have almost no nutritional value.


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## darkfalz (May 7, 2006)

Boxer have you cultivated them yourself? Any tips? I found what must have been a "baby" worm in the mix, even though they are meant to reproduce mostly by fragmentation. I think I have enough that I could cultivate them if I knew how.


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## Puffer Pita (Jun 16, 2006)

Not on purpose. But let a few get loose in the gravel and you'll soon find an explosion.  Took me over an hour of rinsing to get all of the stupid worms out of the gravel in a 3 gallon tank! But no, my fish go through them too fast for me to cultivate. We go through about a cup full each week.


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