Black worms & live Brine shrimp

[Chilli Powder]

Hi all,

I wanted to discuss and find out who feed the live black worms and live brine shrimp to their fish? Also to find out whether you guys worm your fish regularly if you feed live food?

The reason being that I was told that the black worms sold at shops are specificaly harvested for the aquarium industry and do not have the harmful bacteria as they would in the wild. Obviously there will be some sort of bacteria and I was also told that we should be worming our fish at least once every 6 months.

I never fed the back worms to my fish because I thought they were carrying all sorts of bacteria and diseases. But a lot of people do use them as live food. I also assumed that you would only feed them as a 'treat' and even not on a weekly basis as there is a high risk of bloat with foods with high animal protein :

Cheers

[YeW]

Hi Arj -

Firstly bacteria are virtually everywhere and in everything. You're tanks (and mine, and everyone else's teem with the buggers)... they arent all bad (quite the opposite actually).

Blackworms are regarded as a dirty food - they are a different species to your standard tubifex but unless you are breeding the worms yourself (as with all feeders) you cannot be sure they are clean (and I wouldnt recommend feeding them unless you NEED to for some reason (for some species for example)). I guess my reasoning here is that most fish lead healthy lives on a variety of flake/frozen foods. I regularly supplement this in my fish with live daphnia (which are easy to culture) and mosquito larvae (in the warmer months). I use frozen brine shrimp quite a lot when I can be bothered to buy some - but I think that hatching them is a waste of time as microworms are similarly sized, similar in terms of nutrition and about 1 trillion times easier!

Hope this helps -

Dave

ps: havent added those photos to the gallery yet - but I will :D!

[anchar]

Hi Arj,

My sentiment reflects that of YeW's somewhat....always a risk of introducing nasties. I do not feed mossie larvae any more either after reading a similar article about the possible consequences of this action.

merjo

[Aquaman]

Hi Merjo,

Curious what you read about mozzie larvae? I've always considered them fairly "clean"...

Cheers

Richard

[Isachooky]

Does anyone have a link etc to the mosquito larvae article.

I have a ready supply of mossie larvae in rock pools around the local headlands that I collect almost daily and feed on a regularly bases to all my fish=marines, cichlids and rainbows.

I have had until recently had no problems. However one tank of alto’s did fall ill to a stomach problem. There was a red/pink swelling/blister extending from the anal region. I attempted to treat this with panacure=worms and metronidazole=flukes, protozoan, however was unsuccessful and lost the fish.

I’m assuming it was introduced with the wrigglers. What do others think?

I now feed wrigglers only weekly and keep them in salt water until they are needed. I would like to keep feeding mossie larvae for all its positive benefits however its not very positive if its introducing disease.

Will freezing stop/minimise diseases? Probably most but not viruses! Is this correct?

Interested in your input.

Regards Tony

[anchar]

Hi Richard,

I read so many articles and for the life of me I can't remember where I found the negative info about the mossie wrigglers

I do remember that there were two issues though; one was disease and the other was the inclusion of other insect larvae found with the wrigglers. Often there are red, slightly larger larvae found amongst the mossie larvae. They have strong jaws and can cause damage to your fish by "hanging on" and piercing the gastro tract. I will try to find the article but it will be like looking for the proverbial needle I'm afraid. Suffice to say, the info it contained put me off using these insect as a food source.

http://members.optushome.com.au/chelmon/mosquito.htm

There are a couple of pages here that discuss nutritional value etc. of blood worms, brine shrimp and mossies...I will keep searching for the other article.

merjo

[Aquaman]

Thanks Merjo

That overview is enough for me to also stay clear, so no need to search for the article (unless you're just keen to find it for yourself )

Cheers

Richard

[tykita]

hi richard

i have to agree with merjo and back up his idea. i fed larvae to my fish which did include those large red ones.they absolutely loved them but next day i found two of my fish dead.needless to say i don't do it anymore

regards

chris

[Ant]

I have used live black worms and live brineshrimp since i started in the hobby. The only fish that have ended up with anyproblems were my discus which definately need regular wormings anyway. To keep blackworms and brineshrimp clean it is up to the shop to change the water 'daily', if you know they don't do this then i wouldn't buy. I also often see when the worms come in from the supplier and have seen on many occasion some very dirty batches of worms which need to be sent back, shops need to make sure the quality of the worms coming from the supplier is good (ie clean). If the shops and suppliers do there thing right there isn't any problem. I guess the general rule is to ask the shopkeeper wether the worms are 'OK' this week, if they are honest and you are a regular customer they will tell you. Find a relyable supplier and you should be fine.

Anthony