Garden Worms for Food

[parkap]

Hi All,

Was just wandering if apisto's like to eat earth worms at all - just as a treat every now and again?

If so, what kind of cleaning, preparation is usually required? Do you need to put them in water for a little bit so they expel any dirt etc, still in their system? Do you cut them into bite size pieces or just use really small ones?

Thanks,

p.

[jaymes007]

i dont know if apisto's like em, but i know that my larger americans love em.

I dig em up, put them in a bucket of water for approx 5 mins to excrete any dirt/waste, then chuck em in whole.

Because of their large mouths, they have no trouble but you may have to cut em up for your apisto's?

But i know nothing about apisto's feeding requirements, this is only my process.

Cheers

Jaymes

[gingerbeer]

I found dwarfs didn't like them. Also even the smallest worms were too big for them. There tank mates liked them though ( small tetras). Rams liked them though.

I fed my dwarfs good flake, tetra bits (or equivalent like sera discus granules, or the pellet dwarf food I tried once,) and frozen black worms ( frozen as against live for reasons of introduced bugs , less risk with frozen I believe).

Steve

[oakes]

a warning to anyone feeding earthworms to their fish - make sure the soil where you dig up the worms is clean and uncontaminated!

I once lost a tankfull of fish due to a bacterial infection of the gut. I traced the source to the earthworms i was feeding them. I discovered that during wet weather a part of my garden was subject to some seepage from a neighbours septic tank overflow.

Internal infections are very hard to treat effectively, and the whole experience was the worst i have had in my years of fishkeeping. I have never had the courage to risk feeding earthworms again, even though i now live on a different property.

I just want people to know there is a risk involved, however slight. No doubt there are ways to minimise the risks. Perhaps the best way would be to use a worm farm, where you have complete control over what goes into the soil.

Glenn

[parkap]

Thanks everyone. All great advice.

[JLL]

a warning to anyone feeding earthworms to their fish - make sure the soil where you dig up the worms is clean and uncontaminated!

I once lost a tankfull of fish due to a bacterial infection of the gut. I traced the source to the earthworms i was feeding them. I discovered that during wet weather a part of my garden was subject to some seepage from a neighbours septic tank overflow.

Internal infections are very hard to treat effectively, and the whole experience was the worst i have had in my years of fishkeeping. I have never had the courage to risk feeding earthworms again, even though i now live on a different property.

I just want people to know there is a risk involved, however slight. No doubt there are ways to minimise the risks. Perhaps the best way would be to use a worm farm, where you have complete control over what goes into the soil.

Glenn

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The problem is that there are about 10 million to a billion individual bacteria in a single gram of soil. Many cultivated gardens will be on the high end of concentration and a worm farm depends on intense microbial activity and all earthworms are full of bacteria.

The trick is to know what bacteria are present and which are harmful. As 99.9 % of us have no idea then it is a risk (small though it is) that we take whenever we use worms.