Black Worms?

MuddyWaters

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I recently read an article in Amazonas about how to simply keep a black worm culture using a breeder box. This is very interesting to me because I'd like to have another simple way to feed my fish live food- I currently use flightless fruit flies for one of my tanks, and baby brine shrimp for all, but I stopped keeping the fruit flies myself (I had great success but my wife had a fit when she found the crawling all over the wall and ceiling above the tank- I had WAY too many ) and I don't have enough fish to constantly have live baby brine shrimp, so I feed them when they hatch and freeze the rest in little tubes for later feeding. Good, but not live...

So, the article in this month's Amazonas magazine by Mandy Goan (the article is behind a pay wall, but worth a read if you're interested) shows how to simply keep black worms in a breeder box hung on the side of your tank.

Apparently black worms are very difficult to maintain (or were) and are expensive, but she shows a way that looks pretty easy.

Anyone have experience with black worms? Are they worth the effort?

I've tried daphnia twice but it died on me (I know it's supposed to be super easy). I've tried Grindal worms and they died, and I've tried scuds and they ultimately died too. I know there's one common element in all that- ME, but I'm hoping to find something I can keep alive without a bunch of extra stuff...
 
Put an old bath tub or large shallow pond/ container outside and fill it with water. Add an inch of gravel and some plant fertiliser. Let it go green and then add some black worms. Don't let the water get too hot or freeze and the worms can live there. Change the water regularly and scoop out the black worms when you want them.

Daphnia do well in outdoor ponds during cool weather. Once the temperature warms up (goes above 20C/ 68F) they start to finish their life cycle and produce eggs before dying off. They will live in water that is a few degrees warmer than that but they are a cold water crustacean. Moina is another type of daphnia but do better in warmer water. Their pond should be green soup (full of single celled algae) or have lots of infusoria in it.

Outdoor tubs and containers should have some sort of aeration to make sure the oxygen levels stay high. An airline without an airstone works well for this purpose.

Micro, Grindal and white worms are easy to culture in plastic icecream buckets.

Mozzie larvae are regularly found outdoors in containers with water and plant leaves in.

Weevils and their larvae can be cultured in 40 litre plastic bins with flour or grains in (flour works better).

Ants and ant eggs can be found around the place but it can be painful collecting them.

There's more details about culturing live foods for baby fish at the following link including info on green water and infusoria.
 
I had blackworms colonize the older substrate in my "riverish" 55g tank. I did nothing to encourage that. Most of my fish didn't eat them. I would see heads or tails sticking up from the substrate. I would find them in plant roots when I removed plants to give away. I warned recipients they might be there but got tired of trying to rinse them off. Some liked that possibility, others didn't.
 

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