Blood Worms

[greyhound]

I have just given my fish some large blood worm that I have had in the fridge for 3 days. When they were in the tank some of them were not moving and were quite furry and slightly lighter in colour. I have tried to take out the ones that did not look right but is this ok for the fish? we have a community tank that has clown loach in it , platy , red tailed shark and bottom feeders. Some may have eaten a few that got through. Bit worried now!

 

[WILDER]

The worms did you keep them if the freezer of the fridge or just the fridge.
I don't like the sounds of them being furry, i would remove them at once.

As you could cause food poisoning.

 

[greyhound]

Just kept them in the fridge. Removed all the ones i could see that had fur on them. In future would it be better to buy frozen bloodworm or freeze dried ones....or are there other foods other than flakes that i could feed them as a treat. Still quite new to this and any advice you could give would be appreciated. Just hope i haven't done any damage to the fish.

 

[WILDER]

I use frozen bloodworms and had no problems, but i keep them in the freezer, i'm abit worried don't want to panic you but if they had fur on them they sounds off to me.
How are the fish acting have they blown up, do they act any different.

 

[tttnjfttt]

Normal "blood worms" actually aren't worms, it is mesquito larva. I have never seen them move around, so i'm betting you fed something different than blood worms. Because they were fuzzy and not moving, i'm guessing they were moldy. In the future, i'd avoid feeding fish fuzzy looking things.

Regardless of what they were, any possible damage is already done. I would recomend you do a very through gravel vacuming, meaning you remove all tank decorations and then vacume. Also, watch out for signs of illness. Mainly bloating as Wilder suggested, and also for changes in their behavior, such as being inactive, lethargic, and so on.

Good luck!

 

[greyhound]

They all appear to be acting normally but i will keep a close eye on them. The bloodworms that i left in all seemed to be wriggling. The furry ones were motionless. Is there anything i should be doing now as a precaution to them getting sick.

 

[WILDER]

Here is an article just hope they didn't eat the furry ones as it could of caused food poisoning.
http/www.gsas.org/Articles/1997/tubifex.html

 

[juliehainsworth]

Bloodworms do normally move around they tend to live in stagnant pond water as they are part of the mosquito family as previously stated! I normally buy live blood worms from my LFS but in summer I collect them from the bottom of my pond along with mosquito larva and daphnia! I've never had any problems with my fish from feeding them to them!

When you say furry were they furry all over or at the top where it may look like some kind of head cos if it was like that then it could just have been the pupa stage of the worm as the part where the fly emerges gets a feathery bit! Or it always did in my experience!


Oooh got a question of my own SORRY but has anyone ever fed rat tailed maggots to they're fish? I know they're hoverfly larve but I've never fed them to my fish but would be interested to know if they would be ok to feed when in the summer?