Bloodworms in my filter!!!

[cuatro]

Hello. Long time reader first time poster.

Greetings from tropical Mexico!

Today I noticed reduced flow on my filter, and when I wen't to check the cartridge (syntethic felt pouch filled with activated carbon), lots of little elongated 'mudballs' were entwined in the fiber. I poked at one of the mudballs, and out came a bloodworm!

My mollies just jad a wonderfull live-food dinner. I just had to maim the worms by crushing their midd section with a pencil, so that they would not be able to bury, but still be able to twitch.

My water quality seems to be good, crystal clear, no smell, but the filter chamber is full of small pieces of my new 'racoon tail' plant (don't know latin name, but is on the Tropica site). I beleive this pieces decomposed a little, and a midge fly found its way into the chamber, laid a few eggs, and the larvae used this decompossing plant matter to build their little mud houses.

Now a few questions. Are bloodworms indication of something bad? Was I right in feeding them to my mollies? What will happen with the few that managed to bury in the sand (I have no digging fishs)?

After a heavy rinse, I put the cartridge back in the filter, with some worms still entwineed in the fibers. I dont want to completely replace my cartridge with a new one, any ideas on how to transfer some of the bacterial colonys from the old cartridge to a new one?

Thanks a lot!

 

[SirMinion]

Anybloodworms that escape consumption and bury themselves in the substrate, will metamorph into a free-swimming larval stage that the fish will also love to eat.
Any that escape again, will morph into midges, that will leave the tank and come after your blood.

Trust me, this is exactly what happened when we over-fed on bloodworms earlier this summer. Our house became filled with whining little mini-mossies.

 

[Cat]

Anybloodworms that escape consumption and bury themselves in the substrate, will metamorph into a free-swimming larval stage that the fish will also love to eat.
Any that escape again, will morph into midges, that will leave the tank and come after your blood.

Trust me, this is exactly what happened when we over-fed on bloodworms earlier this summer. Our house became filled with whining little mini-mossies.

you have just turned me right of giving my fish bloodworms ,mum will throw the tank out if the house gets full of flying things

 

[cherrybarbbaby]

note to self: do not feed fish bloodworms

Man I have trouble giving freeze dried worms that come in cube!
I would have to leave my house and everything behind if I was over run with worms....no actually that's not true, I think I would have a heart attack and die from fright before I could get out of the house.

 

[cuatro]

Thanks a lot for your comments.

I did some research on bloodworms. They are midge larvae, a kind of midge that does not eat anything in ther adult, flying form. So they will not come after my blood.

They are very close relatives to glass worms, and lots of other green, brown, yellow and multicolored larvae. They are called bloodworms because they are the only in the family with haemoglobin, thus the red color.

People even try hard to breed them as food for fry and grown fishes. They are hard to breed because no artificial form of inducing the adults to swarm and mate has been found. It seems to happen naturally around my home.

I will use an extra 2 gallon tank and corner filter to try and breed some.

And the adults only live for a day or two, and stay close to still or slow moving, vegetable matter rich water. You wont get a house full of flying things, but you will get lots and lots of midge corpes on every horizontal surface. They look like wind blown cigarrette ashes.

I used to grow specialty mushrooms, and one of my main troubles was mycelium midges. Mycelium midge larvae are almost microscopical, very similar to microworm. I had no fish at the time, but I guess if I ever instal my mycofarm again, i'll have lots of live food.

Bloodworms are not tubifex.

I must live in a midge rich area.

Thanks again for your comments.

 

[SirMinion]

a kind of midge that does not eat anything in ther adult, flying form. So they will not come after my blood.

That's good to know!
I've learnt something!

 

[showjyr]

I can't get rid of mine and can't find anyone who knows how.......

 

[smmetz]

well, I'll stick to frozen bloodworm. No way they are gonna come back to life!