Collecting Your Own Bloodworm

[AMS]

Its about that Summer time again, which means pesty mosquitos, and free bloodworms! I have collected my own bloodworms last Summer with great success and I plan to do the same this Summer. One question though, is there any health risks involved when handling them? Should I wear gloves or anything?

 

[unspoken930]

Last tme i did that, i got hydra..... buttttt if you want to make sure heres NO hydra, get your own bucket and put it out to collect them, and not go to the pond in your backyard (in my case lol) becuase theres hydra in it.... also when you do the bucket thing, just to make sure theres no hydra, catch the ones you want to feed then let them sit in a container for approx. 15 minutes, then get a brine shrimp net and get them out without disturbing the water much.... it gets the hydra to attach to the side of the container

 

[Phoenixfish]

whoh mossi=blood worm didnt know that *goes to add to the post eariler*

 

[Qays]

Can bloodworms be collected in britain? If so, how?

 

[unspoken930]

Well, do yall have mosquitos?

 

[dgwebster]

urm.... not up this end anyway lol

im pretty dure that up here you have to grow them in controlled conditions.

we do get lots of daphnia though

 

[unspoken930]

Im not sure we have much daphnia here, well atleast in the southern states... you cant even find it at the fish places...

 

[willtang3000]

when i collect live food from my pond or water bucket i always put them in water conditioner mixed with water to kill any germs etc done this for ages now and havnt had any problems

 

[furryrabbit]

i didnt know you could get your own daphnia round these parts. how?? sorry if i hijacked the topic lol

 

[sekhmut0402]

I've had bloodworm breed in containers in my garden before, but there always seems to be one bloodworm to about 100 black mosquito larvae.

 

[unspoken930]

Well, my fish love the black mosquito larvae.... especially the neons, guppys, and harlequin rasboras... the neons are quite funny to watch... they put the larva in their mouth then shake their heads to rip it up, then go back and eat all of the pieces

 

[dgwebster]

i didnt know you could get your own daphnia round these parts. how?? sorry if i hijacked the topic lol

find yourself a still pond (or one of the regular sized puddles we get) and bingo.

 

[kimmers318]

Okay...you all seem to have a handle on the live mosquito larva/bloodworm thing so maybe you could answer a few s for me since I have several fish who would love to have live over frozen! Honestly, I have never paid any attention to the breeding of mosquitos, and have only ever noticed when you see them swimming around, time to dump the water! I have never seen blood colored or black colored, or even longish worm length like what I buy frozen! So if I choose to "venture" into raising some fresh live skeeter larva, what can I expect to see? Maybe some time frames would help too. If I set a bowl of clean water out on Monday....how long approx before I might see something to feed the fish? And how much longer should I let them continue to grow before I say "time to dump" before I end up infesting the neighborhood with skeeters? Lord knows we have plenty of skeeters here!

 

[Synirr]

when i collect live food from my pond or water bucket i always put them in water conditioner mixed with water to kill any germs etc done this for ages now and havnt had any problems

I'm confused, how is that supposed to help? Wouldn't that just be... putting them in fresh dechlorinated water, which would have little to no antiseptic properties? I've heard of making a very strong IAL mix and soaking them in that for a while since IAL is a natural antiseptic, if that's what you're talking about, but otherwise what you're currently doing isn't doing any good.
I don't do anything to mosquito larvae when I collect them, personally, just pop them straight in the tank, and I haven't had a problem with it.

Okay...you all seem to have a handle on the live mosquito larva/bloodworm thing so maybe you could answer a few s for me since I have several fish who would love to have live over frozen! Honestly, I have never paid any attention to the breeding of mosquitos, and have only ever noticed when you see them swimming around, time to dump the water! I have never seen blood colored or black colored, or even longish worm length like what I buy frozen! So if I choose to "venture" into raising some fresh live skeeter larva, what can I expect to see? Maybe some time frames would help too. If I set a bowl of clean water out on Monday....how long approx before I might see something to feed the fish? And how much longer should I let them continue to grow before I say "time to dump" before I end up infesting the neighborhood with skeeters? Lord knows we have plenty of skeeters here!

The fish love the white wiggly ones too, so don't be afraid to feed those! Those are called "glassworms" when you buy them frozen . In my experience the bloodworms tend to hide in the algae at the bottom. Sometimes they even make little semi-rigid tubes out of the algae that they will hide in, so if you look really close and find one of those, if you press on it usually a bloodworm will pop out! When I collect live bloodworm I will pick out worms for my tanks with substrate, then just dump in the rest of the algae mess I've collected into my bare-bottom juvie betta tank for them to pick through and enjoy themselves. The algae sinks to the bottom in a big pile and the bettas gobble up all the worms out of it, then I clean it out at the end of the day when they are finished. They seem to really enjoy it, I guess it's kinda like enrichment for them too.

 

[kimmers318]

Well, my dps won't eat the frozen glassworms....but live they might go for it! Shhhh.....just don't tell the neighbors that I am purposely allowing skeeters to breed!
Approx how long from when you see the wigglers to the point when they become flying pests? I wouldn't want that to happen.