Culturing Blackworms

[BettasRFriends]

I went to my LFS to buy some live bloodworms. When the cashier took out a white tub full of black worms from the fridge, I was a bit confused. So here's my questions:

1) Are bloodworms black?

2) How do you culture blood/black worms?

3) What do you feed blood/black worms?

 

[WILDER]

http/www.skepticalaquarist.com/docs/feed...lackworms.shtml

 

[gadazobe]

1) Are bloodworms black?

No they're red - I believe they're the larva from midges - those horrible little black flies that you get in summer. Leave some water out to stagnate and you're bound to get some.

2) blackworm are mosquito larva (I think) someone is bound to come along and correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[Inchworm]

Hi BettasRFriends

Bloodworms, blackworms and tubifex worms are the usual worms fed to aquarium fish. Bloodworms are available live in the UK, but in the US they seem to only be available frozen.

Here we usually get live blackworms, but some lfs carry tubifex too. Blackworms are larger and darker than tubifex which are more red in color. Also, blackworms are longer and generally straighter, while tubifex are more often curled to look almost kinky. Both will tend to group themselves together into balls.

I prefer feeding live to frozen because any leftover frozen bloodworms seem to spoil quickly and have been the cause of bacterial infections in my more sensitive fish, while any live blackworms that remain uneaten will dig into the gravel and live there until the fish find them.

While I have never tried culturing them, I know of one person who has done so successfully, and thanks to the information in the article Wilder posted, I might give it a try.