live earthworm or blackworm for hypancistrus pleco?

[plecotac]

should we feed em live worms at all?

Has anyone tried feeding live worms for their carnivore hypancistrus particularly l333?
I found that blackworm (different than earthworm) has 66% protein content. Is this good for breeding food? Or too much?

Thanks very much

[apistomaster]

I have used live Black worms as a food for all my Hypancistrus and Peckoltia.
I like to feed them by placing them in a cereal bowl so fewer escape into the sand. I use a baster to place the live worms in the bowl. I feed the worms at night. The young specimens tend to eat black worms best. I haven't tried earth worms in any form other than my staple food of earth worm sticks. I have and plenty of experience with L333 eating black worms.

[2wheelsx2]

My L066, L129, L340, and L201 all eat blackworms. They love them.

[CounterStriker]

WOW another Aussie melbournian

i use dried freezed black worms

they work a treat and tend to be safer, coz they are dried freeze it kills and bacteria or parasites they live worms may be carrying.

Lee

[andywoolloo]

mine love live Calif blackworms but they kinda freak me out when they escape into the sand.

I tend to do more earthworm sinking sticks from Kens or Aquaticeco.

I might try the cereal bowl like Larry suggests.

[plecotac]

Thanks for the reply. I did feel like they dig blood worm but thought I'd ask around for some negative effects.

Apitomaster, its interesting way to use cereal bowl. How much worms do u put In the bowl?
And hi Lee. Nice to meet you here.

Is there anyway to breed this kind of worm? Save me some money.
Thanks again

[apistomaster]

Apitomaster, its interesting way to use cereal bowl. How much worms do u put In the bowl?
And hi Lee. Nice to meet you here.

How many plecos are you feeding and are there other fish present?
I usually add about a heaping teaspoon full but if all you are feeding plecos you can add a lot of worms.
I don't mind having the escaped worms becoming established in the substrate because they all some eat worm stick particles which sift down into the sand. Of course it is also a waste of worms if too many are escaping. I recycle escaped worms by vacuuming them out of the sand and into a bucket. The worms will ball up shortly and may be fed to the fish again.
I also encourage cherry shrimp colonies to become established in my pleco breeding and grow out tanks because they are helpful in cleaning up the bits of worm sticks missed by larger plecos and always make good fillers to my fish orders. My shrimp colonies all crashed badly during a heat wave last summer and I only had a small number of survivors to rebuild my colonies. I am trying to do that in my L134 breeding tank. I am finally seeing small shrimp to they will eventually come back. I should have harvested half o my shrimp even if only as food for Discus beore they crashed. There were a few weeks when the tank temps were at almost 90*F. Having some living black worms and shrimp in your pleco tanks helps create a more complex ecosystem and that is generally a positive.

[plecotac]

Hi Larry, I have 6 L333 (3 pairs) size 7-11cm (1 big male 11 cm and 1 bigest female 9-10 cm), 2 baby bristlenoses (bout 4 cm) and I do have at least 50 cherry shrimps. As you said the shrimps do a great job cleaning up un eaten food.

So far I have given them frozen blood worm and they do love em though I never see them eat but I put 2 frozen cubes of bloodworm tied on a small flat pebble stone and the pebble stone looks very clean in the morning. First I was worried the worms was scatered around the tank uneaten but there are only 3-5 uneaten worms visible when I vacuum the gravel every water change. (i do every 2nd day)

I think live worm will work better as they don't polute the water if they are un eaten as they re still alive. How long can they stay alive in tank if they get inside gravels? They would still be alive forever wouldnt they?

So with the population in my tank, how much do you think I should put in the bowl? Should I put 2 bowls separately or just 1?

Thanks in advance.

[bronzefry]

I did the blackworm thing for a while. I didn't do the cereal bowl thing. Now I have some tanks with resident blackworms.
Amanda

[2wheelsx2]

You guys using shrimps to do cleanup should really consider Amano (Japonica) shrimp. They're much bigger, eat more algae and are much more efficient scavengers. They cost about the same as Cherry shrimps where I am. The only difference though of course, is that they won't propagate since the larval stage requires brackish water.

[sturiosoma]

I have six different meats I feed my plecos and frozen night crawlers is one of them I collect them after a rain and freeze them you simply take them out of the freezer and chop them up I alternate the meats so they get night crawlers every six weeks.

[2wheelsx2]

I have six different meats I feed my plecos and frozen night crawlers is one of them I collect them after a rain and freeze them you simply take them out of the freezer and chop them up I alternate the meats so they get night crawlers every six weeks.

What are the other meats you feed?

[apistomaster]

[quoteI think live worm will work better as they don't polute the water if they are un eaten as they re still alive. How long can they stay alive in tank if they get inside gravels? They would still be alive forever wouldnt .[/quote]

My escaped worms not only live but reproduce in the sand.
I prefer to feed my plecos at night. They begin feeding most actively at night so the food is fresher if that is when you feed them.

[sturiosoma]

The other meats I feed are freezed bloodworm, freezed dried blackworm, krill, plankton, freeze dried tubifex, and frozen nightcrawlers and I never have a problem with uneaten worms I don't give them a lot just enough for a treat.

[apistomaster]

When it comes to the live black worms, I feed far more than they will eat at once. Plecos forage constantly so I feed them so that is possible. I am of course more careful with the prepared and frozen foods to only give them what they can eat but the earth worm sticks remain edible for enough hours to allow constant grazing yet only feed those twice a day. In my grow out tanks I can feed liberally since I change a lot of water and vacuum the bottom well as needed. I am also usually taking the needs of the shrimp into consideration so there is a bit of extra food added for them. Sometimes when my shrimp populations are at their peak, I will have many hundreds of shrimp present.

[plecotac]

Hi guys...

My cherry shrimps constantly breed and as we speak I have lots of very small tiny shrimps. One of them just spawned. I also have at least 10 of them with eggs in their tummy. The breed like rabbits lol and the tiny shrimps stick themselves on the glass.

I just purchased 50 ml of black worms. I rinsed them first few times then take some with a plastic takeaway food fork and place them in a small bowl with tank water. They quickly cluster up into a ball and I submerged the bowl and I accidently tip the bowl and the worm ball fell on the gravel. I can see they keep on clustering. So maybe we don't need to use a bowl after all as they are clustered in one place. I can see some dead worms (the one that looks greyish clear and floating around in the tank) would the cherry shrimps eat them? Thinking of introducing snails to eat some of the uneaten dead worms. Is this a good idea?

I read some article about blackworm and how the water in their own container can become stink and cloudy very quick. Would they polute the water in anyway if we put them in the tank like that?