Colonizing black worms

[sushi1980]

I recently purchased some black worms and was feeding them to my corys daily. I keep the black worms in a 10gl tank and I use a turkey baster to transfer the worms to my cory tanks. Each of my cory tanks have about a 1/2 of sand and some of the black worms have burrowed into the sand.
My question: Would I be better off putting in enough black worms into my cory tanks and let them colonize in the sand and let the corys sift thru the sand to eat or should I continue to keep them separate in their own tank and use the turkey baster method?

[bekateen]

Did you mean 1/2 inch depth of sand? IMHO, that's rather shallow for establishing a colony of worms in the sand. Even so, you probably already have some worms living in the sand. Personally, I like to keep my sand (minimum depth 1.5 inches) stocked with live worms to allow my Corys to graze for food at their leisure. But I still add worms to the tank every 2-3 days; I don't try to have a self-sustaining colony in the tank.

Realistically, you won't be able to build up a large enough colony of worms to keep your cats fed. First, you didn't mention how many Corys you have or how big they are. Depending on these factors, your Corys may eat the worms faster than the worms can breed and grow. Second, to grow a colony of worms, you'll have to feed them a lot of food too; the worms, together with their food and waste, will create an additional nitrogen waste load on your aquarium and will foul the water faster than otherwise.

So I would say yes to allowing the worms to populate your sand. I believe that it makes life more realistic and more fun for the Corys. But don't expect to get a giant colony of worms established. It's more challenging that it seems, and the benefits aren't all that great. Good luck.

Cheers, Eric

[DBam]

The environments that most of those black worms are commercially raised in are quite foul. I guess it must work for the worms, but most ornamental fish wouldn't survive in those worm troughs. The live black worms will live in substrate but I found they usually lasted only a few days in there on their own. My guess is because they're in warm water with nothing to eat. Bekateen's suggestion of feeding them every 2-3 days is spot on in my opinion; I never enjoy spending that kind of money on live food and having it waste away.

[bekateen]

DBam, you make a good point about the worms dying. I wasn't even considering that. Whether the worms die or not may depend on their species. The name "black worms" is applied to several different species of annelid worms; some are in the genus Lumbriculus but people also use the name with worms in the genus Tubifex. All are naturally aquatic, so they won't drown, but they may have different temperature tolerances under hypoxic conditions. If your worms die at high temp, then that may be why. In my experience, masses of tubifex left at 60 to 85F in a small volume of water (e.g., a cup) will die quickly. I think the main cause is anoxia accelerated by the temperature; many LFS keep their worms in small water volumes for ease of scooping when sold - but they have to be refrigerated and washed daily or they too will die. But take those same tubifex and dump them in a well oxygenated aquarium at the same higher temperatures and they should live for months in the gravel, feeding on the fish poop and uneaten fish food. I've never used Lumbriculus before, so I don't know how they tolerate the heat. But tubifex should be safe in this regard.

Cheers,
Eric

[dw1305]

Hi all,
I've got a colony of Blackworms (Lumbriculus) in one of my tanks. When I originally set up the tank I mixed a small amount of gravel in with the sand, and over the last ~10 years this gravel has migrated to the top (I have MTS). It has had growing out Hypancistrus for the last ~3 years, and has been at ~27oC, but with lots of flow. It is also quite heavily planted (by any standards).

The same tank has Lumbriculus in the filter as well, (Eheim 2224), they found their way into the canister even though I have a sponge pre-filter on the intake. Even when I've kept Apistogramma in the tank they haven't managed to eliminate the Lumbriculus, although none have survive in the tanks with Corydoras pygmaeus/C. hastatus or with Parosphromenus (possibly "Bintan").

This may be because they don't have patches of gravel on the surface of the sand substrate, or possibly because I didn't add enough initially.

I also have Lumbriculus in Daphnia buckets of rain-water outside, these maintain themselves quite happily with limited feeding with dead leaves.

My original stock was given to me by a very kind member of the UKAPs forum (Gerard "Frothelmet") and I collected some more from our garden pond, after I found that "California Blackworms" are native to Europe, including the UK.

I've given away quite a few starter cultures and I know a couple of people have established them successfully in their tanks.

cheers Darrel

[bekateen]

Hi Darrel,

It's good to know that Lumbriculus is also able to establish itself in an aquarium.

As to colony size and success, I think we're making essentially the same points. From my perspective, the worms will establish a colony in any good sand or gravel substrate, and the worms will reproduce as long as they have some steady food supply, even if it's just a little uneaten fish food and some fish poop. But the size of the colony will be dependent on the volume of their substrate (whether gravel, sand, among plant roots, in filter media, or even in the crevices of drift wood) and on how fast the worms are being harvested by the fish.

My Apistogramma and other open-water fish just pick at the worms which expose themselves outside of their substrate; these fish don't dig down into the sand, so as a result they tend to leave my tubifex colony mostly undisturbed. But my Corys dig voraciously, disrupting the sand and finding worms as much as a 1/2 inch under the surface. And my Corys are little pigs - they will eat every worm they can find. So with a good-sized population of digging catfish it is more difficult to maintain a colony of worms that can breed fast enough to create a food supply sufficient for the fish. This is one of the reasons I favor a deeper sand substrate: it allows the worms to burrow down out of reach of the Corys. The worms don't stay that deep for long, as I imagine that the water chemistry is unfavorable for the worms in the deeper layer; but at least they can momentarily dig down to avoid the Corys, then resurface when the danger has passed.

I don't rely on the worms as the primary source of nutrition for my fish. I depend on them for two things: (1) they represent a modest food reserve that I can fall back on if I have to leave for a day or two and I don't have to worry about feeding the fish while I'm gone; and (2) I think of the live worms as acting more like a dessert for the fish, supplementing routine fish food such as flakes. As such, the worms become a distraction and they give the Corys a chance to do what catfish naturally do. I know that I am imposing my human emotions on them, but I think the Corys are "happier" when they get to do this.

Cheers,
Eric

[sushi1980]

Hi All,
Thanks for the replies. All good information and good reading as well.

One of the questions above was what size tank and how many corys are in the tank. Well, I have a lot of tanks. I have 26 species tanks of corys. Half are 10gl tanks and the rest are a 20 longs and highs. I average about 6 per tank and the larger mature corys are in the 20's. Because of the amount of tanks, Im trying to find an easy and quick way to feed them. I've been using the black worms to condition them for breeding and I go thru a lot of worms. Buying tablespoons full at the LFS can get expensive and a hike for me so I purchased 1 lb of worms which is far more cost effective but keeping that many gets to be a challenge.
From what I've read all over the net, heard from other hobbyist, and my personal experiences is black worms is the way to go when conditioning corys to breed. I've had some limited success feeding frozen black worms and frozen blood worms as well. I haven't tried frozen brine shrimp yet and will give it a shot soon.
With all that said, I'd like to hear from others as to what your feeding your corys to bring them to breed condition and your success and failures. Are black worms the magic potion?

[ichthyogeek]

Hi, here's a link to some people's blackworm setups. I've found that if you throw in a Catappa leaf to the blackworms, it helps keep the smell down (possibly killing the bacteria that make the water cloudy and stinky?), and acts as food for the worms.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showt ... worm+paulb