garden slugs as fish food?

[corywink]

I've got a lot of slugs in my garden eating my veggies, just wondering if I can feed them to my cory cats? i hear they are high in protein like earthworms

[MatsP]

I haven't tried it (I certainly have enough slugs to try it). I'm a little worried that slugs slimecoat would contain something that either is harmful to the fish or causes pollution of the tank. Other than that, I can't see any reason for it going wrong. Obviously, they would need to be chopped down in size to be suitable for corys.

--
Mats

[sidguppy]

for larger fishes they would be OK I think

i'm going to try to feed baby Achatina's to my snaileating fish, cause these Achatina's sure breed faster than, say, ramshorns or so.

for Corydoras I think it's a bit over the top. too much goo and slime; it'll muck up your tank.
if you like to feed protein to Cory's, dig up earthworms, rinse them -30 minutes in a jar of water will do fine- and chop up.

i haven't yet met the Callichthid wich does NOT like chopped up earthworm.

[Atlantis Child]

Slugs? Eeew! They are slimy buggers. I wouldn't risk it.

Earthworms I've heard are plenty good. They sell fish food containing chopped earthworm flakes now. I considered buying it, but already have an embarassingly large selection of different fish foods.

Next time I try fresh I think I'll need to wash mine more as the one time I offered them to the two cory cats at the time they seemed to feel a bit sick for the next few days.


- Atlantis

[apistomaster]

About the only animal I know of that will eat a slug is the American Garter Snake. If you pick one of these snakes up you will soon see and smell what they do with them. It is enough to make many predators drop them and try to wash off the smell.

[Richard B]

Quite a few native UK fish can be caught using slugs as bait when fishing: Chub, Carp & Tench certainly.

However as a food for captive aquarium fish, i think they would be more trouble than their worth when there are easier to "prepare" alternative self-collected natural foods like earthworms, flies, woodlice etc

[Lesley_B]

I recently learnt that my loaches - yoyos, zebra and polka dot - would tolerate earthworms.

Despite having gone out hunting for them, neither I nor the cat have managed to find one worm since.

I did see a slug today but decided against it.
Some people have mentioned garden snails but they also produce slime so I am happy to leave them to the birds.

The one thing I know to do is to purge the earthworm. Simply keep it unfed in a container for at least 24 hours so that it empties it's bowels.
I do plan to purge then freeze before chopping them up and then to wash off before feeding.
I figure freezing them may be slow but they hopefully will just go slowly to sleep as the temperature drops.

How do you prepare yours?

Regards

Lesley

[Richard B]

I keep earthworms in a seled tub with sphagnum moss in to 'clean' the worms.

When i want to feed them i get my dedicated sharp knife & chopping board & shred them to applicable size for intended species. I know ofsome who liquidise them & freeze as ice cubes.

[grokefish]

Yes put them in a tub full of dry grass, the horrible slimy coating which contains albumen will come off on the grass (it contains loads of fats) and next day, hey presto, clean worms. I hate cutting up worms, I hate seeing any animal in unnecessary pain, yes even worms and slugs and flies.
I use carnivorous plants to clear the house of flies in the summer and luckily my English Bull terrier, bumpy, loves slugs, to her they are scooby snacks, yuck.
I wouldn't risk it though, theres no real point get yourself an English bull Terrier, I have had two now in my life and they both loved the slugs.

A tip on catching worms.

Place a bit of butyl pond liner on any bit of concrete, garden path etc. leave it for a few days and then have a look under it. For some reason they love it under there. The strange thing is once you find them under there you can collect them up and the next day there should be more even though it took a few days for the first ones to get there. They must be following some kind of scent trail.

Matt

[Mike_Noren]

A slug is just a shell-less snail. Fish which eat snails will likely also eat slugs - e.g. I've fed slugs to puffer fish, who accepted them with the same enthusiasm they accepted any snail.

However, my impression is that fairly few fish will really eat any kind of snail. Earth worms, by contrast, are pretty universally accepted. I don't bother cleaning the worms either, the gut content isn't dangerous.

As always when feeding live food you'll need to be sure the slugs/worms have not been exposed to poison (e.g. slug pellets or insecticides), and personally I would avoid feeding my fish earthworms collected from manure.

[Chrysichthys]

Personally, I would avoid collecting earthworms from manure!