Anyone try breeding blackworms?

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Pyramid_Party

Pyramid_Party

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Aug 6, 2008
4,916
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68
Monterey, CA
Hi,


About every 2 weeks I buy a tablespoon of live blackworms for my fish. It cost me $1. It's not that bad but I would like to try breeding them since I like breeding things. Anyone have any success?


I have a few tupperware containers I can use. I hear they eat bacteria and yeasts as well as fish food. I also heard they reproduce asexually, and I also hear they reproduce by fragmentation. Any info out there? I would just like to have a small sustaining population so I can feed my fish some every few days nothing really major. Thx
 
that is a good idea. there is only one lfs in my area that carries them. they are about 2.00 a teaspoon but the community tank loves them as well as the ghost shrimp and even by baby tank with tetras. i hope someone has a little info because i would like to do the same.
 
you mean Lumbriculus variegatus some time called black worms or Califonia black worms? it is quite easy, you only need a good place to house them then cut them off an adult worm can have from 150-250 segment. Each segment can reproduce into a new individual when separated from the animal! It will take some time for them to reproduce, try it and see if it work!
I Vietnam, I see them mostly red and I've seen them for sale at about $1 a pound in Saigon!
 
haha lol. i was asking around my LFS's to see if any of the employees knows this too. none of them know so far. my LFS that i go to weekly sells 1 tablespoon for 2bucks. i go thru about 2 portions a week so if theres a way to breed these id like to know. it costs me about 25 dollars a month on fish food and if i could cut this in half it would be nice. :)
 
Motoxer777 said:
holy cow a dollar a pound! i wouldn't breed em if they were that cheap here lol
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with the warm weather all year round in South Vietnam, they reproduce very fast( most likely when an individual grow too big, it separated into 150-250 segments and each segment grow into a new worms). Some people go to the river in the early morning to catch them and sell them to fish keepers, them most I've seem is a 20G tank full of worms after they rinse off the mud!
 
The info I have is they are a little tricky to breed. Although they can reproduce sexually, they rarely do. Most reproduction must be made by fragmentation. But that is the tricky part cause these worms can be killed if you try and mutilate them. I read some people gently rub a fork through them or twirl a tool around them to get them to freak out and usually some worms will fragment themselves. Feeding them doesn't seem to have any issues, unless you overfeed.

I also hear breeding can be kinda slow. You won't really get a huge amount of them fast. At most you can probably keep a ok size population that will allow some feeding to your fish. Of course the bigger your set up the more you will have. I am thinking about trying it. Just use a quart size tupperware, put a tiny amount of them in there and feed very small and see what happens. Some people add gravel or even ripped up paper bag as a substrate. Still not decided on it though.


I got about half a tablespoon left in the fridge I am gonna experiment with. So if all else fails I can go get another tablespoon at the LFS.
 
HungDang said:
this is what I found!
http://blackworms-direct.com/blackwormcare.html
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Those people don't tell you how to breed them. They tell you how to store them. Putting them in a fridge only keeps them alive so that you can feed them off to your fish. And if you do not rinse them a lot they will die before you get to feed them all to your fish. The cold slows their metabolism not allowing them to eat or produce much waste and not fouling the water fast.


If anyone wants to keep them alive and breed them they need to be out of the fridge and fed.
 
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