aquatic worms

[HarleyK]

Howdy,

I was wondering how to introduce aquatic worms into my tank. There was a post a couple of months ago from a guy who had them and wanted to get rid of them. Must have been an overfeeding accident, they settled in his gravel. That's exactly what I want. I wished I could find his post. I think worms would be great in two ways:
1) biodiversity
2) depot food for my corys and frogs

What disadvantages do you guys see, and to those who have worms: What are they? Tubifex? I certainly don't want any larvae that turn into bugs...

Thanks,

HarleyK

 

[softturtle]

Sounds like a good idea. Biodiversity in freshwater... never really thought about it. I bet they would help in keeping gravel and other unseen places clean. I'd like to see how it works out if you do it.

 

[instain]

This sounds like an interesting idea. What kind of worms are we talking about?

 

[guppy]

I was one who used to keep tubifex in my tank, I had about one 1/2 the tank using a UGF and the tank was well planted and well established, I bought tubifex from a grower I knew which saved a little worry because the wild caught ones often also contain leeches. Everytime I fed with them I would release a pinch or 2 on a strip of gravel that I did not vac, just stir up every now and then, I sometimes would have to add more when the corys and loachs got greedy. The tank contained microworms in the filter, a few planaria among the rocks and plant roots, and scuds in the plant thickets, The water parameters stayed close to prefect. I thought it was pretty cool.

 

[toxicfish]

Howdy,

There was a post a couple of months ago from a guy who had them and wanted to get rid of them. Must have been an overfeeding accident, they settled in his gravel.

It was me, and yes it was an overfeeding accident.

At the time my 30g was a breeding tank for my african peacock trio. I went to the lfs and asked for 1 portion of blood worms, and they gave me a bag with a clump of redish worms in water. Well I feed half of the worms to the trio, and was more than enough for them to eat but they ate them all and ended up with some nice fat bellys. Well then I feed the rest to my oscar and lsn that I had at the time (100g) but most of the worms ended up going in to the gravel.

About 2 months later the bottom of my tank ended up looking like a grass bed of worms. So I ended up sucking most of them out to try to get rid of them, but they kept on multiplying. I sucked them out again and removed most of the gravel,( abt 3" and left 1") and added three clown loaches and they loved em so much that thier all gone. Well i still find a few but now thier is a 5" TSN in that 100g tank and he takes care of em.


p.s. next time im at the lfs i will find out exactly what they are.

 

[toxicfish]

guppy.....I am betting that they were tubifax that I bought huh?

 

[thefishofdoom]

the worms u guys what to live in your tank/or get out where tubifex worms or black worms both those stay as worm and dont transform into flying incects like blood worms do so next time ask for black worms or tubifex

 

[guppy]

Yep tubifex was most likely, a lot of places don't carry themany more, instead they carry black worms as more places farm them. Bloob worms and ice worms are midge larvae.