Blood worms and nutrition

Fishy-Botany

Plecostomus
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Hi MFK,
My fish love frozen blood worms like a cat to catnip, but I'm thinking the blood worms might not be nutritionally complete. My thinking for this is that there are no added vitamins to the San Francisco bay brand frozen blood worms I feed.
What are you're experiences with blood worms and nutrition?

FYI: I do feed Omega One shrimp pellets, algae wafers, and flakes also so my fish still get a balanced diet.
 
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Yoda1

Candiru
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Hi MFK,
My fish love frozen blood worms like a cat to catnip, but I'm thinking the blood worms might not be nutritionally complete. My thinking for this is that there are no added vitamins to the San Francisco bay brand frozen blood worms I feed.
What are you're experiences with blood worms and nutrition?
This is something that confuses me.
I have often read that blood worm is a "candy" type food. Fish love them, but they are mainly roughage with little nutrition.

Yet I often see people use blood worm to condition fish for breeding.
So if they were nutritionally deficient, how would this help?

I also fed my DIscus black worm (a similar type of insect larva?) and the fish did really well on them.
 

convict360

Potamotrygon
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my understanding is that they are a rich food, which is good for breeding conditioning; but you wouldn't want to rely on them 100% of the time for that reason. That's probably a bit vague, somebody will be able to correct me; i'd say you're on the right lines though by offering a varied diet.
 

Oddball

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Nutritional values:

Live bloodworm (midge fly larvae - Chironomidae tetans) contains the following nutrients:
- 6-8% crude protein.
- iron rich (percentage varies with health and feedings of larvae)
However, bloodworms don't contain a wide range of amino acids. So, do not feed as a primary or sole food type.

I've added Vita-Chem aquarium vitamins to live bloodworms prior to feeding them out to boost the nutritional value received by the fish.

Ocean Nutrition frozen bloodworms:

Ingredients: Blood worms, vitamins (ascorbic acid, beta carotene, biotin, hydroxocobalamin [source of vitamin B12], niacin, riboflavin, thiamine HCL), amino acids (methionine [dl-methionine], l-lysine, taurine), and trace elements (calcium chloride, potassium iodide, ferrous sulfate, manganese sulfate, magnesium carbonate, zinc sulphate).

Guaranteed Nutrition Analysis:

Crude Protein (min) 8.3%
Crude Fat (min) 1.2%
Crude Fiber (max) 3.9%
Moisture (max) 81.7%
(Protein as a percentage of dry matter - 45.3%)

You'd be better off feeding chopped earthworms. I've had fish hesitate on eating earthworms. I fixed that by mixing the chopped earthworms with some thawed O.N. bloodworms to get the BW scent on the earthworms.

Earthworm nutritional value:

Crude Protein-62.2%
Crude Fat-17.7%
Calcium-1.72
 

Fishy-Botany

Plecostomus
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Jan 3, 2016
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Nutritional values:

Live bloodworm (midge fly larvae - Chironomidae tetans) contains the following nutrients:
- 6-8% crude protein.
- iron rich (percentage varies with health and feedings of larvae)
However, bloodworms don't contain a wide range of amino acids. So, do not feed as a primary or sole food type.

I've added Vita-Chem aquarium vitamins to live bloodworms prior to feeding them out to boost the nutritional value received by the fish.

Ocean Nutrition frozen bloodworms:

Ingredients: Blood worms, vitamins (ascorbic acid, beta carotene, biotin, hydroxocobalamin [source of vitamin B12], niacin, riboflavin, thiamine HCL), amino acids (methionine [dl-methionine], l-lysine, taurine), and trace elements (calcium chloride, potassium iodide, ferrous sulfate, manganese sulfate, magnesium carbonate, zinc sulphate).

Guaranteed Nutrition Analysis:

Crude Protein (min) 8.3%
Crude Fat (min) 1.2%
Crude Fiber (max) 3.9%
Moisture (max) 81.7%
(Protein as a percentage of dry matter - 45.3%)

You'd be better off feeding chopped earthworms. I've had fish hesitate on eating earthworms. I fixed that by mixing the chopped earthworms with some thawed O.N. bloodworms to get the BW scent on the earthworms.

Earthworm nutritional value:

Crude Protein-62.2%
Crude Fat-17.7%
Calcium-1.72
That's a big help Oddball, and I had plans to incorporate earthworms into their diethe so this info makes me quite happy. Would the vita chem work with liberal earthworms too? Or is it not needed with earthworms?
 

Oddball

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The Vita-Chem is not needed with the earthworms. Also know that earthworms alone does not constitute a complete diet but, would be a decent inclusion in a varied diet.
 

Fishy-Botany

Plecostomus
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Of course, thank you Oddball.
I'll continue to offer the varied diet of pellets, flakes, and wafers. Along with the new earthworm addition.
 
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Pycnotic

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The Vita-Chem is not needed with the earthworms. Also know that earthworms alone does not constitute a complete diet but, would be a decent inclusion in a varied diet.
Not to hijack this thread but would earthworms bought at a fishing store be ok to feed my fish? I've never fed earthworms to my fish
 
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