Bloodworms in my Filter

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K

King_Of_Fools

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Sep 12, 2009
7
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0
So Cal
As the title suggests I have blood worms in my filter media. I.E. the sponge, charcoal, ceramic cubes. I feed my fish blood worms approximately every other day in the frozen cube form. I have been doing this for approximately 2 weeks. Today I cleaned my filter and noticed that some of the uneaten bloodworm made their way into all 3 stages of my filter media and were even hard to wash out with water.

My question is: since these blood worms get into my filter media and do not dislodge themselves. are they hazardous to my fish? since they just sit there in the filter decomposing? What can I do other than put the blood worms in as far from the filter as possible? Anyways your input is appreciated

Tank 29 gallon freshwater
filter aqueon 50 (i think)
 
I put a sponge over my filter intake. It does a good job of keeping larger debris out of the filter.
 
Yes, they will raise ammonia levels if too many decompose at once. As DP suggested, prefilters are good, if you clean them off frequently. A lot of people simply turn off their filtration during feeding time and wait for the dust to settle before turning it back on. Sort of like throwing the baby out with the bathwater, but if you have a scavenger to pick over the bottom, and vacuum weekly, it should be effective.
 
thats pretty bad.Clean out your filter media and all or its gonna be a mess and spike your ammonia level through the roof.
 
thanks for everyones input. I cleaned everything out really well and I am consistent with water changes every 7-10 days. So far I have just made sure to drop the cubes in at the furthest point from the filter and have only seen one worm get sucked up since. so that method seems to work enough for me. I have a lot of bottom feeders however my dwarf gouramis and platys don't let much get past them.
 
Use finer particle filtration in the filter. Don't put a sponge over the intake. You will be cleaning that way more often and it will reduce the flow from the filter if you don't clean it enough.

Having them decompose is not going to be bad for your tank. The BB will consume any potential rise in ammonia which means you will get a rise in nitrates but water changes will help with that.
 
I leave decomposing food in the tank all the time. My p actually seems to like alot of food after its sat in there for a day or so first. I wouldnt think a few bloodworms rotting in your filter will give you an ammonia spike that youll even see.
 
easiest way to avoid that is to turn your filter off for 5 min while your fish eat.
 
Poklei;3505315; said:
i have yet to do any water changes and my fish are doing awesome
Click to expand...

You suggesting worthless, inaccurate information and even worse, someone new could take your advice. Stop it...
 
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