Earthworm Diet for Polys and others?

[Catnkit]

Hey all, I've been feeding my fish earthworms for a while now, and now that it's summer again I'm back in the practise. I wanted to know how much of my fishes' diets can be made up of earthworms, I've been reading that they are fatty and addicting but I wanted to ask about the topic targetting my specific species. I have ropefish and a bichir in one tank, weather loaches and other community fish in another, baby spiny eels, dwarf aquatic frogs and small community fish in a third, and a lesser siren in a fourth.

All the tanks save the polys can be fed other foods easily, but I wanted to know if I can severely up the worm content for the poly tank and the eel/frog tank. The poly tank are almost exclusely on bloodworm since they don't eat pellet foods and I rarely have fish or shrimp to cut up for them.

I'd like up feed earthworms more often than bloodworms for them and the frogs/eels if possible. (cost being one benefit, obvious fish preference being a second, and worm giblits being much harder for the guppies in the eel/frog tank to steal being a third).

Also, which are more nutritional? Frozen bloodworms or fresh but cut up earthworms?

Sorry I'm so all over the place!

Cat

 

[tatsuya11]

I find it hard to believe that earthworms are fatty..
I think earthworms are the ultimate insect feeder you can get..
They dont have down sides, except that they're quite hard to find here and Its hard for me to maintain a worm bin..
hth..

 

[JamesF]

I'd say the earthworms are going to be better, especially when you have larger bichirs, but you need more variety and you should really get your bichirs onto pellets. I've yet to keep a poly that couldn't be trained onto pellets in very short time, and all of mine are wild caught. For fish and shrimp, just get a bag of frozen shrimp or tilapia. Remove what you need to feed, thaw and cut up. It's cheap, easy, and nutritional.

 

[Catnkit]

Thanks for the replies guys!

To James - I've tried to get my poly tank onto pellets before, and whereas my bichir probably eats them, the ropes refuse. (some have tasted pellets before but promptly hack them back up).

Thanks about the big bag of stuff idea, I think I'll do that next time I see fish/shrimp/etc on sale.

Cat

 

[JamesF]

What kind of pellets have you tried Catnkit? My ropes go nuts for New Life Spectrum, as do all my polys. They usually get pellets 4 or 5 days of the week, with flesh supplementing that on the other days.

 

[Catnkit]

A bunch of different Nutrafin kinds and a Wedley(?) shrimp pellets kind. I'll see if I can get that spectrum kind, I'd love to get them onto pellets if I can... How did you introduce it to yours?

Cat

 

[JamesF]

I just throw it in the tank and they eat it from day one. Occasionally one takes a bit, so I'll stuff them with shrimp or tilapia then give them a few days and feed the pellets. Works every time.
Nutrafin and Wardleys aren't very good foods. I'm not overly surprised that they wouldn't eat them.