polypterus endlicheri growth rate

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Good to hear ! I haven't seen a bichir yet that doesn't love meal worms ! So did my old oscar and it's good for the oscar as well so no worries their except you'll need more of them lol.

Live insects are safe, it's live feeder fish that you need to worry disease/parasite. The only insect that might carry a risk would be aquatic snails.
 
Just another tip, "gutload" the meal worms for added nutritional benefit, just put them in a dish with some fresh veggies for a while before feeding that way the veggie matter ingested gets to your fish, some veggies are better then others but carrots are a great choice and the carotene will help enhance colors in the fish, especially reds/yellows
 
i bought some meal worms and he is loving it and the oscar is too now my question is what are the possible disease they can get from these so i can spot it in time cause live food is always a risk

The only problem I've seen with mealworms is that their exoskeleton is extremely hard to digest, with reptiles at least. I'd recommend feeding the ones that have recently molted so that they're softer. I dunno if this applies to fish as well but I don't see why not.


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The chitin exoskeleton is not a problem for fish to digest as it's a very normal part of their diet, actually it seems to help several species develop nicer fin's and scales.

I have heard of this with some reptiles, although I've never ha a problem with it myself in 20+ years of keeping them. I've always suspected that other aspects such as improper temperatures , over feeding and substrate impaction probably play a big roll in many supposed cases of impaction from hard shelled insects.
 
i love your advise about feeding the mealworms but i think my wife likes to kill you lol i suggested the idea man didn't she like it
 
My personal preference is meal worms, They are incredibly simple to breed and very easy to gut load. Makes for a very healthy and free food source. Although i am working on addin a vermi compost to grow red worms as well.

To breed meal worms just swing by a pet shop and pick up 100 meal worms , get a plastic bin of any kind, I've used everything from coffee/ice cream tubs up to my current setup which is full dresser with plastic drawers that holds 4 big colonies.Anything works because they cannot climb smooth surfaces in the larval form or the beetle form, and the beetles dont fly so as long as you have smooth sides at least a couple inches tall you'll be fine.

Put 2-3" of oat meal at the bottom of the chosen container a 1/4 slice of potato and your worms, stick it in a warm place, the warmer it is the faster hey go through their life cycle. You can heat the bin of just stick them in warm spots, like on the hot water heater on top of the fridge or in front of a heating vent something like that. Then just wait, depending on the temperature you will have beetles in a few days up to a few weeks, all you have ti do is keep swapping out the potato whenever it dries up. Those beetles lay hundreds of eggs, so just leave the first 100 worms alone and wait for the next generation to grow out, by that point you should be able to harvest them continually.

OT:

Do you feed your bichirs with MW? Do you feed them the adult ones with hard "shell"? Also does MW sink? Also whats with swapping potatoes? You mean changing them once they dry up? Apologies, lots of questions. Nice advise by the way you just gave me another idea :thumbsup:
 
mw sink if you take the one that are fat the skinny ones tend to float i noticed but my bichirs love them really great to so them eat but it is clear that my Erpetoichthys calabaricus are better hunters than my bichir the moment on mw make a movement they instanly attack them
 
OT:

Do you feed your bichirs with MW? Do you feed them the adult ones with hard "shell"? Also does MW sink? Also whats with swapping potatoes? You mean changing them once they dry up? Apologies, lots of questions. Nice advise by the way you just gave me another idea :thumbsup:

I feed the meal worms, leave the beatles alone they lay eggs and keep the cycle going. I Have fed the beatles to cull back in the past , i also fed june bug's when in season but only to larger fish, for younger fish i stick to just the worms.

yes, swapping potato is just as they dry up, and to help avoid mold. Carrot's are a more nutritious option, but i have ample supply of fresh potatoes so thats my personal preference , and just gutload with carrots. I find some float , most sink, eventually they all sink but a few will occasionally stay afloat.

doesn't mean i ain't gonna do it anyway

Ha ha ha, My girlfriend isn't a big fan of it either, but she was much happier then the time i was setting up to breed death head cockroaches! lol , my mistake, should have never used the word cockroach , was a lost cause after that, just one more reason people should stick to latin names !
 
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