Question about black worms
- Thread starter tattoochick
- Start date
For now I would keep them eating worms and add frozen shrimp,smelt or tilapia to their diet. Then later try to get them on pellets.
One of my rays is very picky and will only eat worms. Iv tried smelt and tilapia at morning feedings several times and she isn't interested at all. What is the best way to get them to try something different?
after 2 years my retics continue to only eat live blackworms and nightcrawler pieces ( my female does eat the occasional goldfish as well).. the tank gets massivore as well as chunks of fish (everything from smelt, to salmon) California blackworms iir also offer blackworms frozen as well as live as an option... and like said tank-mates depend heavily of the fish themselves.. personally I keep gar and some young catfish w/ mine but also had great success keeping spiney eels to big to eat, imo the biggest thing to be careful of is to not over-load the tank as rays produce heavier then average bio-loads so "stock lightly". I'm lucky enough my lfs orders in blackworms so I buy directly from them opposed to directly from CBW. 1/4lb last my 10" and 8" rays approx. 24-36hours if I don't feed nightcrawlers for a day or 2 prior or up to a week if I feed them nightcrawlers every night. Or they will eat up to 6 nightcrawlers a day ( good sized ones I cut into 1/3's or 1/4's w/ their small mouthes I ere on going with a lot of smaller pieces vs bigger ones. yes I have a dedicated pair of scissors for cutting them...)
Live blackworms imo are great for bulking up new rays/finicky ones since they will live for weeks in a tanks substrate.. I find them in my filters as well fat and sassy. a "Must" have for tiny WC rays.
If you don't mind me asking where in WI are you? we have a lot of lfs that carry blackworms.
Live blackworms imo are great for bulking up new rays/finicky ones since they will live for weeks in a tanks substrate.. I find them in my filters as well fat and sassy. a "Must" have for tiny WC rays.
If you don't mind me asking where in WI are you? we have a lot of lfs that carry blackworms.
In Wisconsin Rapids....we only have one pet store (they didn't know what black worms were) and then theres Petco about a half hour away. We aren't anywhere close to any big cities. Madison is over 4 hrs away, Appleton and Oshkosh are about 2 hours away. I place an order with CBW but I haven't received any notifications that they even received my order. We have been using some designated scissors as well for cutting up worms. The biggest problem rite now is that my orbi is a couple inches bigger than my motoro, and she is much thicker and a very I guess I could say aggressive eater. We have been throwing in a few whole worms to occupy her while we put in bloodworms and cut up red wigglers for him. But she is very quick at eating and even quicker at finding all his food. It worries me cuz he isn't getting much. We are going to see about a divider today and hopefully that helps.
I like to feed my small rays until they are FULL.If your orbi is eating the motoro's food just put in more until the motoro gets it's fill too.
this 100% as well you can't over-feed young fish imo.. just make sure your keeping up with the water changes and your filtration is handleing it as well... if you're doing that here is only good that can come of "over-feeding" younger fish.. may also try feeding a few times a day vs one or 2 big feeds.
Milwaukee and it's suburbs.. also know a place in Appleton that carrys them. pretty sure a few of the Madison lfs carry them.. otherwise if you have a local fish club a lot of time they will do group orders of live blackworms.
We are a pretty small town so im pretty sure there are no fish clubs around here. I received an order from California blackworms today so hopefully that lasts a little while. We have been feeding them 2-3 times a day. My orbi eats 2-4 full panfish worms, bloodworms and any other cutup panfish worms she can find. The little motoro has been eating the bloodworms and cutup panfish worms....what he can get before the otherone finishes them off. The orbi buries herself when she has had her full so then we throw in extra for the little guy. We are going to be ordering 2000 red wigglers on Friday and setting up our own worm bed for them to breed. I continuously try finely chopped tilapia and smelt every morning but neither shows any interest. Im hoping eventually they will accept more of a variety. At what size is the best time to introduce the hikari massivore pellets? Sorry for all the questions....we did a ton of research before purchasing our rays and read up on all the different foods....they just don't want to try anything we have put in there. We will continue to order the blackworms if we need to but it would be nice to eventually not have to as often.
